mau92

Oh, no at all... In any way :P

Okay, there you go. From a few weeks ago

So, Harley, your busy hair is a hat? :hmmm:

Sure it is! It's always good to be back ;) Nice photos, btw specially the 2nd

I wanted to fly my favorite King Air, the smallest of the family. So I decided to take her out of the hangar for a spin to Bahamas on an Executive schedule. As every flight, we started on the apron of Ft. Lauderdale Executive. The routing was done, the fuel was onboard and the doors were ready to be closed. Today we'll be flying at FL180, the winds were really calm at that altitude, and we would get a fuel burn of 500lb/hr (approx) and a speed around 240ktas, so our flight time was a merely 50 minutes. If anything went wrong at our destination, we would head back to were we came from. So we took almost 1500lb FOB, 750lb each tank good for a 3hr cruise (well above our total flight time if anything happened), we should be arriving with 500lb on each tank. After a short taxi to the active runway, we were ready for take off. So, as planned, we moved the throttles forward to full rumble! Soon after we reached 110kts and we rotated the plane towards the clear Miami skies. A slight turn to the right would take us to Ft. Lauderdale VOR. After reaching this point, the overwater leg would start. We checked that everything was running ok, and off shore we go heading directly to Bimini. Reaching Bimini, there was no need to go back. Passengers were enjoying the nice view of the Atlantic Ocean from above. And so did I, the sun was setting behind us gave the panel some nice lighting. The outside view was pretty also ;) But, it was time to go down again. So 45nm from destination we started the descent towards 2000ft. At this altitude we would intercept RWY14 ILS after performing a 14nm DME ARC. Winds were calm, so this runway was optimal! And there's the runway, plenty of length for landing. This plane is pretty small and no long distances are required. After another short taxi we go the ramp to finish the flight. Our VIPs are carried away by cars and we just leave the plane dark for the return leg. As side note we burned less fuel than expected, we had 550lb of fuel onboard! Hope you enoyed!

The garage looks great! Something less ban-friendly

After almost 2 months of being grounded I made my return to the skies!

Hybrid!

As posh as it gets!

