UK builders : Part Deux

[Daveanne]

Well folks, part 8 or whatever it is of the RTW trip, this one with some interesting problems too......

Me as P1, (1st Officer Ian) as 1st Officer and John in the jump seat, he was supposed to do the trolley dolly bit but I ended up doing it instead, well it is my house.

So we are starting from Delhi (VIDP) to, originally Dhaka, slight problem though, couldn't find any scenery for Dhaka airport, found some for FS98, loaded it too but all the elevations were wrong, the runway was in the air on its own and the buildings and airfield boundary's all had strange looking grey walls around them?

So if anyone out there knows of a programme that converts FS98 scenery to FS9, point me in the right direction please.

So I decided to go to Chitagong (VGEG) instead, still in Pakistan on the southern coast, on looking at the approach plates there's a warning "Passing ships in the approach area rwy 23 with mast heights up to 150' Birds in vicinity of airport"......the plot thickens.

Moved the 'sim time' to 05:55 hrs to get a nice sunrise after taking off in the dark and heading towards the East.

Weather: 330/8kts Few at 4000ft runway in use 28 Q1009 temp 26 degrees C.

FMC programmed: ALIGA1 (SID), SKA, ALI, LLK, PPT, MONDA, TEBID, RAJ, JSR, DAKID DIR VGEG.

Weather at VGEG: 180/04kts 6000ft scattered, few 12,000ft, temp 28 dew 26....!! damp or what Q1007.

Pushback at 06:08 cleared to hold short at 28 for departure, 1st officer gives us duff info so we end up going around a grassed island twice before we get on the right taxiway......God help us.

Taxi parallel with 28 and we are 2nd in line after another 737, 1st officer directs us into some trees, well nearly, good job I was looking out the window, we do a HMS Troutbridge (left hand down a bit Mr Phillips) and park at the thresh hold for departure.

Clearance given: Approved departure route climb and maintain 6000ft, take off OK with V1: 127 Vr: 137 V2: 147, gear up after positive climb, engage LNav & MCP, speed increasing to 210, flaps up, V NAV up to 250kts on the SID.

Cleared to 15,000, 20,000, 23000 (Own Nav) 29,000, then ATC tells us we are going the wrong way?? actually we aren't, just Rc4 doing its own thing (I have noticed this problem with a few flights it swears blind you are off track and makes you turn tail on your self, then turns you back again), managed to get around that by asking for a direct to: ALI, which it was quite happy to give us.

Further climbs to 34,000 then 35,000 and cruise @0.78M with a tail wind of 72 kts we are travelling over the ground at 499Kts.

We ask ATC if we can go to 37,000ft, because the FMC says that height would be more efficient, ATC OK with that and we climb to 37,000ft.

Everything appeared all right then so we relaxed a bit, I went down to the kitchen to do the trolley dolly bit, Beer for me and 1st Officer, Tea for John, he doesn't drink.

Then, all **** breaks loose..... 1st thing is the ATC over the headphones goes off, I have a look at the headphone unit to see its gone off line, so goes around the front and re-inserts the USB connection, back on but all the sound is through the headsets, not good.

Further fiddling with things manage to get the main sound back onto the speakers, but ATC is also on them as well, we are so far into the flight I didn't want to re-boot everything, OK so we settle down again only to find that the overhead and the ATC answering buttons have also gone dead too.

That system is also on a USB, but I think to my self if I go unplugging and re-inserting things this lot is going to CRASH (PC wise), so we leave it as it is.

Still going along quite nicely and POP, out goes the primary displays......???? Charming?

So now we are down to standby instruments, MCP is still working, we are still in contact with ATC, so should be OK.

We are now in full daylight after a eventful sunrise just off to our left, however ATC starts us down to: 35,000, 24,000, 15,000, 8000, 4000, 2,500 gives us "Radar Service Terminated" and hands us over to Chitagong Tower for final.

Luckily we have already programmed the approach and we allow the FMC to fly us around the transition pattern to join the ILS to 23, full cloud cover this low down and we eventually capture the Centre line and then Glideslope, we start seeing the ground at about 2,000ft and pick up the HIALS and PAPI at about 3 miles out.

ILS approach until 500ft disconnect MCP and Autothrottle for a manual landing, didn't quite get the touch down right, 1st officer remarked "lets fly parallel to the surface shall we", OK smart arse....

Eventually...... we touch down and taxi off at the Pan, no other taxi ways here, its only 9646ft long and one place to park, any way cleared to the ramp (our choice) and we parked up at..... well we were not sure really, just left a bit from the tower, anyway here and safe.

Honestly many, many thanks to 1st Officer, he talked me through the decent and transition phase onto the ILS, I don't think I might have managed it without him, its really difficult when you are only on standby instruments alone......!!!

Well I was out at work till late last night so I haven't had a chance to find out what went wrong with the display's, Overhead, USB's etc. etc, need to go and have a look at them now, probably just one of Mr Gates little quirks, (just to keep us on our toes you know).

A very dear friend of ours, sadly deceased now (Dave Trotter) always used to swear by Apple Mac and always said if FS was on there it wouldn't cough and splutter like it does on MSoft, may be he's got a point. God Bless you Dave.

That's it for now, next week: Chittagong (VGEG) to Bankok (VTBD).... The Far East.

Daveanne

Any more progress on the Concorde trip? How did the world flight weekend go John?

