Boomers balmy bounces

[Boomer]

I finally settled on a ride for the race. A2A's P-47 with Accusim. I chose to fly the paint from the 341'st FW based in Paupau New Guinea. Not one of the "pretty" paints but apropos for the region.

I resolved to not install AP or an ADF to instead fly DR & hands on. For this 1st leg that may not have been a wise decision. Also instead of flying hell bent for leather I am trying to keep my engine running smoothly with the hope of not needing to repair or tune the engine for this whole race.

Like rest of you I had significant lightning, turbulence & cloud cover. On my climb out I was so busy fighting the turbulence & trying to get the engine & plane trimmed out that I didnt realize that I had drifted more North than I wanted to be. Not a majorly off course but I am sure it cost me some minutes.

I got through the worst of the turbulence & above the clouds at 21000ft. I leveled out, cranked up the turbo & the miles started to stream past.

Unfortunately with all the cloud cover I could only catch glimpses of the island so I descended to 12000ft back into the teeth of the turbulence. I still wasnt sure where on the island in relation to the airport I was so I crossed over to the west coast & descended to 2000ft with the throttle open pushing the engine just shy of hard. I was also out of the turbulence so cruising along the coast at 2000ft & 400mph was pretty fun!

I spotted the runway when I was about 5mi out. Slowing the plane down quickly without shock cooling the engine proved harder than I thought. I ended up having to do a zoom climb to bleed speed then got the plane dirty & in landing configuration. It worked well & other than having to make a steeper than normal approach the landing was uneventful.

After landing & passing the baton I was surprised by the rout map. My course corrections along the way certainly seemed allot more extreme than what the map portrays.

I enjoyed the flight & while not quite white knuckle it was certainly sweaty palm as I couldnt let go of the stick because of all the turbulence. While flying I resolved to still make the flight DR but I would add an AP. Now after safely down & able to dry my palms LOL I think I will leave the AP off as well & just hope for smoother air for the next leg.

 

[Boomer]

 

[Boomer]

Leg 3 Maringe to Suavano.

Super pleasant hop! Smooth air & broken clouds. I made a poor judgment call though & doubt this leg will avail itself as one of my better ones in the standings. 1st off I had the bright idea to stay low & sprint for such a short hop. Very quickly this proved to be a bad idea as in only a few miles my engine started to get HOT!
I zoom climbed to 5k & resolved to not waste anymore time climbing & run it at this altitude. In retrospect I would have been better served climbing to at least 10K & open her up as will become apparent shortly.

Even at 5k its still plenty warm & I had to run with all vents WIDE open to keep the engine from overheating. Unfortunatly for my standings in the race Accusim models the extra drag from the cowl flaps & I am sure my speed suffered.

My next error was in poor trip planning, I only took a cursory glance at the map. I am just running up the coast, how hard can that be? I should have flown a direct rout & probably saved myself several minutes. As my wife says, "Honey you're a bright guy but the problem is you're a flicker bulb". I'm pretty sure she is kidding... I think...

Climb out.

Cruise. As you can see all flaps are wide open...

 

[Boomer]

Leg 4 Suavano to Munda.

Another pretty flight. Smooth air & broken clouds. On this leg I decided to get some altitude & here the Jug showed me what a fool I was on the prior leg. Once I got about 8k & opened up the turbo I was climbing at 2k min while traveling FASTER then when I was cruising at 5k on my last leg. In fact for a trip that was twice the distance the time was just a couple mins longer.
I flew this leg a little differently in regards to fuel management as well. I left my main tanks nearly empty & brought a full drop tank to see what impact it would have on the trip speeds.

On arriving at Munda I pulled a Maverick & buzzed the tower at 500mph at about 300ft. Then pulled an Immelman to bleed speed, drop gear & flaps.

Climb out

Completing Immelman

Here I will need one of you learned gentlemen to explain this to me. After dropping the baton I noticed a red box around my trip with the text saying overspeed 0.0. I never overspeed the aircraft. At least I didnt get the FS warning that I did.

The text file says there is an error in the fuel. If I read it right I somehow refueled & yet lost .0010 lbs of fuel?? I assure you I neither added nor removed any fuel. Looking at the time stamp on it I would guess that is about the time I performed my little Maverick stunt. I guess the pressing point is do I need to refly this trip & omit any aerobatics?

 

[robert41]

The error looks like a weather error. Previous flight was not using real weather. The duenna has an issue with this.

 

[PRB]

Robert41 is correct. The leg should be ok. However, it looks like you uploaded the text file for leg 3 (AGGF-AGGV) for both leg 3 and 4.

 

[Boomer]

Here is the correct log file for Leg 4.

The yellow box for weather shows up when I use Active Sky X. It shows green when its default FSX weather. Is that OK?

If you look at the log file & assuming I am reading it right it shows the problem is with the fuel quantity.

Also any idea why Active Sky X would should the weather box as yellow?

 

[Boomer]

Leg 5 Munda to Ballalae

Weather was pretty much the same though not quite as cloudy. Stronger winds aloft though.

