880th fly-in: Hakodate, Japan (RJCH)

[Kumiankka]

link to fly-in index thread

Quote

Next Sunday, November 21st let's get a head start on the winter, and head for Hakodate Airport (RJCH), located in Hokkaido, Japan. Although heavy snowfall isn't expected this time of the year, watch out for possible icing conditions should you enter clouds. Sights to see include the 19th century star fort Goryōkaku, and Mount Hakodate overlooking the city, complete with visitor center on top. Courtesy of @MisterX6 we have some excellent airport scenery for RJCH, as well as the optional but recommended Japan Pro which adds realistic autogen buildings and other details for Japan. And finally, @L1910S has released an additional VFR package for Hakodate that adds some local landmarks.

Pleasant journeys - よい旅行を!

 

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

 

 

[172MC]

I have not attended a Fly-in in a while but hope to do so soon, after I finish setting up a new computer, which leads me to ask about a message I get on TeamSpeak 3 after I connect to the x-flightserver: "...could not validate your myTeamspeak ID. ..."  I don't recall this being the case in the past; is everyone seeing this, or have I messed up in the new install?

[cyl8]

all I can say is I am able to login to TS3 on x-flightserver.org... 

[Quintao]

The RJCH airport scenery is outstanding, very detailed, and the FPS hit is noticeable if you are maxed out, may require some adjustment in the number of objects being rendered.

[Quintao]

Just started my 6800nm flight from MUCU to RJCH. See you all tomorrow!

Edited November 20, 2021 by Quintao

[Quintao]

That was a long flight, all 15hrs of it from MUCU to RJCH aboard the FlightFactor 777-200LR when it was Saturday afternoon in Santiago de Cuba.

Departed from RWY 10, heavy with fuel to make all the way to Japan.

As per my post from yesterday, I would have many flight levels while en-route, starting with FL340, climbing the steps all the way to FL420.

Once stable, left the FMS in charge of the flight, and would periodically check on it.

The BBJ777 has great accommodations, after a good night sleep, came back to the flight deck for landing at RJCH RWY 12 intercepting the localizer on 109.3Mhz. Also adjusted the clock for a daylight landing for the pictures.

Beautiful landing, cleared RWY 12 at T4 and taxied to the main terminal, gate 3 where the steward was ready to give me the signals.

Once on the ground, validated that I was on the wright place, the coordinates on the FMS aligned with the gate 3 sign, N41° 46.5 E140°48.8. It did!

This airport is a great freeware, awesome work by @MisterX6!

The detail level go as far as the reflection on the terminal bridge glass!

The observation deck is also great!

By this time, @Vega66 and @gordoxproenca had joined and departed from Osaka and could be seen on the moving map.

About an hour later, could take a picture from the tower of Vega on his second attempt at RWY 12 callsign ANA66V.

About 30 minutes later @CHASMAN2014 was arriving on his B378 with the callsign JAL589 and many others were showing as inbound on the moving map.

Nice landing from Chas!

Group picture below with Chas on gate 5 with JAL livery, Vega on gate 4 with ANA livery and myself on gate 3 with the BBJ livery.

It was a great fly-in with a great location scenery!

[172MC]

On 11/18/2021 at 2:47 PM, 172MC said:

after I finish setting up a new computer

I did finish (including "winterizing") in time to logon at RJCH while @cyl8 was still there.  No time for flying but was able to check that Swift and TS3 are working on my new rig.

Have a good week, all.

[F5Chaser]

A smoother flight this week from Niigatta (RJSN) in the FlightFactor 767.

I turned back the clock to start this flight in the afternoon. Clear skies climbing out of Niigata.

The sun was going down as I descended into Hakodate, passing through a couple cloud layers on the way.

The FMC brought me in nicely and I took control for a smooth landing. What I could see of the scenery looked great and the lighting on the 767 is really well done. On the right, @Vega66 departing in a F-15 with @ostkamp and Merlin on approach.

Parked at the gate next to @ostkamp, unloading passengers and cargo with the last glimmer of daylight fading over the horizon.

See you all in the blue!

[CHASMAN2014]

Greetings fellow pilots!

I started my flight at Tokyo International (RJTT) at stand 809, then proceeded to taxi to RWY 34R. Departed RWY 34R following SID:SYE 34R. The weather was cloudy with light rain, there were a few clouds at 2,000’ and broken sky at 6,000’ with 10km visibility.

About 75 miles south of  Hakodate Airport (RJCH) I finally broke out of the clouds. I then began my approach to ILS 12. The flight number was Japan Airlines JAP589 which is a real life flight.