[John Davis]

Hi Dave, was going to reply and say leg 8 ? ... Get on with it Man LOL

The Worldflight USA weekend went well and we flew nearly 14,000 miles over 15 legs I think, on of my pilots managed to shear off one of the throttles which meant we had to miss two legs. Thanmks to Steve Everson and his expert soldering and repair work we wer able to repair it.
The weekend also brought up several niggling problems with the sim which I have been working on to rectify.

At the moment the sim is apart for repairs and upgrades as its a bit quiet on the customer front at the moment.

Sounds like you guys have a great time during your legs, I will be looking for crew for this years worldflight in November if you are interested, that goes for any UK Simbuilders we start 2nd November at 11pm of course you 737 guys will have to fly a real aircraft

Best wishes John

[mpl330]

Hi Guys,

Had a really hectic week and weekend so not had chance to check on the Concorde trip but should be fine for checking it this week. I'll post the details once I know them.

Fun flight Dave!

Cheers
Mike

[John Davis]

.... sigh .... you just can't get the staff

[RalphW]

Count me in.

[ian@737ng.co.uk]

sorry mike i can't remember if i told you i was up for it as well.
can i hold all the money )
cheers ... ian

[mpl330]

Hi All,

So far havent been able to get hold of anyone at Manchester by phone so have emailed them - will let you know the response...

Cheers
Mike

[Daveanne]

Well folks part 9 of the continuing saga, otherwise known as "2 amateurs and a trolley dolly" (by the way the trolley dolly didn't turn up, something about having to fly to Greece (for real) the next day early in the morning, alright for some)?

On the ramp at VGEG Chitagong (no ramp numbers) at 05:36 (FS time) weather: 150 @ 3 knots 3,500 mtrs vis, Few @ 1600 Sct @ 12,000 28 degrees C dew point 25, (bit close and damp) Q1008.

We are travelling to Bangkok today (VTBD), weather there: 320 @ 5kts 9999 vis Few 12000 Bkn 30000 temp 25 with a dew point of 22 Q1010.

FMC programmed at 05:50hrs Journey: No SID at Chitagong, Dir to AVLED, NIVOG, BGO, PUMEK, BENTO, ANNIE, BD257, BD256, BD254, BD112, BD111, the approach through STAR ANNI4A, however after "stepping" through the FMC journey log it has drawn magenta lines all over the place, some originating back to where we came from in the first place......!!

Bugger that thought we, by the way, me as P2, john (Glider Pilot) as P1.

So we delete a load of stuff from the FMC route section until the magenta lines look reasonable, we should be firmly under ATC's control long before we get there anyway.

Nearly fully set up on the FMC, just putting the final details in and "POP" out goes the projector?

It had shown some warnings earlier on that day about the filter needing cleaning or the like, but decided to switch itself off because I hadn't done as it wanted me too........ Bolshie' little bugger, must remember to do what the little bleeder want's next time.

So after changing the filter and increasing the fan to maximum it all comes back onto line, not easy this flying stuff is it?

Finally we get Clearance, as published (difficult without a SID), climb to 6000ft SQ4256, permission to taxi given to 'holding point' on 23, bit difficult if you have to back track on the active, but we do so, given line up and wait.

Brakes off at 07:10 (you can now see how long it took to get the projector back on line), straight forward take off, climb to 6000ft turn left for AVLED, given clearance to 15,000, 23000, 34,000 37,000, then study FMC which tells us that the most economic height is 38,000, so we ask for 38,000 and are granted so we go up another 1000 and settle down in the cruise at 0.78M with a 238/13kts wind at -35 degrees C, bit parky outside...

Fairly uneventful journey flying parallel with the Burma SW coast, over Rangoon and into Thailand, as soon as we cross over to Bangkok ATC they start us down to: 35,000, 27,000, 24,000, 17,000, 11,000, 8,000 then 3000ft, turn us left to make a right hand circuit on to 21L at Bangkok.

Further reduction in height to 2000ft, turn right on 120 degrees and given clearance to intercept the ILS for final.

Progressed down the approach, slowed down, in steps, to 150kts with 30 degrees of flap ready for touchdown, we see the HIALS & PAPI very easily and I enter the height and speed changes into the MCP if we have to do a go-around (already in the FMC).

P1 asks for Auto pilot and Autothrotle off at 500ft for a manual landing, so far, so good...... then the runway starts to drift under the nose and to the left, he corrects (too much) reduces power and stuffs the nose into the threshold of the runway.... "ding ding", "all stop", "tilt", "crash" and or any other similar word's you would like to use, screen goes blank FS9 re-starts, guess where?, that's right back at Chitagong, not good.

Thinks! must remember to turn crash off in settings.

So we go for the magic button and place ourselves at the threshold of 21L at Bangkok and are determined to "Taxi" to a stand if it kills us, apparently if this was real, it would have!

So we taxi to stand 24 at the International Terminal.

Flying time; 1hr 52 mins, time sat in the attic 3hrs 30 min!!!! hey ho, there's always another day, and there will be next week in episode 10 Bangkok (VTBD) to Hong Kong (VHHH).

Have a nice day.

P.S. standard of pilots today, you just can't get the staff !!!

Hope the Thai people can fix the runway in time, and the bloody plane for that matter (suppose we will have re-start the PC to get a new one.............Bye

Dave & whoever's left alive?

[mpl330]

Good news - had a response from Manchester - asking me to ring them...
They are suggesting the 4 plane tour which was looking as though it would be approx £40

I'll try ring them again tomorrow (Tues) and update when I get through.

Cheers
Mike

[magicaldr]

Cheers Mike Let us know if they suggest any dates as I will need to clear any away time with she who must be obeyed. With baby number 3 expected in 7 weeks I am on a short leash at moment.