Turnip Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 FSX AI Traffic FTX Radar Contact vectoring AI Traffic along with everyone else. You Decide! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurdy Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 Bloody close to Nirvana ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macca22au Posted August 19, 2008 Share Posted August 19, 2008 Hey Turnip given your by-line I thought maybe you would have called it Heaven. But heaven or nirvana, Australians flying Australia have just about the perfect experience. Outsiders will be slightly restricted because they won't know the geography, whereas we look for it, and can find it so superbly rendered. I know that there can never be perfection on earth, but when all the planned improvements and airports arise the gap between the here and now and heavenly perfection will be even closer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turnip Posted August 19, 2008 Author Share Posted August 19, 2008 I'll tell ya what macca. When PNW is released and you have questions on the geography, I'll be happy to return the favor and answer them for ya. You are correct in the fact that while blue and gold are great, I can't help but wonder what it would be like to actually know what it is I'm flying over. Keep the dirty side down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macca22au Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 I spent a year in Victoria BC and flew a C172 way past Portland, and north to Nanaimo and across to Hope. I love the area, and although my knowledge is not really good, I feel very much at home flying from Vic, or Friday Harbour, or Paine and just enjoying the great UTX and GenX experience. But you have hundreds of small landing fields, so I seek your advice on the best to explore, and the best routes to take. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macca22au Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Hey Turnip. I've just found your airport on Google Earth. The 'Welcome to Spanaway' painted on the runway is a nice touch. You are very close to McChord AFB so you must have a great view of a lot of leading edge military aircraft, and of course Sea-Tac isn't far away either. What are the usual sort of GA flights do you take out of Spanaway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turnip Posted August 20, 2008 Author Share Posted August 20, 2008 The Spanaway airport is actually in the class D airspace of McChord. We must stay under 1000Ft MSL while entering and exiting the pattern. Also, the pattern dictates that you must stay on the east side of the runway at all times. So 34 would be a right pattern and 16 a left. A typical flight to the west would encompass a mid field crossing of McChord. I contact McChord right after departure, tell them I am out of Spanaway and requesting a mid field crossing to the west. Once I cross and get a frequency change, it is VFR from there unless I want to enter Tacoma Narrows Airport which is class C. One of the places we go is to the Bremerton airport for fish and chips. The best in the Pacific Northwest we think. I haven't been there in quite awhile as they have put up zones around the Bremerton shipyard due to 9-11. You gotta watch your ass when around that area. Another flight we do is over to Hoquiam by the coast. There is a small resturaunt in there called LANA'S. They have real ice cream shakes there. Just before Hoquiam, there is the Elma airport. You can stop in there and get a 1 pound hamburger. We have to de-fuel the plane after eating it because the runway is short. Also, the runway is like a cow pasture with asphalt poured over it. Very bad. You need to be doing some "pilot stuff" to get in there. Another flight we do is go down to McMinville Oregon to see the Spruce Goose. In a 172 or Skipper, it takes about 1.5 hours. Finally, a great flight is to go up to Snohomish County aitport. They have a BUZZ INN Steak house there. We get a chicken fried steak, sit out on the deck and just watch. They have hot air ballons, skydivers, helos and planes all taking off and landing at the same time. It's quite a show. And of course there's always the obligatory flight to scrape snowballs off the side of Mt. Rainier. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macca22au Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 Thanks for that Turnip, I am going to give them a try out, but not for a few weeks. I am off to Sweden today. A Thai airways 777 out of Melbourne, 10 hours to Bangkok and then a 747 for 12 hours into Stockholm. In two weeks I do the return from Heathrow to Melbourne. The only consolation my boss puts me up front. Judicious applications of alcohol and a lie down bed will help past the time. From here to there we chase the sun, so its pretty well dark all the way. Its a tragedy since 9/11 that we can't get up front anymore. I used to send my pilot's licence up to the office, and for 20 years I enjoyed some great jump seat flying - including landings and take-offs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macca22au Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 And I certainly do recall that there was hardly an airfield without a decent restaurant. I'd almost forgotten chicken fried steak, love it. Because of our much smaller populations its rare to find an eatery at a small airfield here in Aus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turnip Posted August 21, 2008 Author Share Posted August 21, 2008 WOW That's a LOOOONG flight. The only real long flight I had was from New York to Madrid. 747-200 back in 1979. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macca22au Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 If you live in Australia its a long way to almost everywhere. So long haul flying is pretty standard for us. But I'm getting old and sitting up in cattle-class is just too much. Many Australians also break their journeys in Singapore, Bangkok, Abu Dahbi, Tokyo, or Hong Kong and get a night's sleep before the next leg. There are some really good airport hotels in these places these days, so you don't have to leave the precinct, in some cases the terminal. Worst I ever did. Sydney to New York arriving at night, a long day's meeting, and back on the plane to return to Aus that night. Heroic? No stupid. I couldn't and wouldn't do it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurdy Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 Furthest my boss sends me is to the post box Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernief Posted August 21, 2008 Share Posted August 21, 2008 I once flew from Lima in Peru to Perth Western Australia via Buenos Aries, Auckland and Sydney. Flew in an MD80, B747-400 and 737-400. Took a total of 53 hours travel time. The worst part was arriving in Buenos Aries at 5:00 am and leaving at 1:30 am the next day. I stayed at the airport the whole time, it would have cost US$100.00 to get into the city from the airport and back and probably double that for a hotel for the day to try a get some sleep. I doubt whether I would have got much sleep anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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