Thoughts on the World Wide Tour, (WWT) a flight around the globe, with JoeMini.
Why on earth would anyone in their right mind spend 8 months sitting in front of their computer and fly and fly and fly one destination after another, until it all clicks together and the initial departure airport becomes the final arrival airport? Well my wife has the answer to that question for sure. No one in their right minds would!
Perhaps she’s right – but if – then I’m not in my right mind, because that’s what I did.
To fly the globe is something I wanted to do for many years – like so many other sim-pilots, I can see on different forums. I have done leg 1 on around-the-globe flights many many times, but I didn’t get much further than that, because I never made a flight plan to begin with. Just took off, usually from Copenhagen and ended in Sweden or Germany, or Jutland. Then not much more.
And this was usually in a Cessna 172, my dedicated plane at the time. The Lear Jet 45 was just too fast and dangerous. Boeings? Get out of town!
Then everything changed, the day I stumbled over FSFlyingschool. This little program that does it all, and does nothing. You still fly just like always. FSFS does not change one single thing in your Flight simulator. Not one. It changes YOU, the pilot.
After two weeks of using FSFlyingschool I was flying Lear jet, and looking longingly at the 737 (and the 747 but don’t mention that to anyone yet) Less than a month after that, I was asking on the FSFS forum if anyone would like to compete with me in a flight around the world. I had seen the pointsystem in FSFS and how great that could be used to compete on flyingskills.
I must admit that I thought that several would say yes, but only one did. Joe from Kansas USA. He must be as little in his right mind as I am, ´cause he instantly agreed and started making suggestions of how, when and where we could do it.
We planned it for a couple of weeks, and set the departure day for August 1. 2008, with a time span of 8 months, and 122 mandatory legs of flight. We included an option to fly only 25% of that and still be in the game, to have others join in, who thought this was too huge, but Joe went the other way and planned more than twice as many stops as the mandatory. I myself settled for the 122, plus what I found along the way. This turned out to be 20 extra flights.
August 1. we flew. (There is a time difference between me and Joe of 7 hours, so I flew long before Joe, but still it was august 1. for both of us.)
I changed my mind in the last moment in thoughts of planes. I initially went for the entire trip in the King Air 350, but hours before my first flight I changed it to the Lear jet. I would only fly in that one the entire WWT, but Joe would change planes as we went along.
You experience a lot of different things when flying so long and so far. I quickly found out that ILS landings are so much easier to perform than visual. Problem is that not every runway out there has correct ILS system. Here and there the ILS descend will not get you to the runway, but somewhere in the neighbourhood, and that’s just not good enough for Mr. Smith and his instructor team. Not good enough at all.
Luckily I got to beta test the new version of FSFS; the 2009 version. Lots of new features is included in that one. One of the biggest is an automated non-ils runway file for every runway in the world. So when you were up there and the ILS system was screwed up, all you have to do, is to change the dial on the Nav1, so the ILS is turned off, and then aim for the physical runway, just as you would in real life. Smith will then rate you as a visual landing. Cool, neat and great. FSFlyingschool makes a get-around for the flaws made by the Flight Simulator developers.
All that flying and all that rating keeps you on your toes, and toughens you, so eventually you start to think that the Boeing 737 is maybe not so dangerous as you might have thought before. Or the 747 or….. And soon you will look back and think that those small piston planes are jerky, slow and not as thrilling to fly as the big ones.
Mr. Smith or his fellow instructors becomes so nice to have with you up there, that the mere thought of flying without them, is one bad thought. I treat FSFS like the American Express card. I don’t leave the ground without it.
Our WWT was divided into four parts, and when we reached the end of part 1, Joe and I was thrilled. We cheered each other and drank virtual champagne with each other. We mailed back and forth with ideas, suggestions, and thoughts on how we were, and where we were.
At some point it became too annoying for me, and I suggested to Joe that we linked up on Live Messenger. We did, and then we became friends. Its been about 5 months, and now we type at each other almost every day when we fly. I fly late nights and Joe flies when he comes home from work, so we can type real-time while flying. Now we could keep each other posted on there, how, when, and tell the other one the latest scores, seconds after we got them. So not only did I fly around the globe, I also made an American friend.
