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Post by jazzthom on Mar 22, 2020 18:26:25 GMT
leg 09
this was not easy,...weather was bad, rainy, bad sight, and some really difficult surprises.... first of all startup in the morning alone, as Urs still was a little sleepy.... and I always listen to his forecast, so this day was kind of lonesome rider,....the sight was terribly bad and the only thing what let us survive was the GPS I always have with me , otherwise I would not be secure enough in this unknown land.... After a long flight without view, only rarely between some clouds and across Lake Torrens we arrived at Leigh Creek, just in the same time as two different, but terrible events occured,...As we were in approach to the runway, the tower called us to switch the runway, as a torment and dense cloud came in and visibility was going to zero,...and in the same moment a plane crashed when linig up for take off at the other runway, ....so we could either choose no visibility or a short touch and go at the closed runway in secure distance from the threshold,...you`'ll see what we did,...and of course we informed Urs via radio,.... then after this adventure, we followed the rare landmarks of the Outback Highway and headed south towards Lake Dempsey and Port Augusta,.... in the end we made a reasonable time and were really lucky that short after landing Urs came in without any damage and in good shape,....this time my pics are dense and if you scroll them down you will have an idea how thrilled we were in suspense and tension,... just enjoy and fly safe! Thom!                                                                 
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Post by uhug on Mar 23, 2020 11:31:20 GMT
@luuk
Your navigation skills are great! Cross bearing with radio navigation, stopwatch, scale and pencil.
That's how I learned it back then, but then in the 90s GPS became current .. and I became too lazy!
I could try that again.
Thanks for your reports!
Cheers Urs
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Post by roggeberg22 on Mar 23, 2020 15:30:51 GMT
Thanks Urs. Read my report on leg 08, coming soon, and you will see that this race is a real challenge when sticking to the traditional ways. Although using a DME is not really "the old way". Thoms remark that leg 09 is really difficult makes me wonder if I shoud re-install the GPS500. Part of my motivation to do it the way I do, are "the Rules" of the GAAR: Rule 5: "It is highly recommended, but not mandatory, that aircraft have both a VOR and NDB navigation capability. Additionally, a DME capability would also be useful. Whilst it is intended and highly encouraged that these be the primary instruments of navigation, it is acknowledged that some participants may find the event too challenging. Therefore, the use of GPS, Plan-G, FSNavigator, or other such navigation aids is not precluded". So the GAAR management is challenging us to use only VOR, NDB and DME. Because you and Thom make the most beautifull reports I have ever seen, I decided to talk a little bit more about the navigation side of this rally. While still adding my own screenshots of course.
Kind regards and good health in these strange times, Luuk |
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Post by roggeberg22 on Mar 23, 2020 16:37:06 GMT
Here is my report on leg08, Oodnadatta to Olympic Dam
I planned my trip in a similar way as the previous one. In stead of using the cross references I used DME distances, to VOR LEC in this case. And as extra precaution not to miss YOLD, I added a final stretch at course 166 which would bring me above the field of YOLD to start a normal landing procedure. In good spirits I entered my plane. The only thing I was a little worried about was my touch and go because that is something I hardly ever practise and it is a difficult factor in the time management with the 12 minutes extra time.
Looking to the left and the right to check if all is free before entering runway 13. Turning to course 197 after take-off. The direct way to NDB CPB. It is very empty south of Oodnadatta but the patterns of all these dried out water ways have their own beauty. Descending to Cooper Pedy and its airport. Touch. And go. Nobody warned me there was a fence around the airport. And climbing back to 7000 ft. At 7000 ft there does not appear a DME read-out on my instruments. Why not? Am I out of reach? Should I climb a little higher? Did I select the right frequency? In the mean time I am missing Speedcheck 01. What is happening?I checked the map again and I noticed that the VOR LEC does not include a DME. Mistake number one.
Based on the ATA of my touch and go and the 12 minutes extra time I thought I was ten minutes too early. To get rid of these 10 minutes I decided to fly a holding pattern. Mistake number two: only calculate with real times not with a quick impression.
Without the DME available I was at a loss in relation to the timing and speed. I continued flying course 122 and I tried to use the cross references to measure my progress. Because of the small angle this is not a reliable method.
