875th fly-in: Gdańsk, Poland (EPGD)

[Kumiankka]

link to fly-in index thread

Quote

Next Sunday, October 17th let's pay a visit to Gdańsk, Poland, specifically Lech Wałęsa Airport (EPGD) which serves the tricity area of Gdańsk, Gdynia and Sopot. Thoroughly modernized with an impressive main terminal and state-of-the-art ILS equipment, this single-runway airport is the third-busiest in Poland, and is well represented by the linked freeware custom scenery by@pngraf. Different payware alternatives for the airport are also available from both Drzewiecki and FlyDesign, and VFR landmarks can be added by installing the additional Poland Pro VFR overlay package by @antwob. Up-to-date charts for Gdańsk are available at the website of IVAO Poland.

Happy journeys - szczęśliwej podróży!

 

 

EPGD payware option 1: Polish Airports volume 1 by Drzewiecki
EPGD payware option 2: EPGD/GDN Gdansk package by FlyDesign

 

New pilots are always welcome, read the guide below by @bootsie to get started:
How to connect to X-Flightserver

Or to connect using the new Swift client, see this tutorial by @ostkamp:
Swift client quick reference guide (pdf)

Be considerate towards your fellow pilots, and above all, have fun!

 

 

 

[rajo]

i can't be there next sunday, have a good flight!

[Quintao]

The Poland VFR scenery referenced above doesn't seem to download on my end.

Did anyone have better luck?

[ostkamp]

42 minutes ago, Quintao said:

The Poland VFR scenery referenced above doesn't seem to download on my end.

Did anyone have better luck?

@Quintao

I have no problem to download that poland.zip file with about 730 MB. It is just that my browser (Firefox) at first considered it to be a security risk because the connection to the server where this file is hosted uses just http instead of https protocol. So I needed to explicitly allow it to download from that place on the download result page of Firefox.
Please check your browser accordingly.

Edited October 16, 2021 by ostkamp

[Quintao]

6 hours ago, ostkamp said:

@Quintao

I have no problem to download that poland.zip file with about 730 MB. It is just that my browser (Firefox) at first considered it to be a security risk because the connection to the server where this file is hosted uses just http instead of https protocol. So I needed to explicitly allow it to download from that place on the download result page of Firefox.
Please check your browser accordingly.

Thanks, that was it. Chrome would not give an error message, just would not download. Tryed the link with MS Edge and a warning was given, allowing to bypass and download.

Edited October 16, 2021 by Quintao

[Quintao]

Started the fly-in last Friday from the previous location, Peru, like @bootsie was doing not too long ago.

For this 6,000+ nm long haul, I had to purchase a new bird, Flight Factor Boeing 777-200LR at the org store .

 

Loaded 119,891 kg of fuel and 30 passenger on my BBJ777 (that way it feels more like a private plane ), and fingers crossed, it would be enough to take me all the way to EDDB in Berlin. Departed at 2300z from SPJC as the sun was setting over the Peruvian capital.

    

Flew over 7hrs in darkness (reality I went to bed and trusted the life of the 30 passengers and crew on the FMC).

    

Just 10 hours later I was entering the European continent over LPPT flying at FL400.

    

Landed in Berlin 13 hours after departing Peru.

    

Still had 20% of fuel left, 24,800 kg! What a beuty!

    

Spent the day in Berlin, and next morning hopped on the Embraer Phenom 300 for a quick flight into EPGD, about 160nm.

    

Taxied to the same 25L I had landed on the 777-200LR the previous day.

    
    

Took off from EDDB 25L.

    
    

Leveled at FL240 on my way to Poland, I really like the N550KF metallic accents on the 4k livery modeled by @Digimagician , great work !
        

This was a 45 minute flight into EPGD, landed on RWy 29 in between the two LOT flights, the first from @Vega66, the second from @Kumiankka.
   

Parked at the stand 42 besides Vega on his very nice LOT livery celebrating 100 years of something special, I will guess it is Polish Aviation by the livery pictures.

    

Shortly after, Vega taxied to RWY 29, while Kumi was arriving on an Embraer mid-size regional jet, also on LOT livery. Vega can be seen on the background holding short

      

Kumi parked by the main terminal

    

Truly outstanding work by @pngraf modelling the airport and main terminal. Kumi can be seen from inside the terminal, being parked by Gate 12 and the lady can be seen wondering when will they open the gate for her flight.

