Moving Beyond the pilot's Operating Manual

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Yesterday, I spent a while letting an experience in the TBM from Austin to Omaha instruct a flight from Austin Bergstrom to Miami International passing through tropical storm Beta. Remember that old song, "so high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it, so wide you can't get around it and your transponder is out. The TBM had iced up and has very sophisticated controls for icing, accessible to the mouse and display. The Boeing 747-8i has only "H." I began to look at how to manage fuel tanks for trim to even get there. Did I wish I was in a P3C Update 1? Four hours in the dirigible hangar at Moffett NAS next to NASA Ames says, yes, With one swap out in the Fast Fourier Transform.

After landing at Tempelhof in Berlin from Dublin the previous day to see the airport runway reported as -263 ft. I was ready for the difference between Atlantic sea level and Pacific sea level at the ends of the Panama canal. I had waited for an update before beginning from Ireland. Then in the Gulf of Mexico in a tropical low, I was barely sure I would get to Miami. My landing was one of those that needs a lot of skidding and just a bit of aligning and ends with a go around.

The AI is my way to marry a lot of close in digital combat in 1969 through 1978 and an extension to 1981 with loading a really big cargo plane to deploy the entire Army not just the Rapid Deployment Force and the Marine Expeditionary Battalions. After the missed approach is when I was ready to try just a landing at Balboa which I could not do by hand in FSX. With that needing a do over, I tried to set up the cross isthmus as night was falling after a flight from Miami to Balboa ran into the mountain. A Cub modification? (Cub Crafter) but the nearest Atlantic airport to the canal is in Honduras. Today is another day. I figured, I would need 130% fuel, calculating fuel mileage after flying halfway. Sunset was two hours ago.

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Balboa to Goloson in a Diamond 40 NG and now 01:10:40 at 12:58 AM CDT gives a need for 5:44 time enroute on VOR's against a 6 hour endurance. After takeoff rolling around to the starboard (right) gave minimal clearance on the ridges to head NE at 11:00 CDT with the airplane at 1540 feet. I adjusted the tanks by (crossover) to 75% left and 54% right at 12:49 CDT to let the 64% totalizator play out the tendency to burn more out of the left. Real weathe real time is over the water now and clear approaching Boca Del Toro Intl.

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2:25:38 TOT against a need for 5:44. Fuel balanced is 13% left and 13 % right with both low fuel lights on now. Heavy rain slowed me to 108KTAS engine just quit as Left tank go to 7% but restarted with a balancing act. I decided not to go with the Cessna "Stationaire" I had met on floats at Key West Seaplane to fly to the Dry Tortugas. Now what will I choose? Thanks for watching.

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The Citation "Longitude" now looks better even after just 30 minutes in flight. It got off the ground with full fuel! It had good clearance on the ridge. Now even on Lo-IFR it's fuel consumption at 6000 feet seems to leave 23.6 % of fuel to approach and land. Now if only it can make the stop before the end of the runway after landing and avoiding any high or low obstacles. Remember, this is an instrumentation flight not a revenue or even test or ferry flight. The AI will then have gone beyond the flight manual and have experience with coping with two sea level barometer readings. I should arrive at 4:54 CDT or 17:54 local time.

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The Longitude did not get onto the runway and on go around turned in toward the cliff instead of out to sea where this runway is parallel to the coast line instead of perpendicular like at Howard where the flight began! Now for a fun flight I began at Bogota which is a high runway and the 787-10 skimmed the trees on takeoff with 10,000 pounds in the rear baggage compartment and only the steerage passengers as if to mimic a NGO charter to Tahiti. Nine and one half hours later the landing at faaa was without drama until it had to turnaround on the runway to get back to the middle taxiway as a propjet had come onto the runway behind it. With spoilers and reverse thrust with brakes the runway length was no problem here and the open ends to the sea --- One more into the log book.

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I have now had more than one instance where the aircraft landed OK and only taxied part way to the terminal or parking and then stopped and did not shut down. During my solos from the training base in Arizona, the monitor won't give me credit if the landing is not fully aligned with the runway at touch down. I don't know the crosswind capability of the Cessna 152 as a function of gross weight as I would expect to find in the POH. I once bid on a Cessna Citation X POH on Ebay and the bidding rose to well over $1500.00 and that is how I come to have a B36 flight manual even though it is a reproduction and has no performance appendix.

