Well, here we go, another little Commercial Flight for this month (Last one was January Aiy?). I was, at one point, afraid that this was not ALL we’d be flying…guess not, so, it’s nice to have a few of these thrown in. Maybe we’ll get a few more reports back on this one - now that people have had a couple weeks to “discover” the Flight of the Month Club.
So, last month Rik left us….wellllll, he left ME in Nice, France, which is not a bad deal except that the rest of the Club Members were in the Alps partying. If I weren’t always pining for the Mediterranean I might have been upset, but at least this way I knew I could behave myself. (HA!) Days and nights basking by the water, eating out along the Riviera, shopping in Monaco, going to sleep to the tunes on http://www.plr.org/…ahhhh life is okay with this. So, New Zealand huh? I just spent a bunch of time there testing our new Club Airport NZFC (available for download from http://www.toomuchfs.com/ ) a couple of months ago and I had suspicions that Bill might fly us into there. Oh well.
So I depart Nice on June 1st in a Macedonian Air Cargo C-17 using Real-World Weather. My first stopover is Beirut, Lebanon; approach is from the southwest, a VOR/DME thing, which I haven’t flown before. (Approach was high, landing was long, but smooth.) After two days in “The Rio of the Med” (Hardly enough time) I finagle a seat on another cargo plane, a FedEx A380, bound for Auckland, NZ. I leave just before sunset on June 2, 2003, again with Real-World Weather. ~ See Picture One , holding short for inbound Beechcraft~
Here, I discover that New Zealand is one hell of a long ways out there! And Australia is bigger than one might think too. Even with 16x time compression it takes me three real days to get there. (Yes, I use time compression for the high-altitude cruise parts of flights ‘cause with an average of 3 hours per week to fly, something like this would take me 6 weeks to get done.) June 3 dawns for me somewhere between Sri Lanka and Indonesia with thunderstorms far below. It’s fun that there is a bit of other traffic up over Australia, you can see the other jet-streaks crossing the sky. Another few hours of flying puts me into New Zealand at 21:52 on June 3rd. Fortunately, ATC gave me a straight-in approach ‘cause I had red lights going off all over. I landed with only 16,500 pounds of gas left which for an A380 ain’t much! After a day’s layover in Auckland, I hop an afternoon BAE 146 into Christchurch on June 5th, ~See Picture Two~ .
Now here presented a problem I’ve never had before: Once I had a good rate of climb I threw the gear lever, jumped outside and took the screenshot, hopped back inside to finish retracting flaps and to throttle back. ATC told me to turn left, which I did, and then noticed that the gear lever, which usually goes back to the OFF position, was still in the RAISE position. I clicked it to LOWER, then back to RAISE, but it still didn’t click down to OFF (and my panel didn’t have those Red vs Green vs No - lights to indicate gear status, just the lever). I jumped back outside only to discover (as the screenshot shows) that the Right Main was in the half-way position, not going up or down. Now, on take-off roll I had gotten the right mains pretty close to the edge of pavement because it was really windy, (It was also 4:55 AM local time and I don’t think I was fully awake yet) maybe even off the pavement but I had received no indication of a problem while on takeoff roll or I would’ve aborted while still on the ground.
Now here presented a problem I’ve never had before: Once I had a good rate of climb I threw the gear lever, jumped outside and took the screenshot, hopped back inside to finish retracting flaps and to throttle back. ATC told me to turn left, which I did, and then noticed that the gear lever, which usually goes back to the OFF position, was still in the RAISE position. I clicked it to LOWER, then back to RAISE, but it still didn’t click down to OFF (and my panel didn’t have those Red vs Green vs No - lights to indicate gear status, just the lever). I jumped back outside only to discover (as the screenshot shows) that the Right Main was in the half-way position, not going up or down. Now, on take-off roll I had gotten the right mains pretty close to the edge of pavement because it was really windy, (It was also 4:55 AM local time and I don’t think I was fully awake yet) maybe even off the pavement but I had received no indication of a problem while on takeoff roll or I would’ve aborted while still on the ground.