I was left with nothing else then to wait until NDB AMK came within reach. It seemed to take ages ... why on earth did I fly that holding pattern. The range of NDB AMK is 75 NM and at that moment I had only 30 minutes left to my target time: tha translates into 150 NM GS in a straight line. Which is 12 knots above my target speed and it does not allow for any procedure. I increased my speed to around 180 KIAS and after "some time" made a turn to the south to intercept R-166 of AMK and started the descent "somewhere".
To my total surprise I found the airport while flying at 1400 ft and my timer ended on 129.58. Only 1.76 minutes higher than my target time. Sheer luck. Approaching Olympic Dam for a straight in landing. Everything is under control again even the target time.
Touch down. Safely parked and time to think about the mistakes I made and how to avoid them. And much more aware that the GAAR rally has it's challenges!
Luuk
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Post by shorty on Mar 26, 2020 3:27:30 GMT
It has taken a few days to get my screenshots into Imgur,  Departing Alice for the "Rock". Many people think it is a short drive, me included, it is 100s of km just from the turn off from the Stuart Hwy onto the Lasseter Hwy.    There is not much to see out here, even worse when you are driving. That's the main reason I took my F-27 on this GAAR. I wanted a bit of speed.  Finally the airport and the "Rock" is in sight, like .. how can you not miss it.  WOW  "the Olgas" some 26 km away, another spot worthy of the short trip to check it out. Naturally the name has changed to suit the times, now it's called Kata Tjuta.  I have plenty of time for some sight seeing around the "Rock"  I was lucky enough to have actually climbed "The Rock" many years ago.  OK lets get into position for a good landing.   Excellent, the time was a bit off but it was worth it too fly around.    All shut down and getting a quick service and replenishment. Now off to the BBQ tent with the other lads for a coldie ..... Cheers |
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Post by uhug on Mar 26, 2020 15:41:55 GMT
GAAR 2020 Final Leg #10 from Port Augusta to Adelaide
You might be wondering what these green buckets are all about?
Quite simply, this is an old traditional Austrian / Swiss disinfectant. There's stinky manure in there.
We wash our hands with it and this has the following effect:
1. Nobody will comes closer to you than 2 meters. 2. Nobody wants to shake your hands. 3. We ourselves do not touch our face not to speak of our clothes. Very effective! It smells a bit harsh in the cockpit, but you get used to it!  In the meantime, the plane is ready and we can get started.
 I see The Spartan 7W Executive is also on the way. A very racy and comfortable plane! These aircraft were built in the 1930s and early 1940s. The 7W Executive was popular with affluent buyers worldwide.  It looks like Thom is still a bit busy, but he will follow soon.
 So it's time to say goodbye again!  Wind from the northeast with 8 knots. I decide to take off on runway 33, intersection "B"  There is a lot going on here on the small airfield. The Lockheed 9B Orion is already waiting behind!  One moment please.. last checks.. all well and full throttle!  I am in the air around half past four in the afternoon. It will probably be dark when I arrive in Adelaide!  In a left turn..  .. heading south! Farewell to Port Augusta!  In front of me is the north end of the Spencer Gulf.  To my left is Mt Remarkable National Park. It provides protection for endangered species. It extends from the coastal plains to the foothills of the Flinders chain.  The Spencer Gulf is the western of two large inlets that extend into the south coast of Australia. The gulf is 322 km long and 129 km wide at the mouth.  When I reach the Yorke Peninsula the sun is already quite low..  .. and illuminates my cockpit almost romantically! If only it didn't smell that way!  At the end of this rally I treat myself to a cozy RNAV-Z RWY05 approach!  Big airport and big city feeling - final runway 05  Final checks! Cleared to land runway 05  Done!  IMPRESSIVE! I turn left into the first taxiway, of course towards the marquee!