I proceed to the parking stand next to @quintao, @chaser, @Merlin, and @ostkamp

Just behind us was @Kumiankka taxing to the gate.

After a short break I fly to Okushiri Island with @Kumiankkaand @Vega66

Thank you all for the opportunity to participate. Have a nice week see you next Sunday.

Chas

Edited November 21, 2021 by CHASMAN2014
fix images and text

[Skylark2992]

Great PIREPs everybody!

@Quintao I really like your screenshots - clearly your PC needed every last gigabyte of RAM to squeeze out that kind of performance. I also really like your PC setup, and your dedication - great to see such enthusiasm in our hobby, particularly after some of the dire predictions about X-Plane's future pre- and post-MSFS release.

34 minutes ago, CHASMAN2014 said:

<snip>

<snip>

Great screenshot @CHASMAN2014 - I bet that your descent into RJCH through those clouds was beautiful.

As always, I'll be watching your next set of PIREPs everybody. Good journeys!

[cyl8]

I pulled the PC12 out that has been sitting in hanger for long. Amazingly it started right up. Its noise canceling function was working 1000% as I heard nothing other than Discord radio. No Time to Waste, I taxied out and took off RJCO Saporo Okadama.

 

 

I had reduced altitude that I had to go around Hokkaido Koma-ga-take mountain and setup for ILS approach. All appeared to be a text book approach until craft turned 180 away from runway. I looped around and tried again and still failed. I had to switch to manual and landed Hakodate. Chas and Kumi were heading for RJCO Okushiri on a small island off Hokkaido, and Vega66 took off behind them while I managed ILS. A quick refuel and I was about to head out when I noticed 172MC getting started on the apron, I stopped by for a quick shot. ( I filed flight plan incorrectly, with origin airport as PC12 and ICAO was still set to G2CA thus 172MC had me as a helo )

 

 

Flight to RJCO was uneventful and lined up after Vega66, but realized that I was too high and had to make a steep descend and had to back track runway to park before terminal with Vega66. Chas went home and Kumi pulled a different craft out of hanger. 

 

 

 

As I filed flight plan I noticed I've entered wrong departure airport! All corrected and took off after Vega66 for a returning flight to Hakodate. The ILS approach worked perfectly this time making it almost effortless for a good landing. Kumi and Vega66 landed shortly after, I called it the day after snapping group photo in front of tower.

Kumi touched down

Vega66's touching down

 

Also sharing local landmarks from Hakodate VFR that I took yesterday in a Cabri G2.

Hakodate Municipal Hospital 

Hakodateyama Observatory

 

Kyoaikai Hospital

Goryokaku, a star shaped historic site

Hakodate Arena

Hakodategokoku Shrine

 

Until next fly in!

 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by cyl8

[172MC]

8 minutes ago, cyl8 said:

still set to G2CA thus 172MC had me as a helo )

... and I was blaming Swift for that 😂

[cyl8]

Yeah Swift UI would greatly be benefited with some update. It feels like 1990 X-window... It does work when its correctly setup...  

[172MC]

4 minutes ago, cyl8 said:

It does work when its correctly setup...

Mine is not there yet: look at my screen shots, I was in a C172 and yet appear as a Kodiak in your pictures.  Swift is supposed to automatically the a/c info correctly; I am not sure what went wrong.

[Vega66]

Greetings,

Started from Kansai, Osaka on a B738 provided by the All Nippon airways, by the time @Quintao was approaching our destiny after his awesome trans oceanic flight.

 

The Kansai-Hakodate was a route performed daily by Air Nippon a few years ago, but now there are no scheduled direct flights connecting these two airports.

 

Shortly after departure, spotted @gordoxproenca deploying an F-15 also from Kansai, which soon joined close by, heading towards Hakodate

 

But today the Internet service was affected by several glitches which caused some disconnections. Finally I managed to reconnect and recover some stability, in time for the approach at Hakodate. Gordo took longer to recover, which forced a late arrival from his side.

 

 

On the first attemp everything seemd right until the last moment, where the aircraft started to shift off the runway, which led me to declare a Go Around. On the second attempt, everything went right. Taxiied and parked next to Quintao tripple seven.

Shortly after @CHASMAN2014 arrived on a JAL B738.

I still had a few moments before the usual brake, so grabbed an F-15 to make a few turns. Started taxi to Runway, taking off on a tight window, between arriving Chaser and @ostkamp

 

Once airborne, met some of the arriving pilots, including @Big-IN A.K.A.  Dino5, and @Kumiankka, before returning for the necessary brake.

