So where does everybody fly?   What liveries do you like best?

I fly in areas that are familiar to me from previous real world flights as a passenger (although none of them have been on a 727, unfortunately).  I use Glasgow or Edinburgh, Scotland as a sort of home base, then fly to other areas of the UK and Europe and then fly home.  I usually try to pick a livery that one might actually have seen during the era that this plane is from, but not always.  Nath's British Airways paints are lovely, I often fly BA-BSY, his -100 in BA "Landor" colours.  Beautiful!

I also love the Braniff Orange -200, the Cougar Freighter, the old United and Eastern -100's, and the funky UDF prototype.  I like all the others too.

I take my old CS 727-100 all over the place. One of the fun approaches in the 727 or the 757 is the River approach to KDCA. It was fun in the real plane and it's fun in the sim. Sometimes I make the weather bad and shoot a bunch of ILS's, just to keep my hand in the flying.

I also have all the special high def airports from FTX in the Pacific Northwest. I love just getting in the Cub with Ms. Heidi and touring the beautiful scenery. And Heidi keeps and eye out for traffic for me as well.

Lou

All across europe.. usually I fly the 100 with my own Condor repaint, from germany to all those sunny destinations or just shorter hops (currently flying Stuttgart-Paphos). Also using the Cougar or FedEx 200F all across europe- mainly. Yesterday I took her from Lima into Cuzco.

Be certain to announce your intentions on CTAF while approaching DCA, though.

LOU wrote on Apr 17^th, 2011 at 3:48am:


Living in DC, I'm a big fan of the river visual, but I will note that its a bit harder in the sim than in real life because the bridges in FSX do not have the center lights that help guide you in at night.

LOU wrote on Apr 18^th, 2011 at 3:30pm:

Awesome! What a unique view!

LOU wrote on Apr 17^th, 2011 at 3:48am:


Thx for the recommendation.  I just did my first VATSIM flight with the 727-100 using only VOR/DME for navigation.  I have all the mods installed, so I was able to utilize the performance data, which worked very well, and it flew by the numbers.  I went from LAX to DCA and got to try my hand at the runway 19 river visual approach.  My route was KLAX LOOP6 DAG DRK J134 FLM J24 HVQ WZRRD2 KDCA, and I got to fly about half of the WZRRD2 approach before getting cleared direct to the AML vor.  I was then vectored by DCA approach to the river for the fun part down to runway 19.

I highly recommend learning how to navigate this aircraft using the old methods as it is a challenge and gives a sense of real accomplishment when you pull a flight off, especially under the observation of live ATC. Flying this way will also keep you really busy.

CoolP wrote on Apr 20^th, 2011 at 3:40pm:


Thanks, and that is my experience as well.  I started with glass but I am now flying a mixture of old and newer aircraft to help develop my skills.  Try navigating an old B-17 and than switch to a modern airliner .  Doing this has really increased my appreciation for glass cockpits and modern navigation.