Completed Let's fly 650km in the Middle East, WW2 style

[Hag]

Alright, thanks for coming with me on this trip. I've been playing some DCS lately so I thought I'll share one of my flights. But, before we begin :

SEVERE AVIATION AUTISM INSIDE !​

You've been warned. Ok, let's go.

Today we're flying a TF-51D, the training version of the legendary P-51D Mustang of WW2 fame, a quality plane sporting advanced aerodynamics for its time with its modern low-drag laminar-flow wings and clever radiator design. It was known for its impressive range and high-altitude performance. The combat and training version are virtually identical and have the same engine, a licence-built Merlin. However the training version has no weapon but a backseat for the instructor or to bring some lucky guy along, which means there is no rear fuel tank, reducing range. Here's the beast :

I don't know why there's no livery but good enough. Fuel weight is set as 1105 lbs, which I believed was 132 US gal and planned accordingly, but I realized afterward each wing has a 90 gal tank. Hurray for imperial units. Luckily they did not bring tablespoons in that.

Here's today's map, the Syria one that I'm playing for free thanks to the generous DCS trial licenses :

We'll take off from Damascus and go sightseeing in Palmyra, before fleeing the desert heat to the seaside city of Latakia. From there we will go South to Tripoli's harbour before passing past Beirut to land at its magnificent airport.

Easy enough, right ? The thing is, I'm not gonna do it the easy way, using the game map as a GPS. I deactivated map markers altogether. This going to be a VFR flight, with full instruments use, if only because there are barely any landmarks in the Syrian desert and one can easily get lost in the sky. Good news is that the weather is perfect. I did try to set up random wind and so but in the end it stayed a wonderful day with unlimited visibility, perfect for flying and removing most of the challenge (even if, to be honest, it was my first time doing this much planning and instrument use and I was glad I could correct my course when needed because as you'll see, I had trouble with some data).


THE PLAN

It's a 5 legs journey :

1. Damascus -> Palmyra : heading 49° magnetic for 112 NM
2. Palmyra -> Latakia : 290° for 137 NM
3. Latakia -> Tripoli : 174° for 63 NM
4. Tripoli -> some point in the sea near Beirut : 204° for 38 NM
5. And from there I should be aligned with the most famous runway of Rafic Hariri International and go for landing.

Since I'm going full autist I can't simply plan with headings but I also need to know when I'm supposed to arrive at each point. Nowadays all airplanes are equipped with VOR receivers and TACAN and ILS and other electromagnetic bullshit but our glorious TF-51 in all its 40s technology carries none of this nonsense but the most advanced tool of all : a clock.

So we have distances, we want time, we need speed. Internet being wonderful when it's not busy destroying humanity I stumbled upon this document :

Real life P-51 charts. Let's use them, see how well DCS match reality.

Whole trip length is 350 NM. I thought I had 132 gal of fuel inboard so I planned to spend 100 to be on the safe side. Therefore I went with the third column : 100 gal -> 400 NM. I decided that :

• First leg of the trip would be at 5000 ft, so expected speed 305 MPH : for 112 NM we get a 22 minutes flight,
• Second leg of the trip I'll climb at 15k and maintain 350 MPH : for 137 NM it's 24 minutes,
• Third leg 10k, 325 MPH : we'll cover 63 NM in 12 minutes.
• The fourth leg is very short and Beirut being a huge landmark I did not bother planning it.
• As of the landing I plan to go without crashing in a ball of fire.

So this is really a navigation challenge, the caveat being that the TF-51 is an old plane. It has no autopilot. It has trim, but also manual fuel management : you have to select the wing tank from which the engine will drink. And as the tank empties, it becomes lighter, and therefore the plane has one wing lighter than the other and starts to roll, so you always have to correct its attitude and course. In the same way, you can't force it to stay level and it will gladly go up and down. Did I mention that having the aircraft roll also makes it pitch downward ?
So yeah, maintaining course is a slow but constant work. You needs to maintain speed to have the right time of arrival, bearing to go to the right direction, and ideally altitude to use recommended engine parameters.