 

 

Parked next to Ostkamp, still with time to watch @ManofMac and Kumi touching down at our destiny.

After a somewhat long brake, returned to perform a couple of flights around this beautiful scenery. Chas, Kumi and @cyl8  were on route to the nearby Okushiri airport, so I was just in time to join them with a Dornier 228.

 

And back in formation, half way with Cyl8 and back to join Kumi.

 

And parked once again at Hakodate, for a Group photo

 

Kumi was switching to a Heli, I for other hand decided to go for the F-16 to test a modified nosewheel steering configuration which gave me big trouble on previous landings. After a few turns, Kumi also joined on a Japanese F35 version, for a couple of joint manouvers. Great way to call it a day around this fantastic scenery..

 

With the modified configuration, the landing was superb, and so I parked next to hovering Kumi and finally call it a day.

Thanks for another superb fly/in. Wish you all wonderful times.

 

[ghun1]

Great shots everyone. I tried to join this week and lasted on-line for about 30 seconds before my x-plane crashed with an "out-of-memory" issue I never saw before. It only happened after I did an "in-x-plane update" of the JARdesign A340-500. Then one of the computer fans started making a nasty whining noise, and I had to restart to stop it and get it back to normal (seems more like a software issue to me). It took me a long time and a lot of patience to get back to usual. With any luck I'll have it all working again for next week (although family commitments are high as I have relatives from the US expected for thanksgiving  😃

[Kumiankka]

Sorry to hear about the technical issues @172MC and @ghun1, hope you both have better luck next week!

An amazing long haul once again from @Quintao, congratulations!

 

Started out from Tokyo Haneda, flying the 737-700 Ultimate in Air Do livery. While still flyable, the 737 suffered from a few issues as it hasn't been updated in a while, most noticeably some very twitchy nosewheel steering.

 

Due to the cloud cover there wasn't so much to see enroute even after the sun came up, but I got the chance to see plenty of Hakodate Bay while circling around and trying to intercept the localizer.

 

 

Taking over from the autopilot and landing manually, I was finally able to put the 737 down on runway 12 and even stay on the runway despite the aforementioned ground steering issues. Was very surprised that @CHASMAN2014 was able to see the correct Air Do livery on the CSL, would've thought that a relatively obscure regional airline from Hokkaido wouldn't have a CSL available for it.

 

Continuing with the theme of local airlines, next up was a hop to the nearby island of Okushiri in an Air Hokkaido Twin Otter, which was used on the route from 1994 to 2006. Overflew the Goryōkaku fortress on the way out.

 

Short final to Okushiri rwy 31

 

@Vega66 arriving in his Do-228

 

Switched to a Hokkaido Air System Saab 340 for the flight back. Vega had already taken off but was still circling the airport as I took the runway.

 

Returning to Hakodate about 15 minutes later, I was able to catch the localizer this time but not the glideslope. Oh well…

 

Down on runway 12 after another manual landing

 

Switched to a Japan Coast Guard Bell 412 and took off for some local sightseeing

 

Although the best views were from the top of Mount Hakodate, the custom scenery object on top of the mountain didn't blend so well into the mesh when viewed this close.

 

Vega was circling around in an F-16 as I returned to the helipad. Didn't quite achieve a perfectly accurate landing as you can see!

 

Switched to a JASDF F-35B to join Vega for one more quick flight. It would have to be quick too - the F-35B didn't have much fuel to spare since it couldn't hover with a full fuel load.

 

The gray paint scheme of the F-16 masked itself well against the gray clouds, making it difficult to even spot Vega's aircraft. This was the closest I got during about 10 minutes of trying on the limited fuel reserves.

 

Returning to Hakodate Airport, I still had enough fuel left over to hover around waiting for Vega to land, before landing next to the main terminal.

[ostkamp]

14 hours ago, ghun1 said:

Great shots everyone. I tried to join this week and lasted on-line for about 30 seconds before my x-plane crashed with an "out-of-memory" issue I never saw before. It only happened after I did an "in-x-plane update" of the JARdesign A340-500. Then one of the computer fans started making a nasty whining noise, and I had to restart to stop it and get it back to normal (seems more like a software issue to me). It took me a long time and a lot of patience to get back to usual. With any luck I'll have it all working again for next week (although family commitments are high as I have relatives from the US expected for thanksgiving  😃

Hi @ghun1 you may wish to check http://jardesign.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=18608&p=6 for that kind of issue (towards end of page). Mr. Romanov, the author wants to be contacted by Skype when this happens.

