Month: March 2025

I’ve been flying for over 50 years and as a natural extension of that I’ve been involved with flight simulators for many years. These have been PC based, of course, although many years ago (late 80s or possibly early 90s, I can’t remember) I was let loose on a full motion simulator used by airline pilots at British Caledonian (remember them?) and successfully shot the Checkerboard approach at Hong Kong and landed a McDonnell Douglas DC10 at the old Kai Tak airport. This really was one of the highlights of my flying career.

The first PC flight sim that I got hold of was Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 (MSFS 2002) and I had a lot of fun with that even though the ‘flying’ experience left much to be desired compared to the real thing. As I was doing quite a bit of graphics work and web design for my business at that time it was pretty natural that I eventually got into creating and designing flight simulator stuff.

I didn’t get into creating aircraft models although I did quite a few livery ‘repaints’ and aerodynamic tweeking that I uploaded for others to download from the internet and my most successful project was a Kai Tak airport scenery package that enabled sim pilots to land there long after it had been closed and demolished for which there were many thousands of downloads from all over the world. I then went onto MSFS2004 and eventually MSFSX before losing interest.

My interest was rekindled with a non-Microsoft flight simulator, X-Plane 11. This was haled by many, although not by me, as being a flying experience that was much closer to real life. I regarded that then, as now, as just hype as all of the ‘cockpit interiors’ of the type of aircraft that I wanted to fly looked crude compared to the real things and to make it worse, the outside views were as far from realistic as you could imagine.

Nevertheless I decided to use the time when I was sick and receiving chemo in 2017/2018 and couldn’t fly for real to get back into scenery design again and at that time created two highly realistic X-Plane 11 sceneries for two local airfields. These were Figeac-Livernon, which I uploaded, and Ste-Foy-la-Grande, which I didn’t bother to, although it too was highly detailed and realistic. The reason for the latter was that the X-Plane ‘terrain mesh’ close to the airfield had a huge bump in it that isn’t there in real life and couldn’t be corrected, so although I also made a scenery for Castillonnes, where I gained my French ULM licence at, I lost interest once again in flight simulators.

That was until the end of last year. Microsoft got out of PC flight simulators after a couple of abortive replacements for MSFSX and the word was that they would have no further interest in them. However, rumours began to circulate and there were leaks that another new simulator was being developed in conjunction with a partner, Asobo Studios in France, and this was eventually launched as MSFS2020 in 2020 to commemorate 40 years since Microsoft launched their first flight sim. I acquired a copy last October/November after yet another upgrade, MSFS2024, had hit the market and it was thought interest would wane in its predecessor.

This hasn’t happened, mainly because teething troubles are still being experienced with MSFS2024, but for now I’m happy with the older version. The reason is that it is now incredibly close to real life in almost all aspects of the flying experience, the more so because the sim can be enjoyed in Virtual Reality (VR). This means that the pilot can be placed inside a VR world and be ‘inside’ looking out of the aircraft they are ‘flying’. The outside view is staggering and close to real life (and is even closer to real life, I’m told, in MSFS2024, although I haven’t as yet tried it) because what they have done is scan the whole Google Earth/Bing Maps world with artificial intelligence (AI) and then recreated it in the flight sim.

Trees and vegetation (of the correct biomes) have been placed exactly where they are in real life, and although AI can’t tell exactly what a building looks like at ground level from looking down from above, it takes a pretty good guess. And for particular points of interest and major towns and cities, buildings etc have been modelled accurately in 3D so flying over them is just like the real thing. So you can fly over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House from your chair at home, fly through the buildings and skyscrapers of London and Manhatten, land and take off at all the major airports of the world and much, much more depending where your imagination takes you to. You can even find your own house and those of your neighbours.

All this perked up my attention and pretty soon I started thinking about scenery design again. Much has now changed, of course, because technology has moved on, but I was intrigued to see if the computer models that I’d created for my X-Plane 11 Figeac-Livernon scenery could be ‘ported over’ into MSFS2020. Many wise heads on the internet said they couldn’t, the main reason being that the computer modelling software I’d used (Sketchup) was not compatible with MSFS2020, which requires designers to use a system called Blender.

