The A2A Simulations Community

Skulleader

The paint job I'm using on the flight isn't really much a of custom paint job. I just cut and pasted the Cub emblems on the tail of the stock Blue A2A Cub, and did the same with the A2A pin-up girl using the image at the top of this forum page. It's not something I was thinking of releasing because there really wasn't any talent involved and also the A2A pin-up girl image is something that I think would belong to Scott and A2A.

I do really like the way she looks sitting up on top of the Piper emblem.

FAC

Cub World Tour Update: 10/03/09
Flight Miles - 7120
Flight Hours - 139:43
Average Ground Speed - 50.96
Current Location - Heydar Aliyev International Airport (UBBB), Azerbaijan
Engine Overhauls - 3
Engine Failures - 2

Didn't mean to be so long between updates but this section of the tour turned into a marathon of night flying stints down thorugh Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia and the Ukraine. I finally landed at UBBB a few minutes ago after skirting along the northern side of the Caucasus Mountains all afternoon long and then turning south hugging the coast on the final leg.

Here's how the route covered so far looks on a world wide scale.


Just about to touch down at Gomel (UMGG), in Belarus yesterday evening.


Taken this morning at Luhansk (UKCW), Ukraine. Heidi had just finished adding the Ukrainian Flag tourist decal to the quickly growing collection we have under the window frame. We departed shortly after towards Rostov-On-Don, URRR in Russia, to take advantage of the few daylight hours we get to fly in.


For part of the day today's flying I was joined by an old flying partner for some of the journey along the Causcasus Mountain area. Looking down at the runway at URMM as WND was taking off to join the flight leg.


Heidi in radar mode calling out WND's positon every few minutes and keeping an eye on him.


As soon a Heidi, the puppy and myself take a much needed break after a really long couple of days of flying , we'll get to work putting together the next section of the tour plan. There were some thoughts about staying north of the Himelayas and cutting across China, but I don't think there are enough landing spots that would work for that route. I think we're going to get stuck going down and around.

FAC

Hello,

Little question for FAC257, If I well understand your explanations you want to make the flight what you indicates on this map with Piper Cub ?
You realize your flight by making stops and save ?






Thank's for your help.....

Congratulation for this flight, crasy flight.

Best regards. Olivier.

Olivier

The first step I take in planning the flight is to use the default Flight Planner in FSX.

I just finished working on the next portion of the flight from UBBB, Azerbaijan to VIJO, India. It's made up of 17 flight legs that I know are all within the fuel range of the Piper Cub.

This is the map and plan that I will actually fly from.


Somtimes I may have to alter my pre-made flight plans a little, if I run into conditions that are not right for the Cub.

The larger world map that I posted a picture of represents where I actually flew during the previous portions of the flight.

FAC

Hi FAC257.

I have been following your your "Around The World Adventure". I'm enjoying reading what you have been up to in your adventure. Keep it up.

I'm curious about some statistics of yours when flying the Cub.

• What is the total weight of the Cub with all the fuel passengers and baggage?

• What is the cruise altitude you fly at?

• What is the RPM setting you use?

• What range do you get from the Cub on those settings?

Thanks.

Mark

Markoz

All good questions.


"•What is the total weight of the Cub with all the fuel passengers and baggage?"
Myself - 140 (True Weight)
Heidi - 123 (She's about my height and 123 looks good on her)
Miniature Pincher Puppy - 15 (He's been a little heavy lately)
So normal TOW with full fuel, oil and my little crew is 1123 lbs.
On the couple of long haul legs where I was concerned about fuel, exchanging Heidi for the two 5 gallon gas cans gave me a TOW of 1060 lbs.



"•What is the cruise altitude you fly at?"
Normally as low as possible. I believe that the Cub is designed for maximum fuel/power effciency at fairly low altitudes, so I try to fly within the 2000' range when ever possible. It's my understanding that even though the Cub will fly much higher, you don't actually gain anything in performance using the stock combo of propeller, engine and carburation. I will however, go for extreme altitudes, 8000' or more when I have a long distance to cover and the weather is showing a good chance of healthy tail winds up at those altitudes. Then in a case like yesterday evening's flights along the Caucasus Mountains, I was flying at 4200' just to make sure I didn't hit anything in the dark.



"•What is the RPM setting you use?"
By the book normal cruise RPM is 2150 and I try to live by that rule as much as possible. As soon as the Cub breaks ground on take-off I pull the RPMs back to 2150 while trying to establish a climb at 50mph indicated. I make tiny adjustments as needed to keep the 2150/50 settings until I reach altitude.

One trick that I think??? that I've learned is on some of the longer open ocean legs, I go for higher altitudes with good tail winds and then I'll pull the RPMs back so that they are hovering just above 2000. It seems to work as sort of flying a kite routine. Instead of using the power of the Cub to pull itself from point A to point B, I'm letting the wind blow the aircraft to where I want it and using just enough power to keep the aircraft flying and the engine warm. I'm not sure how scientific that approach is but it does seem to help stretch the fuel out.



"•What range do you get from the Cub on those settings?"
Notable longest times aloft on single legs so far:
3:13
3:51
3:13
3:55
Single longest time aloft I've had in the Cub was 4:52. This was an early endurance test for the tour. During the test I was in an almost continous slow climb until the fuel ran out. It then took forever to glide back down to land.