    

I really enjoyed the quality of this freeware scenery.

I had planned to really enjoy the Poland VFR, but Unfortunately I had to disconnect early as I was experiencing many Windows issues with my peripherals during the entire flight. It turns out it was a Bluetooth driver acting up, took me many hours to figure out, for now I have disabled Bluetooth. Will have to figure out later if my board went bad or if it is just a driver issue based on the latest windows update.

I leave you all with my flight route from Berlin into Gdansk.

Enjoy the week! Looking forward to the location for anniversary fly-in next week!

Edited October 18, 2021 by Quintao

[Kumiankka]

Wow, impressive transatlantic journey @Quintao!

Encountered some interesting glitches this time, nothing catastrophic but certainly made for some less than routine flights.

The problems started right on my first flight: after installing the most recent official update for the XCrafts E195 I departed Warsaw Chopin Airport a lot faster than expected, as the Embraer's engines were producing a lot of excess thrust, if I had to say I'd estimate each engine was giving roughly the normal output of the two engines combined! Needless to say I got airborne without using much runway length at all, and then quickly throttled back before hitting the gear and flap limits, not to mention VNe! Decided not to engage autothrottle at all on this flight, keeping my hand on the throttle column in case of further trouble.

 

Fortunately everything else was working all right, and after a short hop from Warsaw of about half an hour (the overpowered engines must have saved me at least 10 minutes!) I was ready to fly the ILS to EPGD.
 

Decided to forego the use of reverse thrust just in case - the runway length was quite sufficient to rely just on the wheel brakes instead. Vega is visible in the background here, just about to depart for Warsaw.

 

After reconfiguring the controls, I took off again in the PZL-104 Wilga, a new payware model recently released by Thranda.

 

In this case there weren't any sim glitches to worry about, so I was able to enjoy a leisurely VFR flight up and down the coast between the cities of Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia.
 

 

As I returned to EPGD, the previously unnoticeable crosswind felt a lot more significant in the smaller and slower Wilga. The plane shook around a bit in the wind as I applied right rudder and carefully touched down on runway 29.

 

Next, I switched to the Colimata MiG-29, with a special Polish Air Force livery by @domhenry commemorating the famous Kościuszko Squadron.

 

Unlike last time, I managed to keep the MiG-29 (barely) in control by paying more attention to the airspeed and AoA, and not spending too much time in the outside views. But the flying felt very hectic, like the plane was constantly on the verge of going out of control. Go too slow, spin. Go too fast, spin. Pull up too fast, spin. You get the idea…

 

I barely managed to land at the military airfield of Oksywie that I believe @marpilot recommended. An LOT airliner (actually Vega in a C208) was making flybys… or maybe strafing runs?
 

 

After meeting up Marpilot and Vega at EPOK and getting my Swift client set up to display their CSLs a little better (I still have plenty to figure out with that) I switched to an F-35 (AOA model, in Polish livery by @Kalisz) for one last flight, and headed up for a sunset patrol over the Baltic.

 

I returned to EPGD for a flyby just as Vega was landing, and dumped some flares after completing the flyby.

 

After burning off most of my fuel and being informed of this by an alarm light, I finally landed at EPGD rwy 29 again in a conventional landing (the AOA F-35 is actually the B-model, but the A-model ordered by the Polish Air Force doesn't have the vertical landing capability)


Stay tuned for next week - as I mentioned before during the fly-in, next week is indeed our 17th anniversary so we'll have another special event with some formation flying to celebrate!

[Vega66]

Similar to @Quintao I also planned a trip from Huaraz, but on the opposite direction and jumping through the Pacific islands pushing the endurance limits of a Dash8, which took me almost all week to complete. Here the logged list of the most relevant stops, with some of them having additional technical stops that weren't logged.

Finnaly, sunday morning everything was on the go side to perform the Wizzair WZZ1696 that regularly connects the Ucranian city of Odesa to our destination, Gdansk.

   

Great weather for flying, both at depart a nd arriving destination. And this time no CTD's or glitches were experienced, allowing a nice and smooth flight.

Climbing to FL330 Over Odesa, leaving the calm waters of the black sea behind.

And reaching the northen waters of Gdansk bay, a couple of hours later.

 

 

Superb airport scenery by @pngraf, a huge thanks for sharing such amazing work. 

