VFR Club
| Briefing | Wednesday 25th January, 2012 |
| Overview | January's event is a pleasure
cruise through the Florida Keys. We will start at Key Largo (Bogart
movie night anyone?) and fly to Key West, for a spot of fishing Club members will find more information in the Events forum. |
| Start Time and Place | 19:30z on the
apron at Key Largo Ocean Reef Club, 07FA. For added benefit, set the time in your sim to about an hour before sunset. This will result in a sunset arrival at Key West, and no doubt lead to a lot of nice entries for the screenshot competition... |
| Departure and Duration | We will depart and fly individually or in small groups. The route is approximately 100 nm. Anticipate a flight time of about about an hour, depending on the speed of your aircraft. |
| Aircraft |
For this event you will need an
amphibious aircraft. Although we will be leaving from a regular runway,
our destination is definitely of the watery kind. For general advice on
flying and particularly landing seaplanes, see the following link:
http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/seaplanes/landings.htm |
| Weather ...or not | Before
starting we will check the weather. If it is unsuitable for our trip as
planned, then we will fix it. Something we can do in the simulator -
wouldn't it be nice if we could do it in real life! FSInn has a "CAVOK" button. Click this and you get calm clear weather. Those using SB will need to turn off the on-line weather updates, and select calm in the FS weather options. |
|
Charts and Scenery |
Charts for a number of
Bahamas airports are available here. Sectional charts are available on SkyVector and of
course there is always Plan-G. Caribbean scenery is available for both FS9 and FSX. For FSX, look for 'Caribbean Seaplane Tours'. For FS9 look for 'Freeflow Bahamas'. Both can be downloaded from flightsim.com. |
| Flight Plan | VATSIM Flight Plan: Departure = 07FA Destination = 61FD Route = CSP8 CSP3 EYW Comments = /V/ DAYLIGHT / CIX VFR CLUB / Altitude: VFR.  |
| Return Leg |
We've managed to negotiate a
club discount at one of the nicer hotels in the historic district, but
if you wish, you can head back through the keys, and maybe stop off at
some of the other seaplane bases. A suggested route and map is
included. (note: this is not compulsory) Suggested stopping off points
include:FA75 Flying Bonefish FA05 Holiday Isle 42FL Plantation key |
|
VOR Tracking |
The Instrument Flight
document in the Training section of the club web site contains a
section on VORs and how to use them. If you are unsure how to track a
VOR radial, download and have a look at this. The document covers the use of NDB and DME for direction and distance measurements as well. |
|
Radio Discipline |
Take care not to
let our Teamspeak chat cut across ATC. Stop any
conversation immediately the R/T comes alive, then continue if "he
wasn't talking to us". This is difficult because when transmitting on
Teamspeak you can't hear the R/T. So be brief on Teamspeak, and be
aware that ATC might be trying to get through. If anyone hears an R/T
message which seems to be being ignored, just say "ATC is calling
G-CIXN" if you have identified the callsign, or "ATC is calling us"
which is a cue for everyone to be quiet on Teamspeak until ATC call
again (which they will). Remember too that if asked to "Stand By" by
ATC, you do not reply - not even "Roger", but simply wait until you are
called again. Remember also that there are several different ATC frequencies in use, and you may not be able to hear when communications are taking place. Make sure you have set and know how to use a Teamspeak mute switch. |
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Version 1.1 - 23:15 ZULU 18/01/12 |