Notable longest non-stop flight legs so far:
BGGG - BGBW 250nm
CYVM - BGSS 242nm
EKVG - EGPW 244nm
EYVI - UMGG 240nm
Island Refuel - BIPA 302nm


FAC

Really good stuff FAC......... Thanks for your detailed reports.

Cheers,

Thanks for that FAC.

That is very informative. As a general rule I have been using 5000' as a cruise altitude, unless I encounter headwinds. Then I fly lower. As to the rest I think I operate the same as you. I also use my actual weight (161lbs). Plus 20lbs luggage and, alas, no Heidi on my long flights (Perhaps if she was sitting in the back I might actually take her on more flights. ). I have also found that with a nice 10kt to 12kt tailwind I have usually made a distance of 170nm to 180nm with a substantial amount of fuel remaining to cover up to 60nm and possibly further by my calculations.

On one particular flight, 181nm, with a tailwind of about 15kts and flying at 5000' I landed with close to 4 Gals left. I was pleasantly surprised.

Using 190nm as a maximum range, as per the manual, I have been trying to plan a trip around the south and east coasts of Australia. Lots of small distances there. Crossing Bass Strait to Tassie I reckon is quite possible. It would be a lot harder across the north and west coasts as they are much more remote areas over here (makes me wonder how Maxter is going?).

Oh well. She sure is a wonderful plane to fly. I don't think I played flight simulator for as long on so many days in a row since I got the Cub. Patch 1.1 sure makes it more fun now.

Thanks again FAC. I look forward to seeing and reading more about you World Tour! Happy flying!

Mark

G'day Mark,

I've been away for a few days and have not had the opportunity to fly, but will be getting back into it shortly. And yes, I'm going to do the Bass Strait leg shortly. Just looking for a day with favourable winds. I don't want to run out half way over there. I will probably head over to Flinders Island first and then over to Tassie.

I have not used the on board map/pretend non-GPS yet and am wondering if my dead-reckoning will be good enough to make the trip. Not having even an NDB is tough so I am spending a bit of time planning that leg. I will probably jump off at Yarram.

Cheers and good luck with your flight.

Cub World Tour Update: 10/05/09
Flight Miles - 7861
Flight Hours - 153:29
Average Ground Speed - 51.21
Current Location - Herat Airport (OAHR), Afghanistan
Engine Overhauls - 3
Engine Failures - 2

Mini-update.....

Monumental moment in the following flight shot!


Well, at least it's monumental to our little flight crew. This the first take-off where we can see palm trees and leave the door open because it's not freezing darn cold, since our initial departure from Florida one month ago.

The shot was taken on departure from Baku, where we headed due east, for another mini-oceanic crossing over the Caspian Sea into Turkmenistan. Most of the flight yesterday was spent skirting the northern Iranian border and then finally turning south into western Afghanistan, where we are sitting at the moment.

FAC

I just love these reports. How do you do the map. I would be grateful if you could show me as I would like to stick one on my trip website.

Thanks,

Maxter

I use the map library from the University of Texas at Austin for all of my map needs.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

I found the site years ago and they have just about everywhere covered and updated fairly often.

I just take a sceenshot of the map or section of the map I need and then edit it with MSPaint.

FAC

Thanks FAC, much appreciated.

Cheers,

Cub World Tour Update: 10/09/09
Flight Miles - 8766
Flight Hours - 169:43
Average Ground Speed - 51.66
Current Location - 40NM SE ofJodhpur Airbase (VIJO), India - Crusing Alt. 6700'
Engine Overhauls - 3
Engine Failures - 2

Finally finished winding our way around and through the mountainous areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of the flight time across these regions had been in the dark. Then just about the time the sun started coming yesterday, we breached the final mountain range into India.

After dropping back down to our normal Cub cruise altitude of around 2000' we skirted across western India, towards our final stop on the current flight plan, at Jodhpur Airbase (VIJO), India.



After a bit of pre-flight planning, we just departed VIJO headed eastward across India. We started on the second row of national flag tourist decals when we made the first landing in Turkmenistan. The new row of flags is growing pretty nicely already.



Climbing out of VIJO. An odd thing about today's flying and the time difference. The sun will be setting here in India shortly after take-off, but by the time we're finshed with today's flight legs we should be flying back into another sunise.



This next portion of the flight plan runs a total of 1920nm with 21 flight legs and finally lands us on the Vietnamese coast at Catbi (VVCI).



We're currently cruising a little high at 6700' because of a small mountain range we can see off on the horizon. That's so we don't crash into anything while I put this latest report together. I guess we're inventing and breaking another FAA Piper Cub rule..."No texting while flying."

As soon as it's officially posted, we'll drop back down to a more reasonable altitude, although there does seem to be a decent tail wind up here.


BTW When landed at Khudzar (OPKH) while leaving Pakistan yesterday, Heidi got all excited. There was a beautiful lake adjacent to the airport. After the long dusty flight across Turkmenistan, Iran, & Afghanistan with no water in sight, she decided to go for an evening swim. I took some really great pics of her in a very skimpy bathing suit down by the lake. Unfortunantly I didn't realize I had the camera settings wrong for the low light conditions and none of those pictures turned out.


FAC

Sorry but I don't believe you. I think you just want to keep the pics to yourself and not share them with us so we are left with thoughts of her in a skimpy bathing suit and drooling at those thoughts!

Mark