Cessna 182RG Dusk Flight off of KOAK

Cessna 182RG Low Light Flight off of KOAK

  The Cessna 182RG in Flightgear is an old model, (as in, from the older versions) and it shows, if only in the cockpit. The interior & cockpit is a bit on the sparse side, but most of the instruments are there, it's flyable and very usable. Be warned that the 182 fixed-gear version has some problems in its FDM. In short, the RG is a better, and actually for me, a joy to fly with.

  To download the RG, you will also need to download the fixed gear version so they would work. It took me quite a while to figure this out...

Some fun buzzing the Golden Gate bridge

High altitude (about 12,000ft) over the Carribeans.

Saab JA-37 Viggen (Flightgear Jet Testing)

I've been a test pilot for the Saaba JA-37 Viggen lately. The plane is made by Anders Lejczak (3D model & textures) and Nikolai V. Chr. (Aerodynamics, animations, sound, effects, HUD, coding), and can be downloaded here. 

Now have to bear in mind this plane is under development, and I probably don't make a good test pilot.

Because:

...I kept crashing it.

Testing is done at KOAK, and embarrassingly, I never really left the airport compound and poked three holes in the area.

So, a little about the plane, for the brave souls who would like to try it out. First off, I wasn't able to control it with a keyboard, I'm sure others have better luck doing so, but the developer did recommend it would be better with a joystick. It requires a long runway, and afterburner takeoffs are recommended.

Being in development there are some minor issues with it, such as afterburner sound stuttering and all, hoping that it would eventually be fixed.

UPDATE : 30th May 2014 - I found the reason why I can't fly it. With a keyboard, the "5" key to reset all controls to center is not there, and because there is also no standard HUD I am not aware the plane controls doesn't reset when I hit "5" on the numeric pad. This explains why the plane is unflyable, as I kept thinking I had reset the controls. (It didn't help that the jet gave impressions that the center key was pressed when I do so mid-turn). Once I found out, and flew with a mouse, the plane was actually completely flyable. I contacted the author of the FDM about this and he said it's been fixed in a new version. I will try it out and blog about it. 


Model :

While the FDM is being sorted out (I'm confident it will be), I will talk about the model. It's a nice model, with nice livery, you have two sets of livery with it, one is the standard gray (I can not remember the names of the liveries!) and the other has a nice camouflage scheme that I quite like. The HUD is standard, showing altitude, attitude indicator and angle of attack, but I can not say how accurate this is to the real jet though, because I hardly know about Saab JA-37 Viggens. The cockpit is a bit sparse at the moment, but all the necessary items for flying are there to use, and with the radar screen(?) in the middle like all jet fighters should have.

Crashing :

I feel I should write about crashing it because I am already an expert. I don't know how others fly it with a keyboard, but I can't, and the jet seemingly won't respond to my key commands. So I just lose control and crash into the ground. The crash not only have an explosion sound effect, it also has the pilot gasping his last breaths. Hmm. Becaue I am an expert at crashing the plane, I came to dread hearing it .  My last few flights, when losing control and about to crash, I just pause and quickly reset it. Didn't want to hear another pilot getting killed :) .

Tired, Confused and a Citation Bravo

So what a night, yesterday.

I was tired from work. And had about 2 hours before sleep to tinker around with some of the planes I downloaded for Flightgear.  One of them is the Cessna Citation Bravo.

At first I tried the Saab JA-37 Viggen. It is a fighter jet that is in development, and honestly, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get it to fly properly (with the keyboard). I will download an update and see if that fixes the problem.

Once that is out of the way, I tried the Cessna Citation Bravo. I think the jet flew rather nicely, very nicely modeled on the outside, and nice cockpit on the inside. Perhaps a combination of fatigue and distractions from reading more about the airplane in the FG wiki, but I wasn't able to land it properly at KSFO, had 2 go arounds. Also, having to chat with the ATC while all this is going on, makes it quite busy.

It wasn't today actually I realized that I should have used the spoilers. And again, the importance of checklists, I suppose..

On the second go around I noticed an F-14 coming up behind me so I aborted the landing and spent the rest of the time just watching what it was trying to do. Sure enough it looks like it was trying to get a shot of me, and at that point I was really tired and just went straight to bed.

Don't fly fatigued :)

What about the Citation Bravo? It's excellent. I feel that it's as good as the Citation X that came with Flightgear, and that it's FDM is slightly on the simpler side (but then again, I've never flown at Citation Bravo). Nicely done, would recommend.

Flightgear Plane Download : 787-8

  I downloaded the 787-8 manually from work and after some difficulty, installed it on my computer at home with a USB drive. Loaded up for a test flight, in its Boeing Dreamliner livery, what a beauty.