I and many others have found Blender to be an incredibly capable app but very difficult and time-consuming to get into and learn and complete over-kill for the sort of modelling we wanted to do. Many also said that it just wasn’t possible. But they’re wrong and it is. After many hours of work I’ve found a way to do it and the first major project that I did was recreate the Figeac-Livernon scenery I’d made for X-Plane 11 in MSFS2020. It’s great and actually looks a whole level better in the newer sim.

I’ve also gone on to make more MSFS2020 sceneries concentrating on the airfields that I fly into and out of in real life. French designers have already created excellent sceneries for several that I’m interested in (including Ste-Foy-la-Grande and Castillonnes for example) so I’ve turned my attention closer to home and have been working on Malbec, my home airfield, Galinat (wrongly named in the sim), Condat (also wrongly named) and Mauzens, a new field opened by Phillipe who used to be based at Malbec.

After many hours of work, which involved a steep climb up the learning curve, I’ve just finished the scenery for Malbec and taken a series of shots with a British microlight/ULM call a MW6. This was a basic second generation ‘tube and fabric’ model designed by Mike Whittaker with characteristics much like those of my old X-Air and AX3 Weedhoppers and I’ve tweeked its aerodynamics so it performs very closely to those aircraft. Below are the shots in question and I’ve thrown in a few real life shots for comparison purposes so you can see how close the scenery is to the real Malbec.

So just how good is the scenery? Admittedly, the shots won’t mean much per se except for readers who know and have been to Malbec, of which there are a few. I’m very happy with it and with its slope and short runway, it requires the same degree of precision to land at and take off from. So it’s a very immersive experience in VR and almost as satisfying and enjoyable as the real thing. Almost 😉

Again! This is becoming a habit.

My first visit to Istanbul was last November at the start of my dental work and I went again last month for it to be continued. I’ll be going back for the work to be finished off early in May and on each occasion I’ll have travelled by Turkish Airlines, which on the last two flights I’ve found to be excellent.

This morning I made a booking to fly to Melbourne, Australia at the end of this October to visit my cousin who I haven’t seen since we were little children. I’m pretty good now at sniffing out airline fare sweet-spots and the exact dates out and back were determined by the flights and fares that are available and guess what. I’ll be doing the trip yet again on Turkish Airlines!

I’ve made the booking for the whole flight on the Turkish Airlines web site but they’ll not be taking me the whole way. The itinerary will be from Bordeaux via Istanbul and Singapore Changi and the connecting flights between the latter and Melbourne in both directions will be handled by Jetstar, a low-cost wholly owned Qantas subsidiary.

But the Istanbul connection will become even stronger on my return journey. Turkish Airlines offer a free service to their international passengers who have a long enough layover in Istanbul called Touristanbul.

Depending on the time available up to a full day, Turkish Airways will entertain you to a guided tour of Istanbul. It’s totally free and you can make a booking as soon as your flight has been confirmed and your e-ticket issued. I’ve already made my booking, for a tour from 0800-1130 which will take up most of my layover period.

Apparently it also includes some light refreshments, so what’s not to like 😉

People often say that, implying that sometimes events or coincidences don’t just ‘happen’ but instead occur under the influence of, let’s say, a master-plan over which we have no control. I’m not saying that I either do or do not believe in that, but since the events of last Wednesday night/ Thursday morning at Brive station, I’ve been having a few more thoughts about what occurred.

Have you read what I wrote here on My Trike about the young Hungarian lady who I was with overnight at Brive and who was eventually taken away by the police? If not, take a look back at the last bit of my last post. She had a child-like vulnerability about her despite her age and kept just going up to people and talking to them, especially men.

There was a lot of work going on overnight at the station and there were quite a few workmen around, some of whom were taking an interest in her, of which she seemed to be unaware, that seemed to me not to be totally healthy. There were two ‘security men’ in particular who I don’t think were of French origin and who I didn’t much like the look of. I think the workmen realised eventually that she and I weren’t actually together and one asked me if she was crazy. I said no, she’s just different and made sure that he and they understood that I was keeping my eye on her.

It occurred to me afterwards that ‘things happen for a reason’ and several things had happened that had caused me to be delayed so I had to stay at the station at Brive overnight and was there to take this young lady under my wing. I wonder if the reason for that was that she needed looking after and I also wonder what might have happened to her if I hadn’t been there?

