August 2011 - Space Shuttle's Last Flight

I loved this FOTM!
This is the first FOTM where the commute between FOTMs was the FOTM.
My son and I have played around on the sim ... How high can we fly? How fast can we go? What happens above 200,000 feet? Stuff like that. I've heard that they have space sims before and my son has asked but I'd frankly never looked into it until Alejandro's suggestion that we actually try it out.
Several years ago Hans suggested that we download a new version of flightsim that he proposed may be "the future" of simming. I did some research, looked at some screenshots and videos and really was not impressed. Also, I had an older computer system that was barely able to fly the sim I had! This was different. I had a new, stronger PC, it was SPACE so it actually was something new, and the videos and screenshots looked spectacular!
I loaded the Space Shuttle Atlantis from Simon Bolivar airport and departed at dawn. (pict1) This is a whole lota fun!! (pict2) It took about 20 seconds to climb to 120,000 feet and before I knew it I was in utter darkness flying west over Central America. (pict3) I turned back east and shut down the engines for a 500-mile glide into Florida.
Well folks I'm here to admit that I'd rather have a functional sim than a realistic one. Long-ago I replaced the shuttle's panel with the default CRJ panel - still flies just great. Well, when you shut down the engines you lose power to all the guages and soon I was totally lost and unable to call up any instruments. I re-lit the engines and pulled them back to idle so I'd at least have power. (pict4) With that I idled my way across the Gulf of Mexico, (pict5) descended across Florida, (pict6)flew over top of Kennedy Space Center and made left traffic for the southbound runway. (pict7) (pict8) I did all of this with NO THROTTLE as instructed. (pict9)
I got too low on finals and to this day I have no idea how I didn't land 1/4-mile early! (pict10) Somehow I made it to pavement and landed safely. (pict11) I then taxied over to the main shuttle hangar and shut down. (pict12)
Next I downloaded the ORBITER simulator and the PDF instruction package. Anxiously I dove in, hoping to launch into space within a few days.
Have you guys looked into this thing? The instruction BOOK is 135 pages and filled with all kinds of technical and how-to information. Now, maybe I'm getting old but I have twelve good years invested into learning FS and I'm not sure that my brain is ready to learn an entirely new, fully functional sim! Don't get me wrong, it looks awesome and I want to take this on but in reality I'm thinking that should be my retirement project rather than yet another thing I try and take on at this point in life. I already feel like I don't have enough flightsim time and now there's this? This could take me five years!
So, with the Atlantis fully fueled again I departed Kennedy, climbed to 120,000 feet and set the heading to 100*. (pict13) With the sim on 8x speed you get a pretty accurate 21,000 mph ground speed and can circle the globe in about an hour and 20 minutes!
This heading puts me over North Africa in about 10 minutes. (pict14) I cross Cairo and the UAE. (pict15) Flying opposite the sun results in a very quick dusk over India and the dark night passes in 40 minutes over Indonesia and the South Pacific.
(pict16)The next night comes just before South Africa! (pict17) As I cross near the boarder of South Africa and Namibia I turn my heading to 060* and head to the northeast. I cross over the Seychelles and Sri Lanka. Dawn comes over eastern China before I cross the Korean Peninsula. (pict18) At 50* North latitude I turn my heading to 090* and cross the Pacific again flying my third lap over North America and Europe. Dusk comes over Ontario and I cross Northern Ireland and the UK at night. Dawn comes over the Baltic and I spend my last daytime over Russia and Siberia. (pict19)
Well, three laps around should be pretty good for this FOTM - haven't flown that far in one month before! Somewhere over China I set the GPS flightplanner for Direct To -> Kennedy and picked up my heading for Florida, I started descent about 3,000 miles early over British Columbia and made another success landing at Kennedy at 02:47 AM.
(pict20) (pict21) (pict22)
Wow! Three laps around in just over twelve hours! (pict23) Like I say, I really loved this FOTM. I had promised to fly between FOTMs in Flight Club aircraft this year so I'm thinking I need to add some TooMuchFS logos to the Atlantis. We'll pull that sucker out of retirement and use it for Flight Club purposes from now on!