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Post by kronzky on Jul 5, 2013 15:26:54 GMT -5
Ok — the gauntlet is down! First leg completed, with some scary moments (those treetops got dangerously close), but luckily no scrapes. The last part over the open water was perhaps a bit boring, but what do they say about flying: "Hours of boredom, with moments of terror!" When I do another course I will probably avoid stretches like that, but I didn't realize until today how long that final part actually was (I had always only tested it either with autopilot or on "fast-forward"). But, you live and you learn, and you (hopefully) improve... So, here's the score:
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Post by kronzky on Jul 6, 2013 16:40:58 GMT -5
Leg 2 done. Not much exciting to report — just lots of flat water, and a pretty short beach... But the interesting stuff is just ahead of us! P.S. I just realized, when I was checking my post-flight fuel, that I had a stowaway on board!!! I guess when I saved my flight for this leg I forgot to remove the passenger, so I was flying with 170lbs of dead weight on board. So I kicked him out at the beach, and will continue the race by myself. ( Just in case somebody might be wondering why my plane all of a sudden will be so much lighter on the next leg.)
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Post by dangerousdave26 on Jul 6, 2013 17:36:08 GMT -5
LOL I planned otherwise. I purposely left in the passenger, baggage, and rifle. This is Alaska after all and it can get pretty dangerous real fast.
Besides the wife gets upset when I leave her at home.
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Post by kronzky on Jul 11, 2013 18:01:32 GMT -5
Another leg with serious ground fog. One second you got perfect sunshine, and then, when you're ready to land, you see NOTHING... So I had to have full trust in my GPS, and it did bring me home ok after all:
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Post by kronzky on Jul 17, 2013 15:37:07 GMT -5
I think on future races we will have to radically lower the altitude limits, to prevent these super straight paths that are still possible. (That kind of "drag-strip" racing isn't really representative of bush flying.)
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teson1
Commercial Pilot
Posts: 243
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Post by teson1 on Jul 19, 2013 12:21:23 GMT -5
Your track is just good optimisation of the flight path. That's what the race is about.
No problem here with a straight flight path from time to time, as long as it goes through interesting scenery and has a nice landing t the end. In fact I quite enjoyed the second leg of this race , as it provided a change from the precious ones.
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Post by kronzky on Jul 19, 2013 14:10:39 GMT -5
Definitely no drag-racing on the last leg! This was a good one, that took some real flying skills. Always within a band of about 100', either scraping the treetops or the ground (I may have actually touched the ground a few times — or at least kicked up some serious dust), or hitting the ceiling, with sharp turns and obstacles all over the place. So that was a pretty good ending, I thought...
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Post by dangerousdave26 on Jul 19, 2013 23:11:38 GMT -5
In Google Earth it definitely looks like tree top level.
Good show.
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