Also I'm flying on my trusty but battered Xbox gamepad with sticks so weathered I have around 15% deadzones, making light corrections very difficult. Yay !

So now we're ready to go. Will I see the fable ruins of Palmyra ? Will I get lost in the desert and need to be rescued by a courageous camel herder ? Will I crash on take off ? Stay tuned for vintage aviation !

 

[Hag]

So here is our sky stallion in all its glory. I set up a start on the runway with the engine already running because of convenience, as the TF-51 takes seconds to start but is a bitch to move on the ground because of poor forward visibility and the need to use differential braking. So fuck it.

Let's look inside our steed :

On the floor we see the left wing fuel gauge, and behind the flight stick the tank selector, set to LH (left).

We set the heading on the GPS compass to 49.

Takeoff trim to 6 on the rudder an +2 on the elevators.

Blabla all the switches are already set up. LETS GO.

It's hot as in a camel's ass so let's open the canopy, RPM lever full forward, we push the throttle and...

Easy peasy.
Next, as planned, we need to climb to 5000 ft, set our speed to 305 MPH and fly for 22 minutes heading 49. Note that for convenience I decided to use my phone stopwatch to time the flight, which may have been a good idea since the plane's clock looks bugged and keeps turning when the game is paused.

To prevent a wrong start I fly an orbit around the airport to gain speed and altitude.

And now we're all set up.

Heading and speed ok, a tad too high but I'm still at full military power. According to the chart on the first post I should set my RPMs at 2200 and throttle to have a manifold pressure of 40. Let's do it.

Ok, all set.

It's quiet up here, and barren down there.

I quickly notice that flying the plane at nominal speed and engine settings brings me at 4k ft instead of 5k. But it's stable.

Not much to see in the desert.

There's a town and a ridge. Let's check the map :

Yep, we're on course. And looking to starboard we indeed see Sharqiyah Mine :

At one moment I switch the active fuel tank :

And after a long and uneventful flight :

It's the Palmyra's airport !

And at the 22 minutes mark I bank the plane :

Not bad, only missing a couple milles.

So let's do that sightseeing ! Why else would I have come to Palmyra ? The beaches ? Ha ! Time to dive and scare the shit out of tourists and trees :

And with that done let's climb to 15k ft. The sea awaits us.

 

[Hag]

So, here comes the longest and most difficult part of the flight, since we need to climb to 15k ft AND maintain speed over 300MPH. Here it is on the map :

First let's set our new heading :

Now that we've wrecked our flight parameters by doing low level zooming let's do another orbit around Palmyra to regain altitude :

And we're off !

This part was very painful. I couldn't seem to find the right balance to have the correct speed and altitude. Climbing took a while and fucked up my airspeed :

At 15k ft I couldn't reach 300 MPH by any stretch. Plus I was reaching the limit of the first stage of the engine's supercharger and even running full throttle didn't bring any more power. In retrospect I should have forced the supercharger in second stage to get a much needed boost, since I was a couple thousand feet away from its automatic kick in anyway.

But all that made me run much slower than intended. I did not recalculate time and rolled with it, since visibility was superb anyway.

Which is good since I forgot to align the attitude indicator on the ground and spent the flight with this kind of disaster:

So with all my struggling I did not take many pictures of the desert. Not that there were much too see anyway. But slowly it was getting greener :

And then :

THALASSA ! THALASSA !

And Latakia and its harbour, our waypoint. Did you know Latakia was Syria's largest port ? Here it is described in Strabo's Geographica:

It is a city most beautifully built, has a good harbour, and has territory which, besides its other good crops, abounds in wine. Now this city furnishes the most of the wine to the Alexandreians, since the whole of the mountain that lies above the city and is possessed by it is covered with vines almost as far as the summits. And while the summits are at a considerable distance from Lāŏdĭcḗa, sloping up gently and gradually from it, they tower above Apameia, extending up to a perpendicular height.

The Bassel Al Assad airport at the South of the city :

And the 24 minutes timer went off :

I'm way off, missing maybe 15 NM, which would have been a disaster in low visibility condition.

But here we are at last, enjoying this nice view while we're turning toward Tripoli.