I shudder to think with hindsight, and I’m sure you will know what I mean, and I’m pleased that it ended in the way that it did with the police taking her away. I think it had to happen that way because she obviously needed help, not punishment and I only hope she got it.

The weather didn’t actually look too promising for my flight north in 24ZN when I checked it one last time early yesterday morning with strong south-easterly winds forecast and freezing fog and IMC conditions unflyable in 24ZN at the northern end. I contacted 24ZN’s soon-to-be new owner and he said that it was cold but that as on previous days, the mist and fog would clear during the morning.

So as I now didn’t have to worry what time I got into Brive at, as I wouldn’t have a lift there waiting for me to arrive, I decided to be cautious and take off later than I’d originally planned to. And the weather forecasts I consulted varied so much in wind direction and strength anyway (the first time I’ve ever seen that happen) that I didn’t think it would be worth re-doing the numbers for a later take-off time. I actually went at around 9.30am rather than the 8.00am that I’d originally planned for.

As soon as I took off at Malbec I knew that the day’s flying conditions would be challenging because of the wind, although I found that with one or two exceptions the bumps and turbulence weren’t as bad as I thought they would be if I climbed a bit higher than usual. So I did the whole flight at around 2500 – 2700 feet only once touching just over 3000. Then the wind came round more onto my tail and although I had to keep a constant right aileron correction to compensate and stay on track, controlling 24ZN became more comfortable.

But the effect the wind had was staggering. When I do my planning, I use a figure of 90kmh for 24ZN’s air and groundspeed in still air. A favourable wind (tailwind) increases that figure while an unfavourable one (headwind) reduces it. Rarely is the wind either a direct head or tailwind which is why for navigation planning purposes, we do either manual or, as in my case, automatic ‘triangle of forces’ calculations in a spreadsheet to work out in which direction we should aim the nose of the aircraft (heading) given the desired direction of travel (track) and the wind velocity (speed and direction).

Now take a look at the numbers. I use a ‘normal’ cruising speed of 24ZN of 90 kmh although actually, if its airspeed indicator is correct, although it’s never been checked to my knowledge, it’s closer to 85 kmh. The total length of yesterday’s flight from Malbec to Morand was 292 kmh, so my starting ‘rule of thumb’ estimate was that it would take about 3 1/2 hours plus an additional half hour to land on the way and transfer fuel into the aircraft’s tanks, so about 4 hours in total. Thus a take off time of 8.00 am would lead to an arrival time at Morand of about midday. Bear in mind 24ZN’s estimated true groundspeed in still air of 85 kmh as explained above.

The first leg from Malbec to Gajoubert where I had permission to land was of 125 km and my final calculation ‘on the day’ was that with ‘reasonable’ wind speed estimates it would take around 89 minutes with bits added on at each end for take off and landing patterns. So at least 90 minutes (a bit more actually) at an indicated airspeed of 85 kmh. In fact the first leg in total took only 55 minutes (I know, stunning) giving a true ground speed of 136 kmh, which is an amazing figure for an X-air and not that far short of my Savannah’s true ground speed in still air (140/150 kmh).

Doing similar calculations for the second leg from Gajoubert to Morand gave a true ground speed for the leg of 118 kmh, still very impressive, and for the flight overall, a true average ground speed of 125 kmh. So you can see, the wind was proving a huge boost to 2ZN over the course of the flight, boosting it’s true ground speed by nearly 50% over its ground speed in still air of 85 kmh.

Yesterday’s times for the log books were therefore a good bit off my original ‘rule-of-thumb’ estimate of 4 hours for the flight as a whole. After departing Malbec at around 9.30 am and after a 20 minute stop to top 24ZN’s tanks up at Gajoubert, I still managed to land at Morand not long after midday. With an engine warm up time of 10 minutes, then flight and engine times of 2 hrs 27mins for the two legs, total engine time was 2hrs 37mins and airframe time me 2hrs 27 mins, incredibly quick.

It wasn’t all milk and honey, though, of course, it couldn’t be with such high wind speeds which are always accompanied by bumps and turbulence. The first time these were felt was shortly after take off when, with the wind coming from its right rear quarter, 24ZN was affected quite considerably during the right hand turn onto track after take off. The next time was at the landing to refuel at Gajoubert where, with the disposition of the runway (22 with a left hand circuit pattern) there was a very strong gusting cross wind from the left at probably a bit more than 24ZN’s design cross wind limit.