Today I chose Huron County Memorial as a departure and Alpena County Airport (both in Michigan where I grew up) and neither of my efforts finished even though the arrival airport runway is very wide. Maybe because I crossed another runway and it got confused is another answer. I tried taking it out of AI and controlling the airplane with my Freedom 2.4 and at first it just jumped but then the dynamic values began to "taxi" while the view remained fixed. I flew the whole flight over and took it out of AI at one point to get the barometric correct by "B" and at another to get the heading right by "D". The result stopped at the same place and this time I was able to take control of the airplane with my FREEDOM 2.4 with a reasonable control for a taxi into the parking area until --- no credit for this one.

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Yesterday I gave the beautiful Bonanza with a flat panel a chance to improve on it's reversal of a flight from Lakeway to the old Camp Gary in San Marcos to make up for the inability of AOPA and EAA to have a meet this year.( I recently joined both of these organizations as well as C.A.P. and A.S.T.M.) The premise was a flight from Tampa International where Central Command Headquarters was nearby to Atlantic City International where F.A.A. headquarters is nearby. This was a bridge too far.

So, how about from Shaw AFB to Atlantic City to make up for not having General "Chuck" Horner's biography? The Bonanza got stuck just below 12,000 feet with a posted ceiling of 17,000 in the specifications section of MSFS2020. The ATC help kept prompting "Beechcraft Alpha Sierra Gulf X-ray please expedite your climb to FL1-7-0.) So, I got the Beech Baron to do the same IFR-Lo flight at 2-1-0 which it even out did it's specification a bit. Landing with "stall" repeated several times.

The night ended with a flight from Tullahoma to Fort Drum. The last I saw it after adding fuel to below what would have been 100% at Arnold Air Development Center, (where I have been to both places but never went in.) was "Cessna Contact Nassau Center) then passing RAJAY with triangle symbol beneath, then RUMBA with triangle and lastly HEROM, also with triangle and no plotted course showing. I did pass over some islands that looked like the Bahamas to me never having been there. log 03:00:48 with 5% fuel where C-5011A would call reserves in the Cessna Longitude where I was needing a good log entry.

KTHA to FL75 is not Tullahoma to Fort Drum, New York

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I could not be defeated by not being able to get any configuration of the 747-8i off a runway at Kennedy, headed ultimately East with full fuel from the default runway choice and ending up out of fuel with the last contact with ATC being "contact Gander Center on .." With no payload except the pilots and their kit I got off from a specific runway with full fuel and by judicious moving of fuel to avoid running out in the active tank, I flew 3200 nautical miles to Brussels, Belgium and in the night overflew much of the city to land safely and taxi up to a jetway.

My notes say 6:10 CDT, turning right LINT 4.73 n-mi., approaching jetway. LVRO 2370E fuel 19%, TAS 5 kt. 186 ft., shutting down, whoop! whoop! 6:13 CDT black flight time 06:07:47. CDT is my local time, not either origin, enroute, or destination time zone. Based on the ground speeds and the TAS I observed, I had a 20 knot tail wind most of the way flying Hi-IFR.

Much better than the previous day where I was bucking an 80 knot head wind going South from LaGuardia to Tullahoma, Tennessee and then ending with a missed approach and trailing off into the Sunset.

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After letting the Cessna Longitude fly from Wrightstown, New York to Bellevue, Illinois, I was ready to remember my ethical concerns with including the Navy band annual flight to Brazil in a requirement for the Air Force 2 "Congressional transport" version of the military DC-9, the VC-9A for the 89th SAM. I wanted to fly to Rio Janeiro from Andrews. Then with the Sunday TV programs, I knew it was Kiev and the Ukraine that was going to be my destination from Brussels. Now how do I avoid the namesake of the C-9A "Nightingale?" At least I don't have to try to test the relationship between the 777 and the BUK-M in the Crimea. "Cannons to right of them. Cannons to left of them. Rode the 600." Turkey has chosen the S-400 and after the blocking of the 4th Mechanized Infantry overflight earlier my flight plan has gotten complicated, during Iraqi Freedom, or hasn't it? Here is my point with the Longitude, "my Earth has no STEM, my watch has no hands, the minefield of misinformation dangles a karma beyond AIAA safety or SPIE monitoring. Dear hearts, let us proceed without fear of an HR above 134. The flight yesterday? Do add 85% fuel to your Longitude before proceeding. Bear no grudges of a ballistic nature when the code represents a negative reviewer of a baseball game.

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Now that I have come to the end of my ability to let the AI "flyout" a data source I am concerned that all of us who accessed real weather have imbalanced the simulation by not looking equally at areas of flight tracks. Enough that all the real lightning now did not create noise equally in the navAids. Look, I am not Mr. What If but this smacks strongly of not being an advocate.