SionRoundTrip (V3.7)

Flight created on 25.01.2021 (17.02.2025, bug corrected.)

Estimated flight duration 1h30min.

Difficulty level medium - very difficult (depending on the chosen aircraft).

Task: Land with big airplanes on no airfields.

Introduction:

This mission will take you to the absolute limits of flight simulation.

You will have to land big planes on small airfields, in real life this probably won't work.

But what does a pilot do when he absolutely has to land a big plane and there is only a small airfield as a landing option? All around mountains, forest, water...

The pilot tries to land on the airfield, even if the runway is much too short.

Better to crash into a row of trees at 25 knots at the end of the runway than to make an emergency landing in the forest at 250 knots, right?

The round trip:

From Sion (red),

to La Blecherette(blue),

St.Sephan Mil(purple),

Reichenbach(green),

Saanen(brown) and

back to Sion.

Each of these airfields has a special feature. Short runway, steep approach angle, etc.

At the beginning you choose an airplane:

1) Mooney: A small airplane with GPS, ideal for getting to know the route and the airfields. (practice flight)

2) AC-130H: Large 4-engine plane with GPS. (Heavy)

3) C-69: Big old 4-engine plane without GPS. (Very difficult)

4) Take any plane. (Unpredictable difficulty)

I have successfully managed the flight with 737, 747 (from old FSX).

Even the AN225 (world's largest plane) I was able to "choke down" on the short runways and take off again.

5) Mooney, engine failure on every landing. (Challenge)

Next, you choose to fly with/without help:

With help: you'll get help on speed, mixture and propeller settings, flaps, landing gear, spoilers and reverse thrust.

Without help: You can do it all by yourself!

Takeoff:

You are in Switzerland, at Sion airport (LSGS).

Start and follow the waypoints (WP), or stick to the GPS.

Info about the plane AC-130H:

1) This aircraft is quite old, nevertheless a GPS was installed.

After switching to this aircraft, I recommend to show the GPS and the autopilot console:

Unfortunately I didn't find any switches for it, so you have to activate "GPS" and "Autopilot Panel" manually via simulation menu (Vehicle, Instrument Panel).

The autopilot is also somewhat outdated:

It only helps you to hold course and altitude.

Here is the autopilot panel:

How it works (for this flight):

1) Activate "Autopilot Power On".

2) Activate "Autopilot On"

3) Set the "GPS/HDG Selector Switch" to GPS.

4) Launch and activate the "GPS/HDG Switch".

5) Climb to 8000 feet (you will have to set the climb rate yourself, because the autopilot will not help).

6) at 8000 feet activate "Altitude Hold On".

The speed indicator is a little different

than usual: small pointer shows 100s,

large pointer 10s steps.

Here 175 knots are displayed.

The most important displays:

Reverse thrust, 9 flap stages and spoilers.

With this you can land anywhere.

Below you can see the position of the power- and

flap levers.

Propeller speed and mixture setting does not have to be observed with this aircraft. (In any case, the simulated aircraft does not pay attention to this).

Info about the plane C-69:

1) This aircraft is normally flown by 3-4 people.

Pilot and co-pilot in the front and 2 other people in the back who adjust flaps, cooling air flaps, mixture, propeller speed, etc. and monitor the instruments.

You have to do everything by yourself.

2) The autopilot in old planes works a little different than in modern planes:

Autopilot On/Off: Activates heading and pitch.

Heading (HDG): is as usual, set heading 135 and you will fly in that direction.

Pitch: This is the substitute for rate of climb. You want to climb to 10000 feet, at 1000 feet/min.

Set Pitch to about 9, then you will reach about this climb rate.

Depending on performance, you will have to readjust and when you reach 10000feet, reduce power and readjust pitch in autopilot (probably set it down to +2 to 0).

3) In the aft area you will see the following instruments

(Look to the aft right, or cycle through the views to get to this display):

Here you can adjust thrust, propeller speed, mixture, cooling air flaps and monitor temperatures.

4)Speeds:

The displays are quite small (depending on the screen), without zooming in it is hard to see what speed you are flying.

You can tell the speed by the angle of the speed pointer (120 in the picture below).

Here are some speeds:

I hope you enjoyed this flight, if so please give feedback to p3d@andi20.ch . Also send error messages (spelling mistakes, wrong information, etc.) to p3d@andi20.ch, I appreciate any feedback.