Disclaimer: I'll try to be as clear as possible, and I'll try to explain with my gained knowledge as both, real pilot and aeronautical engineering student. Have in mind that English is not my first language and I'm trying my best for you to understand me. I'm open to any criticism that makes this section good! Now that you guys (and girls) know how planes fly and how they move it's time to jump into the cockpit (yay!). So... Today: Cockpit Layout Great! You are now siting inside a plane and all you can see are dials, needles, numbers and all kind of un-understandable information. We'll use as example the Cessna 172, one of the most common trainers out there. Everybody who has a Pilots License will fly, had flown or flies one. And once you fly it you understand why everybody else does, it's very easy to control, its speeds are similar to its smaller sister, the C150, which is as you imagined, very easy to fly. What we need too learn about what we are seeing. Every panel, despite some details, are very similar across any maker/model. Why? Because it has some logic built in it. The panel are designed in a way that the pilot can always have in sight all those flight-related indicators without much effort. These indicators are arranged in what's called the "Basic T" and is composed by: -Attitude indicator, also known as "artificial horizon". It will indicate, as you imagine, the plane's attitude. And this is Nose up/down and bank angle. IMPORTANT: It won't tell us if the plane is going up/down nor if it's making a turn! -Gyro: Located, for the image above, below the Attitude Indicator. This will tell us the plane's heading and works like a compass, then... Isn't a compass enough? The answer is yes, but this instrument has an advantage being the most important that it's easier to read and understand, and is a bit more precises when doing turns as it doesn't continues the movement once we stop the turn. The downside is that we have to calibrate it with the compass before taking off and while flying (every 15 min, but we'll see it on the next "episode" (!) ) This instrument will tell us if we are turning or not! -Airspeed indicator: On attitude indicator's left. Basically tells us how fast we are going, taking as reference the air surrounding the aircraft. This means that we can have an airspeed indication while on ground, with brakes applied if there's a enough headwind to provoke an indication (strangely happens, never happened to me). So... Why so many colors and markings? I'll tell you. The Green Arc shows the safe operating limits of the aircraft, being the lowest point the stall speed (Remember lift? Well, at that speed we don't generate enough lift to keep the airplane in the air) and the highest the maximum operative speed. The White Arc surrounding the green one is the safe flaps speed. If you extend them outside this area there's a chance to break them. What happens if we get into the Yellow Arc? Well, we have to reduce the speed back to green arc. If we don't do so, there's a big chance to produce damage to the structure. The Red mark is the VNE or "Never exceeding speed", there a really big chance that the plane tears apart if you get to this point. Have in mind that Indicated Airspeed (IAS) will be different to ground speed. This will become handy when planning your flight. -Altimeter: Not too much to say. The shortest needle indicates Tenths of thousands of feet (x10000), the medium thousands of feet (x1000) and the longest hundreds of feet (x100). This instrument will tell you if you are going up/down. So while flying we'll be always watching this (and outside) to know what the plane is doing or going or how fast it's going. The "secondary" set of instruments are: -Vertical Speed Indicator (V/S): Located below the Altimeter. This instrument tell us how fast we are ascending or descending in feet per minute. Of course, if your plane has this, you'll look at it to know if you are going up or down but it's not mandatory to be equipped so you better learn the old way. -Turn coordinator: This instrument will tell you if your turn is coordinated (really? you don't say!). A coordinated turn is... Imagine a Nascar Oval with big banks in its turns. If our plane is coordinated (while turning press the rudder pedal on the same side you are doing your turn. Eg. Banking right, right pedal), then it will be like a Nascar Racing Car turning on that curve. But! If the turn is not coordinated, the plane can drift away its course, yeah just like Ken Block recording one of his Gymkhana videos. So if the ball is not centered (the glass tube on the lower part of the gauge) then you have to "step on the ball", in other way, pressing the rudder pedal on that side. You can Google what "2min turn" means. The gauges on the lower left are engine status (oil press, oil qty, fuel, temperature, fuel flow, Exhaust gas temperature (EGT), Vacuum (important for Attitude indicator and Gyro), Volts... you get it). It's important to watch the engines parameters on flight, they'll give us a clue on engine's performance and general health. For example a drop on oil pressure might mean failing valves, if this happens you better find a near airport or a good field to land because you might get on fire or your engine might quit. But engines are reliable nowadays. Under V/S indicator it's the Engine RPM, always keep it below the red line while flying, and take a look on the manuals for optimum RPM range (Normally something around 2250-2400 RPM). Between radio stack and basic instruments are the Radio NAV instruments. We'll get to them later ;). The Radio Stack is... well you get it. There you change comm frequencies, nav frequencies, transponder... Here you can see a real C150 panel and how the basic instruments are arranged. Vista del piloto por Mauriciooo!, en Flickr And here you can (almost) see a real, and different 172 panel. 172 sobre la Plata por Mauriciooo!, en Flickr Now that you know where, what and how to look at a panel it's time to start the engine and jump into the skies. But first you'll have to learn how to navigate... And it won't be now ;) Hope you enjoyed and see you on the next episode! Don't hesitate to ask!

Okay then! As I said, it was the basics (maybe too basics :hmmm: ) but in case somebody thought that elevator "deviated" the airflow and thus producing the effect (I thought that before studying!) now we can start digging a bit on, for example, why Airspeed indicators have so many colors, what's stall speed, what's VNE, how to use a compass and what's its difference with a Gyro. The next issue will take us into the cockpit for sure ;). Any question can be made on that thread, of course!

Looks like fun and we'll get a cockpit camera (it seems). Bad thing is that it's going to be a P2W