Then a change over a Q400, this time for a round trip to the great city of Warsaw, performing two of the regular daily flights by LOT. Quntao was parking as I wass finishng the starting procedures, after his impressive trans oceanic flight.

A very brief hold short for another LOT incoming flight by  @Kumiankka 

And rushed to Warsaw

This time, only a few minutes at the parking Ramp.

And rushed back for lunch brake  at Gdansk.

Then hop on aboard a Caravan, to perform a scenic flight, including a visit to Hel Peninsula, Jastarnia and Oksywie, as kindly suggested by @marpilot 

Here approaching Jastarnia airstrip, a tiny grass field among the trees, that I found very challenging, even for the Caravan.

A brief stop at Oksywie, joining Kumi and Marpilot.

And finnally returning to Gdansk Lech Walesa, over the city center, after which made a return flight to Lisbon

 

Looking forward to join the anniversary flight next week. Until then, wish all wonderful days.

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Vega66

[ostkamp]

Greetings pilots,

I had only a small amount of time to spend for flying this time. Started with @Big-IN at Dresden airport (EDDC).

I made this a memorial flight, since I had just noticed in newsreel that the Italian airline Alitalia had just ceased to exist on October 15th after about 74 years in operation. I believe a lot of people (about 10000, if I remember correctly) will go to unemployment now 😟. If you belong to that group, I wish you good luck finding a new job.
Below we see the X-Crafts ERJ 145XR with Alitalia livery.

As @Kumiankka mentioned, the modeling of the performance is not really accurate. I have seen older versions which might have been overpowered, but not long ago I was facing the situation were I could not reach / hold intended cruise speed, at CRZ setting. Only TO or CLB settings had sufficient power to reach and keep it. If of interest, the thread where I discussed this with @Steve.Wilson and other forum members can be found at https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/249485-how-to-accelerate-to-cruise-speed/

Departing Dresden. Din05 had some issues with the aircraft he was flying (first time, as far as I know) since there was no FMC and he needed to fly manually or by simple autopilot.

Reaching the Eastern (Baltic?) Sea / Pommersche Bucht or Zatoka Pomorska in Polish if I am not mistaken)

We were flying STAR KOSE3T with ILS approach for runway 29.

I had first to speed up to keep separation from @Big-IN closely behind.

I think I had a bit crosswind on landing.

Very nice and detailed scenery, thanks @pngraf. 🙂

Logged off for the day.

Hope to meet you again soon. 🙂

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by ostkamp

[Skylark2992]

Some very long and interesting flights there @Quintao and @Vega66, that's real dedication right there!

@Kumiankka Did you ever determine the cause of your overpowered engines? I once had a similar issue in X-Plane 10 with the Sukhoi Superjet, but I never did find the cause; I assumed that it was a simple glitch that after restarting X-Plane I was never able to replicate.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Skylark2992

[Kumiankka]

@Skylark2992 Not completely, but I have a guess. It didn't happen when I tried loading up the plane again just now, but the difference is that back during the fly-in it was a complete cold start with all the systems turned off at first, whereas on the retry I spawned directly on the runway with the engines already running. So my guess is that because I was using the Saitek external switch panels, the engine starter knob on the panel may have somehow messed with the Embraer's custom systems modeling and somehow started two sets of engines, the default ones modeled by X-Plane and some custom replacement possibly programmed into the model. All speculation at this point, but possibly verifiable later by running through the cold start procedure twice - first using the Saitek panel's knob for the startup, then retrying and using the 3D cockpit controls only.

[Skylark2992]

On 10/21/2021 at 6:52 PM, Kumiankka said:

@Skylark2992 Not completely, but I have a guess. It didn't happen when I tried loading up the plane again just now, but the difference is that back during the fly-in it was a complete cold start with all the systems turned off at first, whereas on the retry I spawned directly on the runway with the engines already running. So my guess is that because I was using the Saitek external switch panels, the engine starter knob on the panel may have somehow messed with the Embraer's custom systems modeling and somehow started two sets of engines, the default ones modeled by X-Plane and some custom replacement possibly programmed into the model. All speculation at this point, but possibly verifiable later by running through the cold start procedure twice - first using the Saitek panel's knob for the startup, then retrying and using the 3D cockpit controls only.

Oh right, that's a plausible theory. Whatever the cause(s), it sounds like you dealt with it with expert precision. If something quirky or far out did not happen, then it just wouldn't be a fly-in at the Org, haha!

Happy 17th anniversary everybody!