It happened again after taking off at Gajoubert and turning right onto track and in the video that I managed to capture on the GoPro set up in the cabin there’s clearly one huge lump of turbulence which lifted me out of my seat and had me reaching to pull my seat belt really tight. After about 15 minutes the turbulence began to moderate as I proceeded north until by the time I got to Morand the conditions were comparatively benign, which I greatly appreciated as I came in to land there for the first (and last) time on its long grass runway 17.

I mentioned above that I managed to capture a video of the second leg of the flight including the take off at Gajoubert and the landing at Morand. But that’s all I did get and I have to say that I’m getting heartily sick of my two GoPro cameras that are totally unreliable. I expected to plug them both into my giant power bank, together with my GPS tablet, and then forget about them as the power bank could provide a running time of over 20 hours.

In fact BOTH GoPros stopped shortly after I’d started them running at Malbec so disappointingly I got absolutely nothing of the flight’s first leg. And nothing from the outside camera of the second leg either which seemed to be running when I checked it at Gajoubert but obviously wasn’t, so that camera was a total loss. I only got the cabin camera working for the second leg because I had to stop it (when it already wasn’t running) and remove it to get to the fuel jerrican and restart it again before take off, so if I hadn’t done that I’d have got nothing from the whole flight.

So my overall conclusion is that GoPros are rubbish and this is further backed up by always having difficulty getting the data they’ve recorded off them because Windows can’t detect their USB mode which allows the files to be directly transferred to the computer’s hard drive. Instead the GoPros usually have to be opened up and have their SD cards removed so they can be read by a USB card reader. This means that they also then lose many settings, like time and date. Hopeless. I’ll never buy another.

Some pictures of the flight, starting with 24ZN parked at Gajoubert after I’d done the fuel transfer.

Take off into the stiff left-hand cross wind at Gajoubert.

Heading north towards the river Loire.

Just about to cross the Loire with Amboise behind me on my left side (not shown in the image).

Just about to enter downwind LH for runway 17 at Morand.

Final runway 17 at Morand with the cables on the approach just visible.

Now you can see the cables.

24ZN in its new home at Gajoubert.

Me after completing the flight north.

Marc, 24ZN’s new owner (down low) and Charlie (I think it was) the owner of the beautiful Piper Cub.

My thoughts were then turning to getting to Vierzon and boarding the train to Brive as soon as possible. But the usual things happened, talking followed by a quick snack, which I didn’t really need, and I was on the platform 2 hours later than I’d wanted to be. Then things began to turn into a comedy of errors. I didn’t realise that two trains would arrive within 5 minutes of each other on my platform and got on the wrong one, only realising it too late when it jolted into motion a few minutes before the train I actually wanted to be was scheduled for. Late yes, early never and I ended up at Bourges and had to return to Vierzon and amend my ticket. The same guy who’d given me my ticket in the first place realised my plight and very considerately swapped my old ticket for a First Class one which was very nice of him, but all of this took time and I missed the next one to Brive as well.

The one I eventually got was supposed to arrive at about 2200 but didn’t get there until about 2345 and we had several huge delays en route, mainly I think because a lot of modernisation work is going on at the large stations along the route, including Chateauroux, Limoges and Brive itself. So when I arrived at Brive it was chaos because people were trying to grab taxis and there was also a large group whose coach apparently hadn’t turned up. For me the taxi nightmare was compounded because no driver wanted to go as far as Fleurac and getting an Uber was also impossible.

One driver who made a mistake understanding my required destination said he wanted a fare of 185€ when he found that I wanted to go to Fleurac and that I balked at, so I decided to bite the bullet and wait overnight until the Montignac bus service started at 0800 the next morning (today) and get a taxi from there. Not too bad I thought – a bit like having a layover at an airport but it was to turn into one of the strangest nights I can ever remember.

A weird young Hungarian lady was also there, just the two of us. She said she was 35 and worked at a Marriott hotel in Paris from whence she had come to see her ‘boyfriend’ in Brive who was now not answering her calls. But that was just the start of it. She had bright, quite intense staring eyes and I think she was Bipolar because she said she was and during the night her behaviour became weirder and weirder as the night progressed. Her French and English were impeccable and she was clearly very intelligent and as the night went on she began to regale me with stories of all the men she had been, was and was still having sex with.

