DCA World Rally 2009 is Good Fun

[Tom Goodrick]

The DCA WR2009 is good fun if you have any interest in flying a DC-3. Sure the DC-3 is a bit slow. But in FS flying, its what you do along the way from Point A to Pont B that generates the interest and fun. The Rally is closed now to applications, unfortunately. But many of us are active in it - Bill, Alan Loweson, Allen Peterson and myself. Having done the first five flights (of ten total), I am now chasing Peterson's tail on #6. Most have been fairly straight forward but #5 into Aspen, Colorado was a bit of a challenge.

With help from Charley Woods, who sent me a portion of the Piedmont Airline DC-3 manual, I polished up my DC-3 FD. All cruising should be done at 45 gph per side and 150 KTAS with power set at 50%. That determines that you will have a nice, quiet ride with plenty of time to enjoy the sights along the way.

Generally, you are looking up at mountains at some point in each flight. I would advise anyone interested in DC-3's to download the flight descriptions and fly a few on your own. My FD can be downloaded from the DCA site. The main value of the FD is it tames the landing enough so regular mortals can handle it.

[rick]

Your right Tom it is good fun and a good learning experience for someone that has never done this sort of flying. So for after round one it looks like I'm in the ball park (WR-047) fingers crossed.
Happy trails..........Rick

[Tom Goodrick]

Yes it is fun. I took one look at the map for flight 6 in Ecuador and decided I needed to double check the route.

The instructions called for 17,500 ft which is a lot higher than my 8 passengers like to go in an unpressurized plane. Sure enough by looking closely at the relief map in the Flight Planner, I found that by swapping the ndb ZUI for the ndb OLM, I could come in through a river gorge to get into the central valley at a lower altitude. I guessed 13,000 ft would do it. (No sense adding 500 for VFR when you have to start the flight IFR in rain and clouds).

I decided to make a practice flight in Clear Skies in the Beech 350 to use its radar altimeter to check altitude clearance. 13,000 ft worked fine on that revised route though I picked a few carefully-placed intersections to fine-tune the route making it more direct and safer.

In the Beech the only problem I had was finding the runway. It took me six passes over the town. It's a cutie, snuggled between buildings.

Everything went well in the DC-3 with the full weather. This is an IFR flight all the way. If you tried to maintain VFR separation from all clouds you couldn't get started and you would hit mountains during most of the flight.

But it works. It's a nice challenge.

[Tom Goodrick]

While I normally fly "GPS Direct", I have been using the fixes listed in the flight decription for the most part in this Rally. In Flight 08, the fixes are on islands in a curve. I would have preferred to fly direct and save 58 nm. But I used a fix on each island though I did not fly each fix as several were intended to get you around the high point in the center of each island. I can look out the window and do that. After all these flights are supposed to be VFR (aren't they?). This one, however, is not VFR in the end. I rate the terminal ceiling as zero and the visibility as not more than a mile. But the runway has both a localizer and a bright moving light to help you line up. Also, the track from the last VOR leads directly to the runway within a few degrees of the centerline. It is not too tough, but, it is interesting. The approach is mostly over water. I flew the last two miles at about 300 feet above the water. On the last mile I had full flaps and gear and was holding level at 82 KIAS turning very gently to line up.

For the first time I tried estimating time and fuel before the flight, once I had the flight plan set up. I estimated 104 ninutes and 160 gallons. I took 102 minutes and used 159 gallons. The touchdown was at 70.5 KIAS and -185 FPM.

The above was written Nov 21, just after I made the flight. Today is Dec 8 and the "scores" for Flight 8 have been posted. My flight time of 102 minutes is almost 30 minutes shorter than the average. I sure did not think I was taking a big short cut. I have to wonder why everyone else took such a round-about way. As stated above I visied every island in the chain and extimated the time within 2 minutes and the fuel within 1 gallon. I was not burning the engines up but was flying according to Piedmont "rules " using 150 KIAS and 90 gph. I did use GPS to fly through the waypoints (LGM, TES, FTV to LZ with a nod to TX and PM along the way). So this makes my "average speed" stand out at 194 Knots. It sounds almost transonic!

OK. I checked the map. I neglected to look backward aolng the route to see where HR was. I assummed to get from A to b you fly over points in between the two. So my route was arbitrarily shortened to show continual progress toward the objective. So be it. At least I made a nice landing in zero visibility.

[johnl]

Another one on the rally, though I've only just arrived at Aspen, as the day job, car problems, and trying to reinflate the UK economy by melting plastic at reenactment fairs has held things up a bit. Oh yes, and having to refly leg four as my (very nice) FS Global mesh scenery would have made geography of me at 4000ft. Even at 6500ft we were only just legal across the odd ridge, and reception of the KZL VOR/DME was patchy, so I had ABK on VOR2 in the hopes that at least one of them would give me a reading at the checkpoints.
Think I've flown in all the previous DCA WRs, and enjoyed every leg of them.

[Tom Goodrick]

Disregarding the politics of it, Flight 09 between Jahrom and Masjed in Iran is a tough one. The tough part comes from the heat. You have to fly near ridges at 10,000-12,000 ft. (I made a slight detour from the specified path to keep my cabin no higher than 12,000 ft. I like to pretend there are normal, air-breathing passengers back there.) The problem with the heat is that it thins the air so much that the engines cannot produce the normal power. Then there was the 21 knot headwind.

