AlyMac

The Rally looked like great fun to do but unfortunately for me - work got in the way and I couldn't continue. I did re-fly the first section but my times were so out of the box I managed to embarrassed myself again - and this time I even knew the way Keep up the good work - I'll try again next time

Aye Mike - guid auld G-ASUG - what a bonnie lass she is. I did my Twin rating on an Apache - G-ASMY at Norfolk and Norwich Flying Club at RAF Swanton Morley. Poor old lady has been abandoned ay Beccles and looks to be in a very sorry state. Still - my lottery ticket might come up and she'll fly again !

Cheers Captain Tom, There I was just about to start leg 2 as well ! It'll have to wait until I get a charger - I lost the bloody thing !

Oops! RTFMS 1 hour 10 on the plan - 1 hour 25 actual. silly old fool my US Army Airforce E-6B is within arms distance too !

bits of wood- chewing gum and gaffa tape old pal

Good old Charles Wood has completed her first sector KIGQ - 5KI ground speed down to 130 kts - real wx headwind Fuel on T/o 1,600 lbs Fuel on arr 739 lbs 85 mins flight time (no GPS used - just Skyvector sectional, took me a little while to find the strip !). Start and take-off https://youtu.be/AaUtAcICXPw Then the battery conked out on my new GoPro

Alastair McLeod - DCA 2550 Charter Captain X Plane 11 - vanilla ie no add on scenery. AWX DC-3 by Johan van Wyk

Just came across this - a little late. Im on XP11 now sadly

Sorry mate but Ive never landed a DC3 in the 3 point attitude - ever. Dont know of anyone who did. The rudder doesn't have enough authority under 70 -80 kts. Best to aim for the end of the runway at 90kts level, 2300/20" and on touch down apply brakes and balance the elevator and fly that big tail down gently. I have a lot of hours on J3, Super Cubs and the Dakota. There are two types of pilot, those who have ground looped, and those who will. Thankfully my ground loop was gentle in G-ROVE at Glasgow. Cheeky bastard in the tower called me "Would you like to do a 180 and continue to the end of the runway- or can you taxi back to parking where you are !"... Had I been Dak' I might not be here to tell the story

Petrol Problems... The fuel taps have become a bit of a nightmare. I tried soldering up 10 way switches as there are no 5 way switches I can find with the correct "dwell" with the 5 five position fuel taps on the Dak'. This doesnt really work well as the levers are always out of sync a little. I bought one of these Oven Grill switches which has a pleasing - quite smooth and positive click-click movement (5 in the right places and a 6th at 6 o'clock) but it operates 6 cam lobes on a shaft which give a mix of on +1, on+2, on + 2 and 1, on + 2 and 4 ... grrr! Cant make it work at all. I will grind off the cam lobes and put slotted aluminium tube rings at the correct 5 positions to close the contacts. Nuts and bolts again

Air Manager works quite well with led lights working through Arduino- Oil pressures Fuel pressures Generators Green Gear Down Amber Gear in transit Door light - although they say it works with XP11 - doesnt. Ive tried to write code - but I cant even find the files to enter. Im too old to understand this stuff. If I cant make it work with nuts and bolts then it doesnt work - period ! My radios and navs are at the bottom. Just the guitar pickup frames and two pots, one for high and one for low plus a push on each for ident and test/NAV-Radio2 whatever. More details in 2 or 3 weeks after my euro trip with work.