  First "test" is to pushback, taxi out into an empty spot, and look through all the cockpit systems, test out the flaps, spoilers, thrust reverse, engine, aileron and rudder. Looks great. Position it on the runway, check flaps, brakes on, throttle up, release brakes, roll down the runway. Awesome. The animations are very nice, the nosewheels turn, on rotation the rear wheels angle upwards.

  Unlike the FG 777, the FG 787 is doesn't jump off the runway with ease, and seems to require a little bit longer runway than the Triple Seven. However, it does get off into the air nicely, and once in the air flies smooth and easy.

  A short round trip in the air and got back in for a landing. I set the autobrakes setting to "2", and lined up nicely with the runway with surprising ease, checked the speed and it's about 140knots. Seemed like my best approache so far, every is right. HOWEVER, upon touch down (a little long, thanks to my flare that kept it in the air for a little bit longer) about a few feet from the runway numbers I activated the thrust reverse, spoilers, added some power, waited for a bit and......

  Wait.... it's not stopping. OK, add more thrust. Brakes. Slowing, but still not stopping.. brake, brake, end of runway is fast approaching... in that panic I activated the parking brakes... but the plane went off the end of the runway.

  So imagine, the 787-8, with the nose poking into scenery just off the runway, and the tail still within airport boundary, slightly nose down position (runway elevation is slightly higher). How embarrassing.

  To save from the situation I thrust reversed out back onto the runway, which must've looked real funny to any bystanders.

  It seems to fly very although obviously I have never flown a 787 IRL (or any aircraft in real life, for that matter), but I'm may have screwed up the approach. Perhaps I let the speed increase during the approach, resulting in my overshoot.

 Comparisons: From what I could see, the 787 has the advanced stuff (such as Electronic Flightbags, Fly-by-Wire, etc.), and a great failure management system but then again I have to get familiar with the plane more to provided a better summary.

Download it here

A lone puffy cloud in the empty cloudless sky...

Lonely

Weight, load and distribution experimentaion (Flightgear Cessna 172)

After the eventful flight

 I experimented with the Cessna 172 KOAK to KHAF empty, then load it up with passengers and cargo, and then back to KOAK. The flight to KHAF was fine, but at KHAF I think I loaded up too much passengers and cargo and on takeoff it was barely flying. Using autopilot when loaded is disastrous, as it flew fine.... until it turned into the wind, then all it wants to do is just stall the aircraft, and I spent something like nearly 2 minutes just hovering in the air at less than 60knots with the stall warning siren blaring mucking with the AP until I finally decided to just get rid of AP and flew it manually. And it didn't fly well with that weight until but I committed to get back to KOAK, taxi back to the apron and shut down and offload the cargo and (green faced) passengers. After that, just watching other flights for a while before I quit FG.

First serious flight I've been experimenting with weight, cargo and load. Now I really the kinds of effect it has on everything.

Going Supersonic CitationX

Supersonic! Mach 1

Simulation freezes when I open Route Manager. Resizing the window fixed it, but this happened.

Ghostplane!

Random images of recent flights around San Francisco in Flightgear

Just some screenshots of random flights past few days. I gotten the hang of the CitationX, but the Seneca seemingly trying to fight me all the time, especially during take off and landing. Interestingly, several times one of the engine didn't startup as expected, I have to choke it or something to get it to startup. So naturally I didn't notice that one failed to start the first time (right engine) and took off with a single engine, resulting in yawing, stalling and going into the drink. Subsequent flights I actually checked to see that both engines start up.

Didn't help there was some wind and turbulance on that day too.

Shiny Cupholders! Important equipment in the Citation X

Approaching KSFO - Speedbrake on

Missed approach - go around, pilot sucks

  

Citation X cockpit, at KSFO

A failed takeoff ended in the drink (Piper PA34-200T Seneca II)

Seems all's well at cruise

...and a failed landing

Dangerous Flights

I have been watching these shows lately. It shows the dangers of ferry-flying and the pilots who do this for a living, some having to fly small planes over the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Fascinating. Sure like most shows there are some dramatization but other than that as an airplane buff it got me hooked on all the peril flying.

Highly recommended.

Rules For Flight

Basic Flying Rules:
1. Try to stay in the middle of the air.
2. Do not go near the edges of it.
3. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.

_______________________________
Rules For Flight

1. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.
2. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.
3. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.
4. It's always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.
5. The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.
6. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.
7. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky.
8. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.
9. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself
10. You know you've landed with the wheels up when it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.
11. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of survival and vice versa.
12. Never let an aircraft take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.
13. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.
14. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.
15. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
16. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.
17. Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them.
18. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.
19. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum (or balsa) going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.
20. Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgment.
21. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.
22. Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.
23. Remember, gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. And it's not subject to appeal.
24. The four most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, runway behind you, fuel back at the airport, and a tenth of a second ago.
25. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are, however, very few old, bold pilots.

Air Traffic Worldwide over 24 Hours!

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