 Holy Toledo!  Now I need some good advice. All parking spaces are occupied! The Marshaller makes short work of it and guides me to the meadow next door!  Here I am and I stay.. I absolutely need a shower!  At 6 o'clock sharp.. a big bang! The world famous GAAR fireworks start!  Thom, freshly showered, has a surprise ready! He secretly brought his jazz band to Adelaide! Now there is of course no more stopping! GAAR pilots from half the world are here listen to good Jazz and tell their stories. And everyone agrees: It was a great rally! Thanks to Allan and Team! See you next year! |
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Post by jazzthom on Mar 26, 2020 18:02:40 GMT
leg10
final leg of GAAR 2020
it had to come,..the final leg, but it was so rapidly,...in preparing everything, the flights, the flightplans, our two old birds,...it seemed endlessly,...and now it all shall be over soon??? Incredible! So let's enjoy my last pics and scroll them down as always like in a small movie and listen to the music I had in my cockpit when flying to Adelaide...."Frankie and Johnny,...Benny Goodman...reminding me of Urs and Thommy,...lol.... click here and turn on the speakers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij7JV4UgpIgUrs left early and then I had to give way to the other GAAR participants in their oldtimer birds, as you can see,...and after take off it was just a scenic peaceful flight in the fanstastic light of the sinking sun and beyond the small moon.... as always a great firework ended this years rallye and I can tell you one thing....as always: I'll be back!                                                         
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Post by roggeberg22 on Mar 28, 2020 19:33:56 GMT
Here is my report of Leg 09. Thom and Urs are already in Adelaide. I am having a little trouble to keep up with the planning  . To start with the end of the leg, this leg was not good for my average score. I could not find the airport of Port Augusta at the first attempt. It took me an extra 10 minutes to finish the second attempt. Which almost failed as well  , because I thought the runway was just another road in the city of Port Augusta.  I thought I had done a proper flight planning and was well prepared to land at runway 33 of Port Augusta with a NDB which is not in line with the runway and low mountains to the south. Well as indicated above, I was not.
 Cold and dark at 06:30 local time in dreadfull weather, as Thom already told us. And off we go to Leigh Creek. Above the clouds at 7000 ft with a unexpected view on the mountainchain where Mount Deception is located (I think). Half way the cruise descent to Leigh Creek. By far not as much clouds as I expected. Leigh Creek, just after the touch. Flying back over VOR LEC to start the leg to Port Augusta. What a nice weather it has become. A view at Lake Torrens. After a bank of clouds a sudden opening showing the mountains to the right: the Flinder Ranges. The same opening in the clouds, but now looking backwards. Back in the clouds. Port Augusta. Arriving below the clouds with a view at our destination. Almost there, and the timing is very good.
Flying at about 350 ft, having missed the airport. After missing the airport I flew a left turn until flying to the south. After some time I made a turn to the east. Arriving at Spencer Bay for the second time. A sharp right turn. I almost missed runway 33 a second time. On final. I hope the people in this neighbourhood like the sound of aircraft engines. Safely parked. And with a lot to think about.
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Post by roggeberg22 on Mar 29, 2020 14:44:16 GMT
Fellow pilots, here is my report of leg 10, the last leg from Port Augusta to Adelaide. Beautifull weather in the late afternoon. It promises to be a flight without suprises. Turning to course 157 to fly straight to Adelaide. A few moments ago I arrived at cruising altitude. Looking back now to Port Augusta. After crossing Spencer Gulf, a view on Port Pirie. Crossing the Barunga Range close to the city of Snowtown. Further south the Barunga Gap and Hummock Range. The end of the day is announcing itself. In cruise descent with the sun on the horizon. The city of Adelaide and it's airport. On downwind On final at the right speed, on the glide slope. Touchdown Parked. At the end of the GAAR_2020 with it's final destination in Adelaide, I want to commemorate that Adelaide was the home town of the brother Ross and Keith Smith who flew together with their mechanics Jim Bennett and Wally Shiers a century ago the Vickers Vimy G-EAOU from England to Darwin Australia. Their flight was recreated by Bluegrass and WestWind Airlines as the EARC_2019. Having flown both the EARC_2019 and the GAAR_2020 I covered some 11.300 NM from Rotterdam to Adelaide. The longest flight I have made so far in my flight sim carreer. I am looking forward to the next event and meeting you again. Kind regards, Luuk |
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Post by capflyer on Mar 30, 2020 13:53:48 GMT