I think I finally have my ideal fuel load figured out to allow me to get as much performance from this bird now. The 108 gal drop tank & nothing but a reserve in the plane seems to work well for me.
I gotta say I am really enjoying this race. It has forced me to really look at the Jug & how to fly it as well as I can. While I have plenty of hours in it before this race trying to wring as much performance from it as I can on every hope has taken my knowledge & understand of this bird to a whole new level. I actually love this plane more now then when we started.

 

[Boomer]

 

[PRB]

Here is the correct log file for Leg 4.

The yellow box for weather shows up when I use Active Sky X. It shows green when its default FSX weather. Is that OK?

If you look at the log file & assuming I am reading it right it shows the problem is with the fuel quantity.

Also any idea why Active Sky X would should the weather box as yellow?

Thanks Bob! As to the yellow weather box, mine shows up the same way when I use FSRealWX. I think the duenna is only able to detect the built-in weather settings, and is not "aware of" third party weather programs. Miss Nellie says to proceed with the mission.

 

[salt_air]

Good to have a "Jug" out here in the mix Bob .... Good Luck to ya!


Nice screen shots!

 

[Boomer]

Leg 7 Buka to Malekolon

 

[Boomer]

Leg 8 Malekolon to Tokua

Clean easy hop. Got to see my 1st glimpse of civilization.

 

[Boomer]

Leg 9 Tokua to Jacquinot Bay

Well this flight was kind of a mess from the get go! I should refly it but in addition to my resolution to hand fly & use pilotage I decided every flight was for keeps with the exception of a crash. So far I have been able to avoid the latter ::knock on wood::

Departing Tokua

On my previous hop I made the poor mistake of using my cowl flaps an an impromptu airbreak to slow down more quickly. That proved to be a bad decision because on my climb out I discovered they were stuck open. That had a a negative effect on my top speed.

Jacquinot Bay was overcast & here is where my next problem arose. My time/speed calulation was off by several minutes & on my decent didnt break through the clouds till I was past my airport.

 

[Boomer]

Leg 10 Jacquinot Bay to Gusap

This was probably my favorite leg so far being the longest. I was able to run the Jug up to her max speed at 34000ft & hold it for awhile.

The climb out

Drop tank released. I learned another Jug quirk on this trip. Running at 45lbs of MP for extended periods WILL equal trouble. On the shorter hops it wasnt a problem but after about 30min of flying my intercooler started to get hot even with the flap all the way open & it being -40deg outside. I had to back it down to 40lbs to maintain the engine.

Base to final. I was actually kinda lucky in this. I had a little bit of a tail wind & from the occasional glimpses to the islands through the clouds I could tell it was pushing me north. When I broke through the cloud cover I turned south hoping to spot the the airport. Luck was on my side.

I got the error again saying I added 1 gal of fuel. No idea what could be causing it. According to the time stamp when it happened I was doing anything other than still climbing.

 

[PRB]

Luck is good. I rely on that a lot... Great pics of the big Seven Ton Milk Bottle...!

 

[Boomer]

Leg 11 Gusap to Hayfield

A largely uneventful flight except my engine was running hot. Keeping it running caused me to lose some speed on this hop.

I was treated to a rare sight. The 8th wonder of the world... New Guineas great aqueduct.

Also still getting the intermittent errors on my flight. No clue what could be causing them??

 

[Boomer]

Leg 12.

Its late & I am tired so no narrative

 

[Boomer]

Leg 12.

Its late & I am tired so no narrative

Leg 11 Hayfield to Frans Kaisiepo

Longest leg so far at 443mi. I had hoped to be able to really smoke this leg with a high average speed being able to climb high & stretch the jug out over a distance. Such was not to be the case...

If you recall from one of my earlier posts I intended to try to fly the whole race without doing an overhaul on the engine. I have been true to my word but this was the last leg done so. My poor Thunderbolt is feeling her hours. The engine recap claims the engine in still in good condition but I don't know what criteria they use for "good" as the engine has been running hot & got worse through this leg. Inter-cooler temps I just cant keep under control even at 34000ft. At that altitude in these warm climes its only around -10deg F & my poor inter-cooler is smoking hot running at even 40in MP consequently killing my average speed. She is getting an overhaul before the next leg. I know there is only 3 hops left but worrying this engine is getting irritating.

I sure hope at the conclusion of this race the winning speeds for each leg are posted just to I can gauge how well I performed.

The leg was largely uneventful save fighting engine temps. I pretty much followed the coast & dove for the 1st island I saw. This wasnt as easy as you might image as the cloud cover was significant.

 

[PRB]

... I sure hope at the conclusion of this race the winning speeds for each leg are posted just to I can gauge how well I performed...

They're posted now. If you go to the race page (here), one of the columns is labeled "SPD". This column shows the average ground speed for the race entry, based on uploaded duenna files. This column, like all the others, can be sorted by clicking on the column label. And of you click on the pilot link on the summary page, you can see the details for each leg flown.

At the end of the event, I will publish a summary, with analysis and stuff...

EDIT: You gave me an idea. I will display the ground speed for each leg on each pilot's log page...