We came to the end of part 2, on December 1. in Nepal. Now we were halfway there, and our score curve was showing increasing confidence in this pilot thing. So we disregarded our vows to take a week off, and started on part 3. This was my peak. I had gone to Boeing 737´s and 747´s and I was handling them better all the time, ending with my 173 point score in a NON-ILS landing in Russia. In a 747 that was. Now I was king of the world, and I had the numbers to prove it.
Joe began to make remarkable flightscores – far above what I can do. We made it to the top of the highscore list in FSFS website. Me in landings, and Joe in flights.
And then feb 1. 2009, it was Edmonton, Canada that was the deadline. We made it, barely, but still, and the metal fatigue started to show, on both Joe, and myself. Six months of flying had put traces on our faces, and we began to talk more and more about getting to Miami, instead of getting to the Caribbean, as we had looked so very forward to for a long time.
I had spent the last of January getting myself a new computer, that could run FSX instead of my old one, that could only run it with very low settings and at a one-digit framerate most of the time. I had also gotten completely new flight controls. I has used a Saitek X-52 HOTAS for years, but now I wanted to be more accurate, so I got myself a Saitek Yoke and throttle quadrant, pedals and even the Saitek Switch panel. That was great, except for my ability to use it. I find the transition from the HOTAS to the yoke very very difficult. Ill get the hang of it, but for now I struggle.
I took part 4, in a few pushes, made a lot of flights in a short time, and then a break, then a lot of flights again and so on. But finally I actually made to the Caribbean, and that blew new light, and life in my WWT hunger. Joe and I had talked about flying the Caribbean in a small plane, and so I ditched the 737, and entered a Cessna 208 Caravan, the heaviest small plane I could think of, being in the FSFS hanger. Points are considerable lower in small planes, and it showed on my scoring list at once. I got the feeling that the entire part 4, had been bad bad score wise, but my scoring table shows that it is not the case. I didn’t have any mega scores at all, but all in all it was decent. The feeling of just wanting to get to the end, made its way back to me on the last 3-4 flights, after having visited the Old Danish colonies in the Caribbean.
I decided that I was to enter Miami the same way as I left it in august, so I took the Learjet for the last flight, and made one last crappy score landing in Miami.
But it was still with a sense of pride that I took down my flight controls and began to think back. 143 flights Nothing compared to Joes mammoth 250 or something like that, flights, but more than enough for me. More than 65.000 miles of flight, and 8 months of dedication to a single task. I was, and I am, very satisfied with myself.
Have this changed anything for me? Changed my flying? My view on Simflying?
Yes, yes, and yes! FSFlyingschool has changed, turned around really, my view on flightsimming. From doing around-the-pole flights in Denmark in small planes, I have now evolved to successfully flying, and landing big jets. Very gratifying. I now dare to fly anywhere. Nothing is to big a challenge. I dare, and I can, and I will.
So finally I wish to thank the inventers of Flight Simulator, the Aces team, sadly they have been closed by Microsoft while this WWT has been going on. I hope someone will pick it up sometime.
I wish to thank the inventers of FSFlyingschool. If it wasn’t for them, I would never have taken the step to do this global flight. It’s a marvellous program they have invented.
And of course, last but not least. A big heartfelt thank you, to Joe, my American friend. He stuck with me for 8 months (and we are planning more tours still) he lifted me up when I was down, and he became my friend along the way. Cheers to you Joe, for more adventures in the future.
And one special thanks. To Jeff Preston, one of the guys in FSinventions – the people behind FSFlyingschool. During the WWT, I have bothered him with comment, after comment, question after question, and suggestion after suggestion, one dumber than the other, and he has taken the time to get back to me (not at me) on everything, patiently answering all my wonderings and encouraged me when I was in a dry spell on the WWT. Thank you for that.
Flight simming rules. 
Regards from Denmark