 

[Andnjord]

I vote for the crash in the middle of the desert.

 

[Hag]

Good Lord, those reports take forever to write.

Where were we ?

Ah, yes, after some bland desert crossing we now can indulge in some light seafaring. This game does look good.

We're on the third leg on this journey and still kicking, time to head 174° for 63NM. Notice on the above screencap that I'm flying over the ocean and not over the harbour, which was my reference point for the bearings. Surely this won't bear consequences.

We're passing again the Bassel al Assad airport :

What's this cute little port ?

It's Tartus !
Not much to say about it, it's a port that holds a small Russian base. It also has some old buildings from the Crusades or something.

But what's this island to port now ?

Let's check the map.

Oops.

So because we flew way off the coast of Latakia, we've arrived way off the coast of Tripoli. Perfect planning, perfect execution.

Quick fuel check :

A third remaining, only 40NM to go, we good.

So let's set course to Tripoli, with a heading bound to be off since we're several Miles away at sea.

But here we are at last ! Let's celebrate !

This dramatic celebration turn did cost me a brief loss of control of the plane and several thousand feet of altitude.

Before moving on to the last part, you won't dodge the flight model discussion. Nominal parameters from the chart were 10k ft high, 325 MPH fast, at 2200RPM and 40Hg of manifold pressure. I ran at 2500 RPM at 9.5k, around target speed.
For all three courses we've run at 5k, 10k an 15k the chart parameters seem correct but for an altitude lower than expected. So either the flight model if off, either the TF-51 did have a different handling from the P-51D (but for all things she should be lighter, around 400 lb less if I can trust both DCS and wikipedia, so it doesn't make sense), or the chart was established during a way different meteorological condition than this hot summer day (but I guess that if the chart doesn't mention it then it should not make that much difference).

So probably the flight model is off. Still, it is impressive and very nice to be able to use real documents on the aircraft and get decent results.

 

[Hag]

Arriving at Tripoli we've quit Syria and entered Lebanon.

Tripoli, "City of Knowledge and Scholars", center of the eponymous Crusader state where the Krak des Chevaliers was built (and now that I know that I'll have to check whether it is modelled in-game), and Europe's gate to all of Orient treasures under the Mamluks. We're almost done, let's not try to fuck it up now.

Good bye Tripoli !

The region gets noticeably greener.

Look at that :

Beirut is already appearing in front of us.

Back to our first engine parameters, once again a tad too low.

This was a long flight, now we need to get home.

That's where we're landing.

A quick look at flaps chart. Everything is going to go very fast from now.

RPM at 1500, throttle low.

Flaps down one notch.

Hi Beirut !

Flaps down one notch.

Gear lever, flaps down.

Gear down.

Flaps full down, kill the throttle.

Yes, I'm coming in way too high.

THIS IS HOW WE LIKE TO LAND IN THE NAVY

This. Is. Awful. Terrible flare. Too late (look at that huge vertical speed, I'm falling like a brick, this is a very good crash in waiting).

TOO LATE I AAAAH

It is now missing a couple screenshots because I was to busy recovering just in time, but overspeeding, making me bounce on the runway.
Nothing serious though, good to see my training paid off.

And here we are.

Not a single burst tire.

*Phew*

Now let's park.

Ok, but where ?

Not here.

Yes, that'll do.

Mixture setting : Idle Cutoff
Fuel shut off : off
Attitude thingy : caged
Battery and generator : disconnected.

Victory !

And that's all for today. Thank you for coming with me on this trip.

Nothing's more pleasant than a mission going according to plan.

 

[Hag]

Something that I like in DCS compared to civilian flight sims is how unforgiving it is. In MSFS or X-plane, if you fuck up the landing you'll bounce off in the grass or have a little message "you crashed". In DCS even a slight overspeed can burst your tires, your gear can collapse, and it is very easy to end a one hour flight in a burning plane with no gear IF YOU'RE LUCKY. Really makes you feel you're in control of a dangerous flying machine going very fast where lots of things can go very wrong very quickly.

 

[Andnjord]

Okay, but all you had to do was to follow the coast, that was too easy.