So now I had a problem! Logic would dictate that I fly out over the water, dump some gas and return to Auckland for an emergency landing. About 20 years ago a 727 was coming into Portland and one of the mains wouldn’t lock in, so they landed on the OTHER main, then the nose, then EASED the wing-tip down. All captured on spectacular video by the way! It took 3-4 tries before the pilot was able to put ‘er down. At one point the guy got one main down and didn’t like it and went around. AMAZING! No injuries by the way. I could do that - couldn’t I? So I asked myself, “What would the difference be between Auckland or Christchurch?” In real life it wouldn’t have been a question, back to Auckland in an instant. In the sim….I headed for Christchurch a little slower than I had planned. ATC kept yelling at me, “Climb, Climb…Faster, Faster!” As I toddled along I realized that I had made a VERY critical error. Anybody else pick up on this? It was an AFTERNOON departure from Auckland…now it was getting dark. Many bad words were coming out of my mouth! I called up ATIS and the weather in Christchurch, while clearer, was even windier than Auckland had been. I was “hosed” for sure! @$#%^*+#*!!
So, to make a long story short, I was directed into runway 20 as winds were out of 157° - at least that would give me the chance to put the left mains down first! But alas, it was TOO WINDY for my feeble piloting skills and I had to go missed. Second pass….missed. Third pass….missed (this was sounding familiar). Fourth pass….by the way, my lever was now showing that the gear was actually down but I didn’t want to go outside and look ‘cause that’d spoil the fun. Fourth pass I landed…on the runway…at an awkward angle…gear holding….careening in the wind….skidding off the runway…. crashing into a flaming heap at 17:48. That really hurt!
All this and I haven’t even started the FOTM yet.
So, to make a long story short, I was directed into runway 20 as winds were out of 157° - at least that would give me the chance to put the left mains down first! But alas, it was TOO WINDY for my feeble piloting skills and I had to go missed. Second pass….missed. Third pass….missed (this was sounding familiar). Fourth pass….by the way, my lever was now showing that the gear was actually down but I didn’t want to go outside and look ‘cause that’d spoil the fun. Fourth pass I landed…on the runway…at an awkward angle…gear holding….careening in the wind….skidding off the runway…. crashing into a flaming heap at 17:48. That really hurt!
All this and I haven’t even started the FOTM yet.
June 6th: I load up the Cebu Pacific DC-9 (I haven’t actually flown this plane in FS2002 yet) and check the load and balance. After a quick walk around and preflight we are ready to program the computer (my PC not the FMC - does the DC-9 even have an FMC?) for our route into Queenstown using the VOR at NZFC as a midway waypoint. The weather today: overcast (Spelled, F-o-g-g-y) but less wind and no rain, very flyable despite the injuries to pride and 
plane. Wait a minute, the 09:40 AM departure slot is already spoken for by NZ513. So we’ll get a jump on the morning rush and leave at 09:25. Since Hans is reportedly afraid to die this month, (And I’m experienced in that realm) I’ll take him along as my FO to “learn the ropes,” then he’ll be good to go it alone! We contact ground for pushback at 9:26 and receive our taxi clearance out to runway 02. We taxi out while setting up the Autopilot and Nav Radios. Hans adds in the flaps and runs through the pre-takeoff checks etc and we are cleared to depart at 09:34.
Departure is without incident and my FO does a fine job of retracting the flaps and communicating with ATC whilst I fly the plane. ~See Picture Three~ Once we are through the “soup” and ATC turns us south I dial up the VOR for FCI (109.00) and it shows 104 miles. We continue our climb up to 20,000 for cruise, not too high but it’s a shorter flight anyway. Below it’s only clouds and some occasional, very light bumps.
plane. Wait a minute, the 09:40 AM departure slot is already spoken for by NZ513. So we’ll get a jump on the morning rush and leave at 09:25. Since Hans is reportedly afraid to die this month, (And I’m experienced in that realm) I’ll take him along as my FO to “learn the ropes,” then he’ll be good to go it alone! We contact ground for pushback at 9:26 and receive our taxi clearance out to runway 02. We taxi out while setting up the Autopilot and Nav Radios. Hans adds in the flaps and runs through the pre-takeoff checks etc and we are cleared to depart at 09:34.Departure is without incident and my FO does a fine job of retracting the flaps and communicating with ATC whilst I fly the plane. ~See Picture Three~ Once we are through the “soup” and ATC turns us south I dial up the VOR for FCI (109.00) and it shows 104 miles. We continue our climb up to 20,000 for cruise, not too high but it’s a shorter flight anyway. Below it’s only clouds and some occasional, very light bumps.