Well, we finished the rally. Didn't get to see all the sights in Port Augusta, but we made it to Adelaide just in time for the official finish. When we arrived in Olympic Dam, we had planned to use the 24th to do the 10 hour break-in oil and fluid change on the engine since its overhaul. We had all the parts in the plane already, knowing that we were going to put on more than 10 hours during this trip, so that wasn't the problem. What was the problem is that we opened up the cowling we found that some of the baffling was damaged and that we had a couple of chafed wires. Apparently when the overhaul was complete, the guys putting the cowling back on weren't as gentle with it as they probably should have. Because I want to return the plane to its owner in the same condition as I got it, I made the call (and handed over the credit card info) to get baffling and the needed wires sent out via overnight - which actually meant 2 days since we're in the middle of the country. Everything arrived and we got it installed and function checked with no further problems, around noon on 28 March, we launched out of Olympic Dam for the South Coast of Australia. We hoped it would be smooth sailing from here. We were mostly right... Little changes in the desert. This picture was taken a week after the first, and beside me being a few steps further away, it's nearly identical to the one I took when we arrived at Olympic Dam.  So long Olympic Dam!  Up in cruise, my FO got this picture of Woomera and several of the salt lakes in the far distance as we head south.  As we approach Pematty Lagoon, I realize something.  Oh no! We're supposed to be going to Leigh Creek before Port Augusta! I call Melbourne Center (we had filed IFR due to both the location and possible IMC due to clouds and rain nearer to Port Augusta) and we quickly get cleared direct to Leigh Creek.  Now flying in the right direction, we will see a route that none of the other participants see - the middle of Lake Torrens. The planned route had everyone going across the north end of the lake and then following the eastern shore south after making the touch-and-go at Leigh Creek.  I tweaked the power settings to try and get us as much speed as possible, but we'd now turned a tailwind into a direct crosswind so it didn't help much. Soon however, we got our first glimpse at Leigh Creek.  On descent, I got this shot of the Leigh Creek settlement with the few buildings of the aerodrome barely visible  Because we were concerned about lost time, neither of us took any pictures of the touch and go at Leigh Creek. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best. Additionally, due to poor radio communication in the area (and no radar), we were having problems getting hold of Melbourne Center, so there was time being devoted to that as well since we didn't want to trigger a SAR alert because we'd been out of communication for too long. After settling into cruise again and Melbourne Center advised we were again back heading to Port Augusta, we got a few pics of the eastern shore of Lake Torrens, a massive seasonal salt lake that is a National Park. There are several National Parks in this area, however we only saw directly Lake Torrens and the Ikara-Fliners Ranges National Park (the alluvial ranges on our left) on this trip.    Once we started our descent into Port Augusta, I took this picture of the northern reaches of Spencer Gulf and Port Augusta in the distance.  On final for Port Augusta!  One of the locals got this picture as we pulled up to park at the Terminal.  The Official Timer for the Port Augusta leg handed us our time sheet for the leg and I had to do a double take. I forgot to get a picture of it, but as a joke, they had put down our time with 3 days added since we were so late. 992.58 minutes would have been the longest leg ever completed I think for the GAAR. But in reality, we'd made it in 128.58 minutes, a mere 43 minutes slower than par. |
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Post by capflyer on Mar 30, 2020 14:05:45 GMT
After a few hours break to chat with some of our fellow Rally participants and make sure we had the routing perfect for the last leg, we took off and headed south/southwest toward Adelaide. As we climbed, we started seeing the first signs of the clouds and weather that we had been expecting.  As we level out, we start moving into the clouds.  They parted just enough to see the northern reaches of Adelaide in the distance though.  However we quickly had the undercast move back in (and us over it) so we didn't get any more pics until we turned final.  I got a quick pic of downtown Adelaide off our left wing as we descended following the ILS.  A short time later, we pulled into the GA ramp at Adelaide and shutdown for the final time on the rally.  It was a great trip and I really enjoyed it. We got to see some excellent sights that I hadn't seen in nearly a decade so it was interesting to see the changes (in FS) and how things may not have really changed much in the real world, but in our virtual one, the much better graphics, the new ORBX Australia V2 textures that make things look more realistic than ever, etc. I wish I still had pictures of the last time GAAR came through this part of Australia to show the difference, but they've been lost to time and multiple HDD changes. Until next year! |
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Post by jazzthom on Mar 31, 2020 20:54:35 GMT
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Post by uhug on Apr 1, 2020 8:55:28 GMT
Maintenance workshop in Adelaide The mechanics had a lot to do: No wonder after this dusty trip! But now, freshly cleaned and almost looks like new from the factory!  What is still missing are a few splashes of color here and there. Unfortunately, the good B-25 is dismantled and packed in boxes. A ship will sail to Europe in a week! What we take home are great memories of the GAAR 2020! Stay healthy friends and don't make BBQ on a large scale! See you! |
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