🇺🇸 907th fly-in: MCAS Miramar, San Diego, California (KNKX)

[Kumiankka]

link to fly-in index thread

Quote

So, next Sunday, May 29th, with a certain quite famous fighter jet related movie sequel coming out the same week, let's take the highway to the danger zone and visit MCAS Miramar, San Diego, California (KNKX), the original and most famous home of the US Navy's "TOPGUN" training program, also known by the nickname "Fightertown USA" before the aforementioned program was moved to Fallon, Nevada during the 90s. Some old X-Plane 10 era custom scenery is available for Miramar itself, although you'll need to install the attached exclusion zone package and tweak the scenery loading order to get it to work properly in XP11. And for the city of San Diego as well as its main airport, the scenery situation is much better, with the KSAN San Diego Int'l airport scenery by @MisterX6 rightfully one of the most popular scenery packages ever created for X-Plane. Thanks to a separate integration pack by @slai, it's also fully compatible with several other major visual improvements for the city of San Diego. If you're planning to use all of the linked scenery (including the links listed on the integration pack's download page), the scenery_packs.ini order should be as follows:

SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/MCAS Miramar /
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/_KNKX_exclusion/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/KSAN - San Diego International/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/B_Coronado_Bridge/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/San_Diego_Buildings FSX Conversion/
SCENERY_PACK Custom Scenery/w2xp_uswest-RL/

Have fun!

_KNKX_exclusion.zip  

New pilots are always welcome, just read the guide on how to get started!

Remember to listen in on Teamspeak, new channel assignments listed here:
121.00 - fly-in main channel
123.00 - fly-in pre-flight
124.00 - small talk (in German)
125.00 - general comms (non-fly-in)

[ghun1]

I can only hope. Redecorating the house interior entirely is like moving house - twice 😱 and only just getting back to where we were before the move 🙄 

I nearly made it last fly-in but stuff cropped up that needed my attention (of course).

See you this weekend....

Gary

PS as it is getting closer to summer time for real, temperatures are hotting up (26C today), and the beach may be calling me away at any time soon.....not to mention backyard barbecues.....will join in whenever I can.

 

[F5Chaser]

If anyone is interested in some carrier ops tomorrow, this plugin will fix the carrier at 32.9N 117.8W so we all see the carrier in the same location. It should be out of the way of any conflicting scenery-provided carriers and is about 33 nm west of Miramar.

DomHenry's Patrol Day mod is also very useful for freeing up some parking space on the deck.

KNKXCarrierOverride.zip

[CHASMAN2014]

9 hours ago, F5Chaser said:

If anyone is interested in some carrier ops tomorrow, this plugin will fix the carrier at 32.9N 117.8W so we all see the carrier in the same location. It should be out of the way of any conflicting scenery-provided carriers and is about 33 nm west of Miramar.

DomHenry's Patrol Day mod is also very useful for freeing up some parking space on the deck.

Sounds good Chaser yes I am interested trying it out now.

[Vega66]

Hi, great pilots

Thank you @Kumiankka for an outstanding choice to celebrate two of the best aircraft movies ever... 

My first flight today started from the Nimitz, stationed a few miles from the coast of San Diego. The default F14 is a very good machine, perfectly suited for the occasion.

 

Before heading to Miramar, time to pay a visit to San Diego, passing over KSAN just as @CHASMAN2014 was taking off with an F15.

The first fly-under of the day

Buzzing another carrier stationed at the port before heading towards Miramar.

One generation jumps to another, so time to pick the F18 for more fun. The livery  from @Tommy171163  is almost unbeliavable, also a beautiful tribute to the sequel.

Time for many spins around the mountains and over San Diego. Once more over KSAN, spotted @Quintao departing on a Super Tucano (sorry for CSL mismatch)..

And followed with him for a short while, just before head for more carrier ops.

First carrier landing on a Super Hornet was a bit too hard... 

But finished in one piece and after a thorough inspection, everything was a Go for a return flight to fightertown.

Parked just next to @ghun1 Osprey (again the CSL a bit far from the true model)

 

The P51 was another model available from the saga, so that was destined for the more daring stunts,

A warm up over the stationed carrier.

And the absolutely insane stunt under the Cabrillo bridge. 

Finishing with a low fly by over KSAN, before turning back to Miramar. 

And for the final, a buzz flight with the unforgettable F14.

Buzz the tower...

After a refueling stop at the carrier... buzz the carrier..