She also described the shenanigans going on in Hungary with her close family unit and friends which seemed to become ever more complex and intertwined as her conversation progressed. I don’t know what the purpose of all this was but I’m an old bird who’s pretty unshockable although I don’t think that was the reason. She herself said she was on a ‘high’ and didn’t need any sleep. I tried to say that I was the opposite and needed a nap but she wouldn’t have it and so it went on.

The terminal at Brive was locked for a while but reopened at around 3.00am because trains were scheduled to restart between 4.00 and 5.00. It was pretty cold by then and I said that we should go into the tunnel that connects the platforms which was open because of the development work that was going on. For some reason she left her small backpack at the top of the steps leading down, why I do not know, and even at that time of the morning, when we went back up again it had gone, together with, she said, her purse and bank cards. However, by now she was expressing little concern about it.

She’d also gone up onto one of the platforms where there was a train parked with all of its systems switched off, opened a door and climbed into it. She tried to get me to go with her but I thought it prudent (ahem…) to decline and went off to see if her back pack had been dumped in a rubbish bin, without any luck. After the station doors had been unlocked and people began to trickle in, some time after 4.00am, things continued to become more manic. At one time she was lying on her back on a banc of seats raising her legs alternately in the air and quite loudly singing the Edith Piaf Hymne à l’amour in pefect French to the amusement and somewhat consternation of the growing travelling public. But it still didn’t end there.

She originally had had a pack of cigarettes which she had been chain-smoking her way through until they were all gone. When the shop opened she asked if I could buy her another which I did as I assumed she now didn’t have any money hoping that it might pacify her. But it was not to be. Unfortunately she insisted on smoking them inside the terminal building which is, of course, strictly forbidden and against the law. She openly defied two SNCF staff members who tried to get her to go outside and that was the last straw.

Shortly after the police arrived and she ended up being taken away by them in one of their cars. I have no idea what happened after that but I think that I might have dodged a bullet. I have no idea why strange things always happen to me whenever I embark on an adventure. After that everything went to plan. I caught the Montignac bus and although I still couldn’t get a taxi there, I was grateful to scrounge a lift off someone I called because by then I hadn’t slept for well over 24 hours. And I’ve still only dozed a bit before typing this, but pretty soon I’ll be able to descend into the land of sweet dreams 😉

I gave 24ZN, my X-Air, a final check-over yesterday and topped up its tanks ready for the flight north tomorrow. I also filled a 10 litre jerrican to the brim with additional fuel ready to be transferred to the tanks when I land en-route at Gajoubert. So today was all about just getting everything packed away and stowed ready for the flight.

The first job was to neatly fold all of its covers and stow them in the space between the wings held in place by bungee cords. I did the same when I flew 24ZN over to France from Kent and also in my old French X-Air when my pal Wim and I did our flight up the west coast of France in 2015, so I know it works and is safe. Then it was just about getting stuff packed securely on the passenger seat and installing the mounts for the two GoPros that I want to record the flight with.

Here’s a shot of the passenger seat from outside when I’d finished.

And here’s an interior shot.

I’m going to use my huge Chinese power bank to power the two GoPros and also my GPS tablet. The latter shouldn’t really need it as its battery should run for 6-8 hours anyway but the power bank has plenty of capacity to run all three units, hopefully without bursting into flames, so why not do it.

Here are the two GoPro mounts, first the interior one and then the one mounted under the left wing.

And here’s the cabin. Nothing can move and be a nuisance or interfere with the controls and my own space isn’t restricted at all, which I’m pleased about. The GPS will be mounted high up on the right and although it may get in the way of the interior GoPro a bit there’s not a lot I can do about it.

So that’s it. All I’ll have to do in the morning is finalise my flight planning with the latest weather for tomorrow, attach and plug in the GoPros and get airborne, which I want to do if I can by about 8.00 am.

I’ll miss the old girl. We’ve had a relationship going back to 2007/8 but the time has come for her to move on to a new and better life. She was made to fly and there’s no way that I have the time to put the amount of air under her wings that she needs. I think that her new owner will be able to do that and also show her the love that she deserves.