Next you need to fly from Iceland to Thule( sorry it’s Pituffik Space Base now) for some proper instrument based flying.

 

[Hag]

Okay, but all you had to do was to follow the coast, that was too easy.

Next you need to fly from Iceland to Thule( sorry it’s Pituffik Space Base now) for some proper instrument based flying.

I actually wouldn't mind, but there is not map for that. But there is the Mariana's one that is just some islands scattered in the ocean. Maybe i'll try a circuit with waypoints in open water, see if I can come back on my feet.

 

[Modron]

I remember some codexer saying they used 2TBs of satelite images to retexture the spanish coast in a MSFS game half a decade back, kind of wish he posted some screenshots of it.

 

[Hag]

I remember some codexer saying they used 2TBs of satelite images to retexture the spanish coast in a MSFS game half a decade back, kind of wish he posted some screenshots of it.

Ah yes, the good old Burning Bridges.

Looks stunning though. I'm not gonna do any expense on this flight sim business since I don't expect to continue playing for long, but I must say doing cross-country flight in x-plane looks positively exciting for the airplane nerd I am.

 

[Hag]

Also re-reading my notes from yesterday's flight I see I've burned 120 out of 180 gallons of fuel, which is way higher than the 100 expected. Maybe this account for take-off and the huge climb I've done after fooling around in Palmyra.

On other exciting news, I found a complete flight manual for the P-51D with similar charts as the one already posted, but much more conservative on range and speed. Also realized the TAS speed indicated on the chart was the absolute one and not the instrument one, so maybe I was not flying that badly. New chart has IAS, should be easier to follow :

This calls for more trials !

 

[Andnjord]

Brings back memories of little kiddie me fooling around on Combat Flight Simulator 1. All I could do of course was point the nose of the plane vaguely in the direction of the AI bombers and spray unlimited rockets, but it was fun.

 

[Hag]

Combat Flight Simulator 1 was great. I remember taking the huge game manual with me on holidays.

Now I want to fly a Bf-109. I heard it really was a pilot plane, very peculiar to fly efficiently. Maybe I'll fire the trial license on the DCS module when I'll be done with my TF-51 performance measurements.

 

[Hag]

So as expected I've taken the TF-51 for another (hopefully figurative) spin with two objectives : trying out the new chart, and checking the legendary Krak fortess.

For the first mission, I am pleased to report the chart and the flight model match perfectly :

Altitude 15k, 285 MPH, 2500 RPM and full throttle. perfect. Same with 5k and 10k. Good job to the DCS devs.

As for our medieval history field trip, I set too broad of a heading and didn't planned my course precisely enough, so I managed to get completely lost running around the wrong lakes for 15 minutes wondering wtf was going on. I figured it out when trying to reach the closest airport and realizing it was not the good one. So much for my legendary navigation skills. But afterward it was just a matter of coming back to the right area and :

And coming back to land, there were two runway so I randomly chose the closest one. Turns out it was a taxiway.

Still probably my best landing so far. Hopefully there are other landmarks to check in the area.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I like flight sims because the autism of the hardcore playerbase is an autism that transcends the usual autism. These people don't have trouble getting their point across or reading the meaning of ambiguous social signals because they simply don't care. There is only one reality for them: the airplane. Fuel gauges, altitude meters, barometers, g-forces, a million other tiny little things read off indicators inside the cockpit, all else is immaterial. God bless you, plane sim autists

 

[Hag]

It's not an easy life. Nobody gets it. I'm not hardcore by any mean yet (if anything I'm restraining myself, I don't even have a joystick), but there is something soothing about flying. Last year I've been lucky to go sailing twice and I really enjoyed being helmsman. Sitting, one hand on the tiller, and nothing to do but checking the compass and correcting the course. It was at the same time very tranquil, since there is not much to do and you can enjoy the scenery, and a constant attention since the ship is always drifting and you need to keep an eye on traffic and sea marks. Plus once in a while you need to do some maneuver and have to act quickly and precisely with the other guys.