And return to Miramar, parked next to @ManofMac, while Kumi was departing on a Mig-28

 

Unforgettable fly-in, so well inspired on two absolutely monster movies. If you like planes, you MUST watch the sequel on the big screen. 

Wish you all a wonderful week.

Edited May 29, 2022 by Vega66

[cyl8]

I didn't want to miss Monaco f1... I did take an old f14 out for a spin 

Somehow mine had no cockpit to see the instruments, so landing on the carrier was.. let me just say it wasn't successful. Given the location and background I look forward to read PIREPs  happy afterburners ! 

[Quintao]

I agree with @Vega66; the movies are great! Had a chance to watch it this past Friday with my son, and we both enjoyed it a lot.

Since I don't own any fighter jet shown in the movie, I chose for this fly-in the closest one in my hangar, the Super Tucano with US Air force livery, and departed from KPSP.

Taxied to Palm Springs RWY 13L and departed to KSAN.

I was flying at 9,500ft but the terrain was still very close.

For this flight, I picked the STAR TOPGN2 into KSAN, transitioned at MOMAR but later skipped to GUUSE, followed by CHASR before receiving clearance for the final approach via LOC for RWY 27. Could only see the runway once below 2,500ft and flew past what seemed like the city center while on final.

Nice buttery landing on RWY 27 at San Diego International.

The Super Tucano didn't seem to belong with the other birds at KSAN so I departed immediately to Miramar MCAS.

Stayed below the low ceiling and received an escort from Vega while heading to Miramar.

In a few minutes was already configured to land.

It was not planned, but @CHASMAN2014 and I ended up performing a semi-simultaneous landing in Miramar. He landed first on the left and I landed less than a minute later on the right runway.

We parked close to one another at Miramar.

Below is the picture for this fly-in route including the vertical profile, what a nice feature!

Shortly after, @Kumiankka arrived at Miramar and parked close by as well.

This was a busy long weekend with family and guests so I had to drop off early.

Looking forward to the next fly-in, which will be the last before I leave on summer vacation with the family!

[Kumiankka]

Great PIREPS all, and special thanks to @F5Chaser for the custom carrier ops plug-in. Long time since we did any carrier landings at the fly-ins!
Didn't actually get a chance to see the new movie quite yet, but just got my tickets reserved for later this week 🙂

 

On to the PIREP, a longer-than-usual one this week with a long list of military hardware…
 

First up was the only non-fighter aircraft I flew all day, David Austin's old E-2 Hawkeye converted to XP11 by Ray H. My starting point was Edwards AFB, early enough that the sun only started to come up while I was already getting set up for the ILS to Miramar.

 

The weather around San Diego at this point was neither very photogenic nor forgiving, with a cloud deck at 1200 feet. Not too bad for the Hawkeye, but certainly an extra challenge while flying those faster fighter jets.

 

Parked at the ramp, next to @Quintao (shown here as a Tornado) and @CHASMAN2014 in the New Zealand Airbus

 

Next I switched to an F-14A, an older XP10 model with a custom Top Gun livery created by @Sailor. Re-enacting Maverick's tower-buzzing stunt proved more difficult than it looked, especially with that low cloud deck!

 

The old XP10 model had survived the conversion surprisingly well, even the flares still worked all right.

 

The first of many bridge fly-under stunts in San Diego Harbor

 

Overview of the city (with the cloud deck slowly inching higher)

 

Flyby of the carrier - I was half expecting the "Request flyby" option to respond with "Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full" 😄

 

Final approach for carrier landing: actually made it on the first try here, those practice runs ahead of time must have paid off

 

Launching again to intercept incoming bogeys

 

What I found was not a hostile MiG-28, but instead this Hornet flown by @F5Chaser

 

Back at Miramar, parked next to @Quintao while in the background @Vega66 decides it's time to buzz the tower

 

Taxiing to 24R in the Super Hornet while @ghun1 arrives

 

My plan was to top the initial bridge-flying stunt with an even crazier one by going through the arches of Cabrillo Bridge
 

Here, the practice runs ahead of time just weren't enough - still "crashed and burned on the first one" 😅
 

Back for a second try…

 

…and made it through this time!

 

Flying along the harbor again

 

This time the Coronado Bridge run was a lot easier in comparison!

 

Back for another pass at the tower at Miramar…
 

…before returning to land (with Dino5 holding short here, and ostkamp on the other side)

 

Spooking the tower at San Diego International in the "MiG-28" - actually an F-5 Tiger II in the aggressor livery of VFC-13, inspired by the Top Gun MiGs.

