FSX (and my first great FS adventure)

[BlackRider]

I thought there was already a thread for this but I didn't find it. So here's my new one.

I've been getting bored of all my current games and nothing new seems the least bit interesting... so I started going through all my old games and FSX was the one that stuck.

Mostly I've been (re)familiarizing myself with the aircraft and ATC. I did a few touch and goes in a 172 and then jumped straight into the Lear 45. Not one to ever worry about baby steps, I immediately set out from Cincinnati with the end goal of Tokyo, Japan. The first hop was Lunken (Cincinnati) to JFK in New York. This was rather uneventful except for coming within 1/2 a mile of a Bombardier CRJ700 towards the eastern end of Pennsylvania. After stopping only long enough to refuel (max load ~6000lbs of fuel) I take off with the goal of London. I realize how ambitious this was when I'd used almost 75% of that while still over Newfoundland! Rather than be reasonable and find a place to fuel in Canada, I push on to Greenland. With warning buzzers driving me crazy and only fumes left in the wing tanks and a couple hundred pounds of fuel left in the fuselage, I catch sight of Greenland and a small airfield that is listed as carrying jet fuel. It's also listed as an uncontrolled airfield, so I tune to the local frequency, announce my position, and later announce that I'm on final. I make a rough landing and taxi directly to the fueling station. I was well after midnight and a short rest was in order.
However, the moment the tanks were topped off I taxied and launched my Learjet back into the sky less than a minute behind an east bound CRJ700. Rather than find a map or learn to use the GPS, I decided to follow the Bombardier and watch the sun rise from 25,000ft. Watching Iceland pass to the left I ran off for a bag of munchies. By the time I got back to the controls Scotland was just visible on the horizon! I had a great time watching Britain scroll by underneath me and before I realized it I was just 75 miles from London. Here was my most entertaining landing yet. I was directed into London City airport from the west. I was directed to follow the Thames and fly frighteningly close to rather tall buildings and then land on a runway that was entirely too narrow and WAY too short for my limited abilities. My first attempt saw me carrying too much speed and me having to push the throttles forward once I realized that I was going to run off the far side of the runway. The next time around I made good use of my spoilers & flaps and actually managed to put the plane down on the numbers... a feat I rarely manage.
After fueling in London I made a quick hop to Paris, but en route came the scariest encounter of my trip thus far. A sleepy ATC controller directed me within 200ft of a Boeing 737! We actually perfectly overlapped except for the 200ft difference in altitude. That definitely woke me up enough for my landing in Paris and almost immediate (refueled again) departure for Rome. The trip to Rome was all sight seeing and no drama. However Rome is all the further I got in my 2 day adventure... but tomorrow I set out for Cairo!

I think I'll start a flight log and keep a photo album of my journey. I'm really starting to like the Lear 45, but once I hit Cairo I think I'll trade it in on a Cessna Citation X that I just downloaded. With more than twice the fuel capacity, I wonder if I can hit Hong Kong from Cairo.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Real Learjet Pilots lean to the inside of the jet.

Sounds like you had quite the little adventure.

[XMEN Gambit]

I saw this the other day on ATC and thought I'd post it here, as a nod to Spinning Hat. And since it fits in with the FS, here goes.

How Air Traffic Control works:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/201 ... ontrol.ars

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Gambit, you forgot that if you are at JFK, you have a "bring your kid to play with the planes day" at work.

Also, it's a good thing it wasn't Demolition Monday.

Also wake turbulence (AKA vortex dynamics) was one of my favorite topics in grad school. It was the only non-plasma / gas dynamics topic that really captured my attention. I could go on and on about Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities (two fluids, different densities, mixing phenomena), and the Kelvin-Helmholtz theorem, as well as the vorticity equation.

All of the work in turbulence is applicable to the real world beyond airplanes (cars, making food, electronics manufacturing, shear-thickening fluids, etc.) Basically anything in the real world that has mixing has some turbulence.

[Spinning Hat]

I'm not sure where that author was from, but the name of the "Area Control Center" is incorrect. It may be called that other places, so it may have been written for a different audience. Funny thing , is the article was so dry, and without any life, it almost made me rethink my career.. LOL! He was able to take my job and make it sound incredibly boring.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Wait a sec!

I thought that article was the exciting, heart-pounding side of air traffic control!

[Spinning Hat]

Ahh.. No. It was written like it was a book report for a 5th grade class. ATC isn't a glamorous job, but it has it's share of tense minutes (or hours) that's hard to convey. You'd never think you'd get sweaty and short of breath after a very busy session working, but you do, and you feel like you just ran a marathon in 1.5 hours. It's crazy, and fun, and demanding all at the same time.

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

SH, there were times during tests at Edwards where I had that same feeling. If anyone were to come into the room, they'd sense the tension, but wonder why we were all looking at a screen with a few numbers on it. On rare occasions an aircraft would have ordinance hung up in its bomb bay (on hydraulic cables for example), and we'd hear OPS and the range talk to them over the radios at the OPS desk. Nothing like contemplating what would happen to an aircraft (a highly valuable one at that), that landed on the lakebed with live/armed ordinance that's basically balanced precariously on some rubber tubes.

I'd imagine your job will be much more stressful though. Since it's more lives, all the time, and you have the best situational awareness of the whole picture. Gets me a bit stressed just thinking about what it would be like.

[Spinning Hat]

I guess in some strange way, that's why I want to do this job. I was talking with the lead developer of the ATSAT and she has done other tests and studies on Air Traffic Control applicants, and studied people who took her tests, and how they performed in their jobs, and she told our group that on standard tests like the MMPI and stuff that controllers score well above the 'normal' range on those tests, and they had to raise the bar in terms of what was 'normal' for an Air Traffic Controller. (Meaning, we're all crazy to some extent, but in a good way.) I've had a supervisor here at the Academy basically say they look for people with a touch of ADD but not so much that you need pills.. (Which disqualifies you medically..)

I have to say, that this is one of the coolest and fun jobs I've ever had. I don't mind getting up at the crack of dawn to be to work, and I like the stress of working in the labs, with the end goal in sight. The training is unlike anything I have ever experienced. If you would have taken our class and just thrown us in the lab without the last 2 weeks worth of training, it wouldn't be pretty... But they have a way of taking you from zero knowledge to competent with moderate traffic flows in very little time. This isn't for everyone, but for those that can do it, I think enjoy it immensely. Besides, what other job can you have where you're responsible for more lives by lunch than most Hospitals are in the whole year?