Started making a mold for the dC6 yoke. Looked good for a while then.... I'll try again with carbon fiber tows and less hardner

Sorry - I didnt think anybody was following this thread found these guitar pickup surrounds to make into radios. Just £2.50 off amazon

just saw this - yes I will upload more today

DC3 Airways maintenance flight #MT7-KLAS-2 Battle Mountain to Olympia Regional - 3 hours 45 minutes. Real weather and actual time - I took off from Battle Mountain with 1,421 lbs/ 191 imp gallons of fuel, climbed to 10,000ft and turned onto a direct track to Olympia. After an hour my hot tea and roasted cheese on toast arrived from my charming No1 :D . I changed tanks to Aux and out of the desert (?) and onto greener pastures. What a lovely flight I was thinking, changing track to get closer to Mt St Helens and onwards with the sun setting portside. I pulled up a google window and "Contacted" Seattle approach and departures with liveatc.net and checked the weather. All good - or so I thought. Now getting quite dark outside and the old lady on autopilot - she wandered off to stbd but went back on track with the nose waggling right and left. "Thats strange" - I thought ... then the right wing dipped more severely, the AP disconnected and all became obvious as the orange low fuel light flashed on :o Damnation...I forgot to check the tanks :oops: Selecting Right Main - no2 sputtered back into life. Clicking through the tank gauge showed less than 50 gallons in the Left and Right mains and Left aux near empty as well ! "You silly old fool - you didnt check the fuel burn ! bollocks!". Mixtures I cut right back as I still had quite a good few miles to go. This could be serious, with temperatures on the METAR at 0 degrees and snow showers - I only had my slippers on ! Looking at the map on Skyvector I was not too stressed as there were 3 alternative places to pancake close by, but I really wanted to get to Olympia - then the number one engine fuel light came on and I was now in IMC ... and at night! "Clunk-clunk" and I was back on two fans again - I tweaked the mixtures down even more and pulling the props back to 1700 rpm, cowl flaps closed I started a very gentle descent through the crap. Snow then appeared and I continued feeling quite nervous as I turned left base about 25 miles out (its only a sim' after all...). Cutting off the corner I managed to catch the Olympia ILS for 17 about 10 miles out in IMC and broke through at 4,000ft. Landed, with a sigh of relief and taxied to the tower parking with... 188.5 lbs of fuel / 25 imp gallons :shock: Credits: Capt John Lawler - the flight Skyvector - the flightplan (which I arrogantly ignored of course) Approach Plates - flightaware.com Radio Chat - http://www.liveatc.net DC-3 Dakota - Johan van Wyk Pants (underwear to my Colonial cousins) - Marks and Spencer

This was just an experimental video. Lots of mistakes when I look through. We'd never do the mag check with both engines at 2300 ! - and I didnt pull the throttles back to 36" after pumps off... Oops However the interruption from my Number One was just too good to miss :lol: :lol: :lol:

Its been a while due to other commitments but Im now ready for the next part of my journey. The problem is that I like to fly more than I like to build ! Like all the rest of my Flight-deck, Im going in blind so if it doesnt work - I will have to start again. As with the rest of the project there is a little "Poetic Licence" as there are restrictions in my loft, my budget and most of all - my open plan head... Basically its a 3.5mm ply sheet to go over my two £10 screens which run AirManager for my instruments. Ive also fitted pots to adjust the instruments to rid myself of "Keyboard chores". Not exactly the right shape - but close enough for Government Work :D Not much to show yet but you can see where Im going. Ive traced out the positions of the instruments and to make them fit the small screens - they have all been reduced to 70mm diameter. Enough for me to see without my reading glasses :shock:

Looks great mate. I was lucky enough to see these beauties in operation out of San Juan International in Mallorca in the 1960's. From the observation floor it was amazing to watch the shallow take-off with gear up immediately after the wheels left the ground, the bright yellow sand with the aeroplane with its shadow racing through the Palm trees - sweet memories. I still have the control wheel of EC-AVA s/n 43118 which was very sadly cut up in the 1990's. Its being copied in resin to fit my DC-3 sim now. If only I had the space to build another cockpit !

After a long lay-off due to work commitments the pedestal is almost finished Aileron and Rudder trims are done and working.

Sounds great matey. Funny but it was the CCP Virus that started mine !

These are my completed trimmers for aileron and rudder on my home-made DC-3 Dakota pedestal

This is just the test rig. All up and working well with AirManager :)