I saw 26C at 12,000 ft where it is usually a bit below zero.

As I climbed in the beginning, I made a mistake in trying to lean the engines. I found the power temporarily increasing as I enriched the mixture. So I left it at a fairly rich setting. By 8,000 ft I was running out of power and wondering what had happened to my old faithful bird. I leaned the mixture a bit and finally picked up the power needed to climb. I leveled first at 10,000 ft to get some speed. There I saw nearly 30C and could not get speed very quickly. I had also picked this flight to try adding a little drag (about the same as opening the pilot's window which would not have been a bad idea in that heat). I climbed to 12,000 ft near the middle and the peaks on either side were above that. Fortunately my valley skirted the higher peaks and came out back on the intended track.

My second mistake was not starting down soon enough. I was so tuned mentally to staying high that I stayed high a bit too long. It did not help that I was flying at 2X speed on partial autopilot (altitude hold while I steered between the peaks manually.)

So I treated those few passengers who had not sucummed to the heat to a few slips to lose altitude. Then, of course I lost too much and had to skim the hills and tree tops getting to the runway. Oh well, the flight was not pretty but the landing was survivable (80.1 KIAS and -127 fpm). I'll post my time and fuel and take my lumps. I won't say that I became a hot shot DC-3 pilot on this trip. I was very hot and somebody probably took a shot at me on seeing my wild gyrations on the approach. The passengers are seriously wonderng about signing up for the tenth.

[Tom Goodrick]

OK, I made my first try at #10. Learned a few things. Tomorrow I'll try again. Most of it is a simple, boring flight. The final stage is a bit too much.

First note that the flight is not as described in the original flight description. Those airports are both wrong. It is from WSAT to WMKP - supposedly. Consider WMKB as a suitable alternate.

You pick up moderate turbulence on the last leg. Then you cross the little channel and make an approach. There is more turbulence in the channel. The plane was banking left and right 45 degrees on autopilot. It was at least as bad on manual trying to do a turn to final in the soup. I made two approaches to the point where I saw houses in the murk but no runway. I decided to go on to WMKB. But as I climbed out on missed approach and headed for WMKB, I saw the long runway for WMKP. It seemed mostly in the clear. Then as I turned and flew downwind considering another try, I hit the crud near the end of the runway. The prudent pilot would turn as I did for WMKB. You can't land 'backwards" on the long runway because your tail wind would be a very gusty 21 knots. Try Runway 4. It has a localizer and is very long. But be prepared to go on to WMKB where you can do a visual landing.

The landing at WMKB was fairly easy, in the clear, with moderate turbulence but it was manageable. Unfortunately as I slowed I lost my time in a gust. I slowed slowly as I dumped the flaps and kept it straight on the centerline, more or less. The landing speeds were ok but I did not record them. I was a little ticked off at the guy who set up that flight. Why not just a normal ILS after all those simple VFR landings? The ceiling was too low, the visibility was too short and the turbulence was too much. The only thing that would make sense in the real world would be to park at WMKB until the crap over WMKP clears out.

I'll try it again tomorrow but if I have to land at WMKB, I'll be sure to get the time and turn in the data for the flight. It might make an infinitesimal blip in the average. (Determining the average speed and fuel consumption for all entered DC-3's seems to be the goal of this operation.)

[Tom Goodrick]

I finally completed Flight 10 on the second try. But I landed at WMKB instead of WMKP. WMKB is about 12 nm northeast of WMKP on the mainland. It was in the clear but still very windy. In fact I bounced twice. But the flight was satisfactory according to my way of thinking. I delivered a plane-load of passengers safely. It was not a good day to fly to WMKP.

This time I tried two things that helped. First I filled the plane with 18 passengers and more cargo and more fuel. Second, I added two intersections on the approach to WMKP. I was able to fly directly in line with the runway. But I only saw the runway very indistinctly as I passed over its far end at 300 ft.

So it goes. I guess it was an adventure.

[pterodactyl (George)]

I just completed flight four and it has taken me that long to dial in the time, fuel, flight plan stuff. From what you indicate Tom looks like I still have some fantastic flying left ahead before I have to fly the GAAR.

[Tom Goodrick]

Well, the scores are now posted through Flight 7. My average speed is 178 knots and my average fuel use is 93 gph. The fuel use is fine - very close to the fuel flow specified in the Piedmont Manual for zero wind (90 gph). When you compare zero wind data to real weather data, it only works if the real weather data is generally for round trips where the wind effect almost averages out. In this case the winds are generally headwinds so there remains a wind effect.

But my average speed remains high because of Flight 6 where I used a shorter route that also permitted flight at a lower altitude. this is an unfortunate effect of the scoring system. in computing the average speed for each route, the distance along the route specified in the instructions is used. This is done, of course, to enforce the instructions. I understand that I now pay a penalty for using the shorter route. But I still stand by that shorter route as beiing the best way to get from SETN to SERB. Rather than going first to OLM and then to MJS, I went direct to ZUI and then to MJS.