 

Closer look at the livery, as well as the city center (no going under bridges this time!)

 

Returning to Miramar and dropping some more flares

 

There was (at least) one more obscure Top Gun livery out there, Jester's paint scheme for the A-4 Skyhawk by Ben "Mid7Night" Harber (the custom livery was painted by ddenn I believe)

 

Impressive detail in the custom scenery: the San Diego Air & Space Museum on the approach to KSAN

 

Parked at KSAN next to Dino and ostkamp

 

Heading back for Miramar in a P-51 representing the Tuskegee Airmen, the original  "Top Gun" trophy winners (still quite famous despite this accomplishment of theirs having been long forgotten)
 

Flying low along Harbor Drive

 

Visual circuit to Miramar, with a big lineup of aircraft on the ramp (by now pretty much all of them static planes)

 

Back for more carrier ops in the T-7 Red Hawk. As can probably be guessed from this rather unstabilized approach, I didn't make it onto the deck on this try, it took two more attempts before I was able to catch the wire.

 

I stopped so close to the catapult that the sim decided to set me up for a launch right away 😄

 

Returning to San Diego for another change of aircraft - weather seems to be improving a bit by now

 

On a higher-altitude tour east of San Diego, flying the FACOsim F-15C in a "Three Strikes" Ace Combat livery of my own making (still waiting to hear back from FACO for permission to release the livery)
(update: as it happens, I just heard back from FACO today, so the livery is now up for download!)

 

Back in the pattern for KNKX, the sky still quite gray and cloudy

 

Landing at 24R again

 

Back near the harbor, skimming the water surface in Barry Leger's Su-30 (converted to XP11 by alpeggio, and with another Ace Combat custom livery of my own making)

 

This time it wasn't the Miramar tower getting buzzed, but those frigates docked in San Diego Harbor

 

Returning to Miramar again after another very circuit around the city, with time for one last quick flight.

 

We didn't have a model of that new Top Gun superplane for X-Plane, so instead I went up in a preview version of the CFA-44 from Ace Combat 6 - PILOT7X is working on this model, which I was recently invited to test. The landing gear isn't quite there yet, but the flight model was surprisingly stable for one of these fictional superplanes, and I was also positively surprised to find that the custom 3D model wasn't too hard on the framerates on my old system either.

 

One last tower flyby…

 

…and a circuit around the city before landing and finally calling it a day

Edited May 31, 2022 by Kumiankka
update regarding FACO F-15 custom livery

[CHASMAN2014]

Greeting fellow pilots this was a fun fly-in, my first time flying a military jet.  I too have my tickets reserved for the new movie which came out Friday in my town. I saw the first one twice!  I do not  own a a fighter jet so I downloaded one form the org web site. Plan on buying one today with the big sale going on.  My daughters, all three, where coming over Sunday so I had to cut the flight short, but still had fun, wish I could have stayed longer. Many thanks to @Kumiankka for this great fly-in idea, and @F5Chaser for the carrier suggestions and files.

Screen shots from my practice run.

Started from San Diego International.

Leaving Catalina Island:

Approach to Miramar:

 

Have a great week everyone hope to see you next Sunday.

Chas

[ostkamp]

Hi guys,

when @Kumiankka announced this fly-in on Discord I was by chance just at that moment sitting in front of my TV watching the Top Gun movie I had recorded some days before 😁

By the way, really cool images @Kumiankka, especially the one with the aircraft mirrored in the water 👍

@Vega66 Thanks for the detailed shots of the aircraft carrier. 😀

The weekend started early for me this time, since we had a public holiday already on Thursday followed by a "bridge day" on Friday (as we call an intermediate free day here usually between a public holiday and the weekend where the company remains closed but shops are open).

I earned some virtual money mostly through executive corporate VIP flights in FS-Economy and on Sunday finished it up with 2 additional flights from Victoria International CYYJ to Sanderson Field KSHN - in order to ferry the required aircraft for the later tour from Sanderson Field KSHN to our destination Miramar KNKX.