Those navigation exercises in DCS bring a virtual but similar experience. Always something to do, to check (including the view), and the wonderful feeling when preparation and precision bring results.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Yes, I'm finding this thread worryingly interesting.

 

[Hag]

Well, DCS base game with two maps and two planes is free to play, which is very fair from the developers since it may be the most complete flight sim ever made. And you can play it ok with any gamepad (not tried combat though). It's worth a try if you have any interest in flight sims (and you have enough storage ready on SSD).

 

[Andnjord]

Look at you, offering our curious Strange Fellow his first, free taste of the flight sim like a drug dealer on a corner next to a college at the beginning of the academic year.

 

[Vic]

But can you bomb Japan?

 

[Hag]

It is this time again.

Here's the deal, I take off from Beirut to reach Cyprus :

A 4 legs mission above the sea (well, 5, but the first one is to climb and take on speed so it doesn't count). No landmark. No radar. No GPS. Only a paper sheet with those scribblings :

T.A.S. (total air speed : 315MPH)

1. 198° - 17NM
2. 264° - 120 NM - 22m50s
3. 340° - 44NM - 8m24s
4. 297° - 48NM - 9m10s
5. 050° - 38NM - 7m15s

I.A.S. : 270MPH
Cruise : 2400RPM - 38Hg

So I need to keep the azimuth for the planned time at the correct speed. What can go wrong ? (spoiler : quite a lot).

Before starting review of the trip, here is one of the issues I encountered :

I completely forgot that I set some fucked up wind in the mission editor for a previous flight, so I had to deal with almost 100km/h wind at time. What a stupid game. I only realized it mid-flight so I rolled with it and flew sideways on a number of occasions.

 

[Andnjord]

Oooh, this is gonna be good.

 

[Hag]

I also forgot that I set up a 4-man flight previously so meet the lucky guys who risked their life following me at sea :

Take-off was difficult (there was a hefty breeze pushing me sideways) but all went well and soon I reached the town of Saida that was the mark to turn West toward the vast Mediterranea :

All was good.

The other guys caught up :

I'm not gonna post dozens of screens of dials and gauges and infinite sea, suffice to say that :
- My plane was flying way to fast and to keep the IAS I had to climb up. Turns out there was 100km/h of wind blowing on my ass. On the moment I was too busy flying to think about it, but since I climbed up quite a bit and ended at 20k feet instead of 10, my TAS (the real speed) went up from 315 to 370 MPH. Funny how obvious it seems in retrospect.
- At one moment I paused the game to do whatever but forgot to pause the timer. There will be no further comment on this one.
- I discovered there was two heading instruments in the cockpit : the magnetic compass, my main navigation instrument where I set my target azimuth, and a directional gyro which only gives the current heading. On one way the latter always works even during turns so it's good. On the other I have around 9° mismatch between the two instruments. Further investigation is required.

So yeah 45 minutes later here I was :

The target airport is the faint black line in the distance, along the coast, below the tip of a cloud. Let's check on the map :

Missed the airport by 11 NM. I was disappointed at first but when after realizing I had to deal with the wind AND a wrong speed it is acceptable. So to vent I went to do some crest flight along the Northern ridge of Cyprus :

Interestingly I encountered strong turbulence along the top, which is realistic and reminded me of my limited paragliding experience, however I didn't noticed any increase in vertical speed (IRL when wind hits relief it is pushed upwards and may give enough vertical energy to glide on it).

I then turned around toward Nicosia, passing past one of my slower colleague :

Nicosia does have some remarkable buildings :

But I did not linger after this long and tiring flight and went to a peaceful landing. You can trust me on that one. It was perfect, 5/5 great ace, no way the wind blowing straight to my side was any problem.

Textbook landing

Well, to be honest, I was awful, I had to fly sideways and keep the nose of the plane looking far to the left of the runway and despite a decent approach given the conditions I stalled right before touchdown and crashed.

So onto next time, when I will remember to check whether there is a hurricane before going on a trip. Thank you for following my adventures.

 

[Andnjord]

What a disappointment, I was hoping you would steer too much west and miss Cyprus altogether.

I demand a landing on an aircraft carrier next, your targets are way too easy to find.