Disclaimer: I'll try to be as clear as possible, and I'll try to explain with my gained knowledge as both, real pilot and aeronautical engineering student. Have in mind that English is not my first language and I'm trying my best for you to understand me. I'm open to any criticism that makes this section good! So as some of you showed interest in flight simming but not too many experience, I had the idea of doing this. What is this? I'm planning on doing a series of posts trying to explain from, how planes fly to Navigation and all things concerning all the aspects in the middle. I'll try to avoid all of hardware and software config, but I'll try to find links of general interest. Let's get started! Today: The Basics. What do we need first? -A copy of your favorite flight sim (FSX, FS9 and Xplane are the most spread sims out there) -An internet connection (for reading this :P downloading real-time weather, flying online (IVAO/VATSIM), see charts, etc) -Your favorite plane (It can be payware, freeware, default, home-made, or whatever) -Scenery (not critical, but if you like watching outside the window it is. But hey, we are here for flying, not for the views NOTE: If using FSX you are going to need the latest update, known as SP2. If you are using gold edition or acceleration this is not necessary. Now we have all the digital stuff, let's get into the real world for a second and let's learn some physics. Everybody's question: Why planes fly? Yes, you guessed right... It's not magic. Well, if it's not magic, why planes like being in the air? The answer is simple and complicated at the same time. The simple answer is physics, the complicated aerodynamics. It's my "mission" to convert the complicated stuff into simple things for you guys to understand. We all know that the entire world is submerged in that invisible fluid (!) that keep us and everything else alive, that fluid is known as air. Air is a mix of gases, and even though we don't see it, we feel it (ever tried going at 100km/h on your car with your head out of the window?) and because we do, it means that we can use it in our favor and that's when aerodynamics come into the game. Even noticed the shape of a wing slice? If you didn't then I tell you that wings are shaped into a tear-drop-kind-of-shape, and why is this? You may ask. It's to use the air in our favor. Wing profile And this what produces the magical force that pulls us up into the air, from now on, the magical force will be called Lift. Stop what you are doing and pay attention! Imagine our plane flying, the air is passing around it and the thing just goes forward. As air splits around the wing (notice that the upper part has a bigger hump, remember this) it starts to work, but how? Take 2 pieces (molecules) of air, as they reach the wing on its leading edge, they have to separate. One will take the upper part, and the other the lower part of the wing. So this 2 pieces of air have to reach the trailing edge (the "end" of the profile) at the same time and, in order to do this, one of them MUST go faster. Which one will go faster? The one that has a longer way to go, that means that the "piece" of air on the upper part of the profile is the one going faster. By doing this, a lower pressure section is created there (Magnus effect, google it), that means that we have higher pressure on the bottom of our profile and means that lift appears (going upwards) and pulling us up and into the skies. 3 factors change lift: Speed, curvature and angle of attack (AOA). Here, you can see it (don't care about the lower part of the image) And that is how planes fly. Now you can go ahead and tell your parents, friends girlfriend or impress that hot girl/boy at the bar or disco ;) This concept of lift is very important, because it's not only why planes fly but also why planes turn and/or go up or down. How do we control them? Have the upper image in mind. In order to make a turn we'll have to "rotate" the plane around its longitudinal axis. This movement is called Roll and we do it by moving the ailerons on the outer part of the wing. Imagine we want to turn right, then right aileron will be pulled up, thus creating less lift. The left ailero will go down, generating more lift and making that wing go up. And there you go, that's how you turn to the desired heading. Now we want to go up or down, in a similar way as before we'll have to make our plane roll towards lateral axis. This is called Pitch and we change it by moving the elevator, on the back of the plane (from now on, empennage). For example we want to go up (climb) then the elevator will go up, again creating less lift on the tail. This will produce the tail to "fall" down, and the nose will go up and we'll ascend (remember Angle of attack? well, this is how we change it) The yaw axis works in a similar way but with the rudder, also located on the empennage. We'll use this just to correct the plane when landing, but we won't go further now. All of this is thanks to the yoke (roll and pitch) and rudder pedals (for yaw) (yes, planes DO have pedals!) located in the cockpit. Well, you have an idea on how planes fly and how to tell them where you want to go. In the following weeks/days we'll jump into the cockpit. Hope you enjoyed this very first part and of course, stay tuned for more! Regards, Mauricio

That girl saw some serious s**t...

Cola flavored Mentos? You bought a bomb?

I won't do any videos (lack of time, plus I don't like video tutorials :P ). But I'll try to start with basics asap ;)

Good, I took it to the front row ;) More on-topic

Bringing this thread up... If you guys have enough interest, I can make a series of posts from Flight Basics to Navigation or Systems or something like that. Like " The TDuck Flight School" . Then we can take this into the sim, what do you think?

I'll take the whole Supra package... A photo worth 4000 HP 918 vs P1 vs Agera R vs LaFerrari por Chris Wevers, en Flickr

I have no problem in giving tips as virtual and real pilot ;) The only problem... I fly on IVAO (could never connect successfully with VATSIM)

Flying from Courchevel to Nice Crabbing the way down to the runway.

Nice pics Sti! I think somebody wants a ban from here :O

Here are some. Red Square por Mauriciooo!, en Flickr Porsche 911 (915) por Mauriciooo!, en Flickr BMW 3 Series (E30) por Mauriciooo!, en Flickr Canal por Mauriciooo!, en Flickr

Longford '67. Never heard of this track before. Now I know it's a historic track and very fun (and pretty on AC) too

Nope a 288GTO must be red, milli :P . Otherwise nice pic!