Archived from groups: alt.games.microsoft.flight-sim (
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Dallas wrote:
> All you guys are downloading and installing this new toy. You are spending
> hours setting up the maps and working out the bugs.
>
> I downloaded it.... I think... I have never felt the need to set it up. I
> mean, what's the point? When I sim fly and get lost or disoriented I learn
> from the experience. This is a "device" that doe not exist in the real
> world so why do you want it in your sim? Isn't just following a moving map
> more like a playing simple road racing video game?
>
> Dalli
>
Cuz back in the old days, all I had was a sectional and, if lucky, an
ADF to navigate cross country. Watching it brings back old times.
I am going to fly one of my favorites, a flight I made 6 times to
Amarillo TX from Ft Eustis VA in an OH-58C. Preparing for the first
flight I laid out all the sectionals from start to finish which went
from the dining room all the way to the living room. Too much map for
single pilot ops so I taped them together, cut off the part 50 NM north
of, and 50 NM south of my route. Then rolled it up like a scroll that I
could unwind along the flight path. I'm sure I don't still have that map
but who knows when I look into some of the boxes I've stored away.
I remember the major points along the path.
Ft Eustis to Nashville. stay overnight
Nashville to Oklahoma City IF I could make it, otherwise overnight in Ft
Smith Arkansas.
Arrive Bell plant in Amarillo, turn in my aircraft, preflight and accept
the new one and get the heck outa dodge. (Amarillo = dodge, get it..)
and fly the 1 hour flight to OK city and spend the night there.
Ok City to Nashville.
Nashville to Ft Eustis
Those were planned stops. I don't think I made each one on any of the
flights I made.
One memorable flight. I had a crew chief with me who couldn't do
anything, even read a map. But crew chiefs weren't required to know how
so I did some on the job training on the way to Texas. On the route
back we were somewhere between Ok City and Arkansas I was down to less
than 100 feet AGL with the weather closing in around me when the crew
chief told me there was a tower coming up in front of us. I asked him
which side of the road was the tower he replied "in the middle". It
created what we called a "quick stop" and I landed right between the
interstate highway. When I took the map I saw the tower was on the south
side but in his defense, the top of the tower covered part of the
interstate.
That was also the day we had a near miss. We were surrounded by white
clouds with a very white background when right in front of us came a
white Bell 206. His white aircraft blended in but mine should have been
easy to see, being almost black. Anyway, he didn't see us and I dove
under him. To this day I don't know if he saw us.
Come to think about it, this particular flight with that crew chief was
almost my last. I'll tell later about how he saved both of our lives
and we ended up parking in someones back yard and spending the night in
the mountains near Hazard KY. But I can't type much any more. That story
is for another time.
--
boB
U.S. Army Aviation (retired)
Central Texas - 5NM West of Gray Army Airfield (KGRK)
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