Such a long trip requires a fast and resourceful steed. And can I find a better choice than the legendary Douglas DC-3 ?
Arguably the most successful plane ever conceived, with 88 years of continuous service, more rugged and reliable than my old Austrian combat boots, a certain restrained elegance and very fun handling in the game.
And look at that cockpit ! These two large instruments are the interface of the A-3 gyroscopic autopilot, a basic autopilot used in WW2 aircraft. Needless to say, I won't be using it (if only because it's perky and bugged).
We have full comfort for the trip, so let's fire those Wright R-182 Cyclone engines and ride the thin air.
Clear left, clear right.
And here we are again above Launceston's hills, Mount Arthur's shape sitting on the horizon.
Northern Tasmania is mostly uneventful, safe for the small hill above called
Mount Horror ! Behind is
Little Mount Horror, which is kind of cute.
Once again the fertile plains recedes into familiar Tasmanian wilderness.
And once again we find the open ocean. A few thousand kilometers eastward lays New Zealand, but for now let's dive to the Bay of Fires, right in the middle of above screenshot.
Yeah, it's kind of orange I guess. We may need to check closer.
That'll do. Since we talk in the previous posts about how the "real" game looks, I included a few screenshots from lesser favorable angles in this report. So yeah, from close by it can look raw.
Climbing up we leave the Cape Naturaliste and its lakes. That's the last we'll see of Tasmania. Sayonara.
Very soon we find ourselves over the Lungatalanana Indigenous Reserve Island.
Then Truwana Island.
Then the large Flinders Island.
Passing between Mount Belstead and Mount Razorback in the Strzelecki National Park (this shit is going to turn me into some significant geography buff).
Banking towards the Flinders Island airport, one of my waypoints.
But very soon we're back against the blue sea. Next waypoint is the small Kent Group Islands, the largest being called Dead Island. And finally :
Australia coast looming shape !
This is the aforementioned Wilsons Promontory peninsula, highest peak Mount Latrobe.
The game UI was so good as to point a landmark there, zooming up we see the silhouette of a lighthouse cleverly named the Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse. Let's close by.
Couldn't manage to snap a better picture.
Let's resume the flight, over the isthmus.
Looks so flat and inhabited compared to savage Tasmania. This sand bank is called Sandy Point. Let's have a moment to think about Western explorers who had to come with a name for anything remotely interesting they stumbled upon.
Overflying Inverloch, eleventh waypoint. I like this shot.
Quiet plains. The island sitting in the bay on the left is called French Island.
What a nice flight. No turbulence. Easy landmarks. Good plane. Enough fuel. It's so good when all goes according to plan and shit doesn't decide to hit the fan all of a sudden.
Oh, about that :
THEN SHIT DECIDED TO HIT THE FAN ALL OF A SUDDEN.
Engines stopped.
Main tanks were empty.
I switched to auxiliary and restarted the engines.
Nothing happened.
I did it again and still nothing fucking happened and again while checking all the procedures on the internet and still no power and gliding down and again and down and again until FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT FUCK
I dedicate this screenshot to
Andnjord
I was down, in all but in spirit since I was
pissed.
After searching around, turns out the default DC-3 fuel selectors are bugged and can only feed the engines from the main fuel tanks. When they are on the "Off" position. Don't ask me.
Well, I was glad it wasn't my fault, and since it's but a game I managed to respawn, repair and refuel above my crash site and carried on. It was however a tad stressful, almost two hours into the flight, and while I was busy not dying the plane drifted in some random direction, so I was lost. In the end I cheated to identify some nice lake I found on my unplanned path :
That's the Cardinia Reservoir for you, straight East of Melbourne.
From there it was easy to reach the Maroondah reservoir, waypoint 12, this unassuming lake whose small size and steep surrounding made for a terrible navigation mark. But at last I was above Yarra Valley.
Looks good from above, looks even better on the internet pictures.
And finally :
Mount Disappointment.
No fucking comment.
Let's get over it.
Heading South.
Zooming in the Melbourne direction brings blurry textures and a hand-placed bridge that I may check next time.
Found the airstrip.
There actually was a bit of wind coming sideways, and I was getting tired.
Let's be honest, that was not my best landing.
But this plane can take a beating so it's not grass that'll stop the flight from being successful.
Phew.
Before
getting drunkresponsibly prepare next flight, the trace :
Was good for the most part. The weird loops and westward notch below the Yarra Valley marker are the unfortunate remnants of my crash.
You can notice some unsteady flight and a loop just before landing : I actually tried to home on the airport with the primitive radio-navigation equipment of the DC-3 but a mix of inexperience, tiredness and spacial disorientation made me hunt for the correct heading, and since I arrived to fast I flew a tight loop to bleed off speed.
But at last here we are. We have a continent to cross now.