[Quintao]

On 11/21/2021 at 2:51 PM, Skylark2992 said:

Great PIREPs everybody!

@Quintao I really like your screenshots - clearly your PC needed every last gigabyte of RAM to squeeze out that kind of performance. I also really like your PC setup, and your dedication - great to see such enthusiasm in our hobby, particularly after some of the dire predictions about X-Plane's future pre- and post-MSFS release.

...

Thanks @Skylark2992, much appreciated! I have actually installed MSFS a couple of times to check on it and how it is  progressing. In my personal opinion, XPlane 11 is still better as a flight simulator for real life scenarios and conditions, let alone the community built around it like here on this forum! I would qualify MSFS great entertainment as a game with great graphics. Their ability to be cross platform which allows friends and family to fly together with embedded live traffic was very neat and were great to play with, but in technical terms, I am on this for realism of the flight.

Thank you for taking the time to review all Pireps!

[ostkamp]

Hello again,

since my departure airport Hachijojima (RJTH) (I hope I spelled this correctly 😉- nope should be 八丈島空港, Hachijōjima Kūkō), located on a small island about 160nm South of Tokyo area, has only a short runway with 6539 ft I decided to take a X-Crafts Embraer ERJ-135 model this time. At first I thought I may run out of fuel, but it turned out plenty of it was left when I reached destination. @Big-IN followed later in a C-17.

Flightplan was RJTH N0250F350 BAFFY1 BAFFY Y87 UTIBO Y821 KOSKA Y588 JD Y11 YTE V13 MRE Y113 BYOBU KURMI RJCH.

Leaving the island to the North.

@Big-IN aka Din05 suffered from hypoxia issues in the C-17 and wanted to ask @ghun1 for a solution since it was unclear if it could be correctly setup in the C-17 model he had, but unfortunately he wasn´t around. I later found some earlier forum thread message by @ghun1 and Din05 tried to tweak the aircraft after the flight. We shall see whether this works out next time.

Towards the end I got joined by Merlin (see below out of left cockpit window) and @F5Chaser (if I recall correctly) at VOR Aomori  (MRE) not far from starting point of STAR KURMI.

Merlin can again be seen under my right wing.

Finally turned to final at waypoint KURMI for ILS ISARI-Y approach.

Already reduced speed to 130-135 KIAS and went full flaps.

Noticed that the runway markings in Japan or at least at this airport appear to be in yellow color.

Got parked, while Merlin was on final.

Merlin touched down.

Then later @Big-IN aka Din05 landed ok in his military C-17 transporter.

@Vega66 came in from his fighter ride. I hope this CSL is ok for your aircraft? F15, wasn´t it? I may have to increase the ground altitude for this aircraft a little bit.

Then I played aircraft spotter and watched @ManofMac aka Mr. Mac from the fence of the opposite side of the airport, rushing in with his Dash Q400, if I am not mistaken.

This was @Kumiankka landing after some attempts if I remember correctly.

Some final overview shots of this great scenery.

When I was holding short with the ViperJet finally @rajo was on final.

Said goodbye with a flyby on the airport.

See you next week and stay safe!

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by ostkamp

[Vega66]

3 minutes ago, ostkamp said:

 

@Vega66 came in from his fighter ride. I hope this CSL is ok for your aircraft? F15, wasn´t it? I may have to increase the ground altitude for this aircraft a little bit.

Woow!!! That's just perfect. Million thanks, that's indieed one of my all time favourite bird.  

 

 

[ostkamp]

@Vega66 The F15 is out of a very old CSL package which contents need to be manually converted for use with Swift from OBJ7 to OBJ8 format. And of course the quality is far from BlueBell OBJ8 stuff. But until something better gets published it will do the job. Unfortunately I am not able to share my results due to copyright issues so everyone has to do it himself.

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by ostkamp

[rajo]

All flights for pilot rajo

Date	From	To	Aircraft	Type	Duration	Distance	Earnings	Action
2021/11/21 18:35:31	RJCH	RJOH	N-704RS	Airbus A321	01:57	518	$4,527.90	View
2021/11/18 02:47:55	UHHH	RJCH	N-704RS	Airbus A321	01:58	471	$4,290.30	View
2021/11/17 02:38:40	RJAA	RJCH	JA-01NT	Cessna Citation Longitude	01:22	362	$7,694.18	View

sorry, but the chronological order is reversed

Edited November 23, 2021 by rajo