“China Southern five-two-niner, turn right heading two-six-zero. Descend and maintain flight level one-two-thousand, expect visuals to runway 05.” Now the plate I have suggests that for runway 05 we set-up on the 037° radial inbound at 30 miles from 6,000 feet. Problem one is that after ATC hands us off about 15 times, they vector us in from only about 16 miles out. Problem two is that ATIS is reporting Queenstown is “socked in.” Suddenly ATC reports, “China Southern, airport is directly to your 9 o’clock position, turn left, cleared for runway 05.”
“Oh ****, I can’t see ANYTHING out there.” I turn left but hold the 2,100 ft ATC left me at…..
“China Southern, turn right heading 180* and climb to niner-thousand feet. Contact New Zealand Center.” I guess that means I missed the airport?
“Oh ****, I can’t see ANYTHING out there.” I turn left but hold the 2,100 ft ATC left me at…..
“China Southern, turn right heading 180* and climb to niner-thousand feet. Contact New Zealand Center.” I guess that means I missed the airport?
With that, I cancel IFR and fly 210° about 32 miles out, then I follow my own route in on the 037° radial to 19.4 DME before turning to 048°. I have the MAP as 1,700 ft at 5.2 miles DME. At that point we are still in the thick cloud so I go ahead and drop to 1,500 ft. ~See Picture Four~ At 2 miles DME I figure it is a lost cause to try and land this morning. I go missed for the second time and as I climb out of the cloud I dial up the FCI VOR at NZFC once again. See Hans, I didn’t kill you off - yet! We fly back to Club Headquarters for an ILS landing into 02R ~See Picture Five~ at 11:00 AM. I guess the passengers will get to wait out the weather in that hotel just southwest of the airport. Peter, thanks for including that in here, it’ll be real handy.
And Bill, thank you for this oddly challenging flight.
And Bill, thank you for this oddly challenging flight.
This was to be the end of my June PIREP, however, we’re not sure WHEN this will get posted so with that, I’ll have a few days to try and land SOMETHING in Queenstown! Stay tuned.
June 11th, 2003, Flight Club International Airport, NZ: Weather today is very scattered clouds at 8,000 ft, temps in the lower 40’s (F) which means it’s time to get to Queenstown. I load up an old classic, the FS Club 727, with full pax and bags and skinny gas. We depart NZFC from runway 20L just after 11:30 AM. This is a quick up and down so I fly the entire route by hand (no autopilot assist of any kind). I fly over the 386 NDB at 8,000 feet, capturing the 260° radial inbound the VOR, stepping down according to my plate. By 10 miles I have visual on the runway, 23 and turn in, dropping flaps and gear to be fully set-up and trimmed by 3 mile final. There is a little gusting wind out of the 180’s but landing was on the marks ~See Picture Six~ or at least as “on the marks” as the Flounder can get when flying by hand!
June 11th, 2003, Flight Club International Airport, NZ: Weather today is very scattered clouds at 8,000 ft, temps in the lower 40’s (F) which means it’s time to get to Queenstown. I load up an old classic, the FS Club 727, with full pax and bags and skinny gas. We depart NZFC from runway 20L just after 11:30 AM. This is a quick up and down so I fly the entire route by hand (no autopilot assist of any kind). I fly over the 386 NDB at 8,000 feet, capturing the 260° radial inbound the VOR, stepping down according to my plate. By 10 miles I have visual on the runway, 23 and turn in, dropping flaps and gear to be fully set-up and trimmed by 3 mile final. There is a little gusting wind out of the 180’s but landing was on the marks ~See Picture Six~ or at least as “on the marks” as the Flounder can get when flying by hand!
Bill, I was still doing 45 knots at the left turnoff and probably could have made it but I went ahead and rolled out to the end before turning back to taxi to parking.