The earlier tour LTCA - LHDC on Thursday was excellent since the aircraft used had a huge bonus (for flying towards its home base). I don´t remember having earned so much for a single flight in my FSE career. There is still a lot to do until I reach a point where I could purchase a Bombardier Challenger 300 or similar in FSE (which costs about 700,000 - 1,000,000 in game currency)

All flights for pilot ostkamp

Date	From	To	Aircraft	Type	Duration	Distance	Earnings	Action
2022/05/29 13:30:42	KSHN	KNKX	N-365KR	Bombardier Challenger 300	02:22	906	$16,260.44	View
2022/05/29 11:46:26	CYYJ	KSHN	N-365KR	Bombardier Challenger 300	00:38	86	-$1,106.18	View
2022/05/28 14:45:19	KBNA	E38	N-0425B	Embraer Legacy 600	02:37	921	$12,523.13	View
2022/05/27 16:47:06	MN0B	KOPF	E600RT	Embraer Legacy 600	02:37	918	$18,424.54	View
2022/05/27 15:00:01	MS0A	MN0B	E600RT	Embraer Legacy 600	00:35	116	-$956.84	View
2022/05/26 13:00:35	LHDC	EDON	SE-CML	Embraer ERJ-145LR	01:47	419	$13,048.26	View
2022/05/26 11:08:45	LTCA	LHDC	SE-CML	Embraer ERJ-145LR	02:41	938	$27,455.33	View

Starting up at CYYJ with the X-Crafts Legacy 650 as replacement for Bombardier Challenger 300:

After landing at Sanderson Field KSHN I waited for @Big-IN aka Din05 to arrive in an ancient 4 propeller aircraft.

Getting ready for 2nd trip to Miramar KNKX.

I am still trying to find out more about the mountain seen here short after takeoff flying to the South.

Due to the very long distance I went up to FL390 and used time-warp at max level.

Short of Miramar the weather turned into cloudy conditions / fog with bad visibility.

But I managed to get below the cloud deck.

And the landing was ok.

@Big-IN arriving here after some time which I used for the usual cake break. He somehow managed to get there with only initial fuel incl. drop tanks using an F35, if I remember correctly.

I then changed aircraft to F5E of @MrSergey as recommended by @Kumiankka and played the bait 😀. This aircraft was used to mimick the non-existing Mig-28 for Top-Gun using a black painted livery according to Wikipedia.

@Big-IN and I were holding short on runway 24L and 24R for arrival of @Kumiankka on 24R. We tried some simultaneous take-off later.

Unfortunately the fog was so dense that I lost control while flying over the ocean and crashed.

Had a restart and tried again searching for the aircraft carrier.

The aircraft is really excellent and it is freeware. I have also got the Mig-29 commercial version and quality is quite similar. It is just that I cannot get used to that head up display thing in green which can be read only at a certain angle. And when I am close enough to read the numbers, the other gauges are mostly no longer in view.

After some time I managed to find the carrier, but did not attempt to land since that would almost certainly have resulted in another crash.

We checked out the area a bit and finally landed at San Diego airport, I required multiple attempts.

Landing was even acceptable and I deployed the chute to stop.

Getting in front of the skyline.

Before we left off, @Kumiankka landed there as well.

Enjoy the week and see you next time! 🙂

 

Edited May 31, 2022 by ostkamp

[F5Chaser]

Keeping with the fighter theme I made my initial flight from Luke AFB (KLUF), Arizona in a F-16. There does not seem to be a livery for any of the F-16 squadrons based there so I used one of the included USAF liveries.

Flying formation with @MerlinEng as we descend into San Diego.

The landing was decent compared to my previous landings although I am still having a hard time holding the nose up long enough for aero-braking.

Taxiing back to the ramp. @ghun1's Osprey showing as the DC-10 for some reason. Interesting @Vega66 that our swift clients both picked the same wrong CSL. Haha.

Shutting down as @Kumiankka is making the tower spill his coffee!

After a break I returned in a Tomcat to say hello to the Nimitz.

Being intercepted by @Kumiankka for a friendly escort to the carrier.

I made two successful landings and takeoffs from the catapult. This one above being after the second, and getting stopped much earlier on the deck. It seems the cables in X-Plane don't do that much to help one stop!

After that it was time for me to return to Miramar and call it a day.

Glad to see the carrier plugin worked for some of us. Unfortunately I didn't realize the plugin depends on the 2022 Visual C++ Redistributable Package, which caused it to not load for some. Live and learn I guess!

See you next week!

[Skylark2992]

Cool link @F5Chaser, thanks for sharing.

Cool PIREPs everybody! Thanks. They are very different from normal, and good to see some of you return to those low-altitude antics.
 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Skylark2992

[F5Chaser]

On 5/30/2022 at 12:48 PM, Kumiankka said:

Flyby of the carrier - I was half expecting the "Request flyby" option to respond with "Negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full" 😄

I almost put that in there! 😆