🇺🇦 941st fly-in: Hostomel "Antonov-2" Airport, Kyiv, Ukraine (UKKM)

[Kumiankka]

link to fly-in index thread

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The next stop on the Manufacturers Tour, on Sunday, January 22nd, takes us to the home of one more of those famous post-Soviet aircraft design bureaus, the Antonov State Enterprise. Before the current war, their main testing facility was located at Hostomel "Antonov-2" Airport, Kyiv, Ukraine (UKKM), the site of a pivotal battle in the opening hours of the 2022 Russian invasion. It was also the home base of the unique Antonov An-225 Mriya. the world's largest and heaviest aircraft which was destroyed in the aforementioned battle. The designation "Antonov-2" of course implies the existence of an "Antonov-1" airport - indeed there is such a place, the nearby smaller Sviatoshyn Airfield (UKKT), but Sviatoshyn does not appear in the X-Plane database and has a shorter runway anyway, so Hostomel will instead be the main destination this week. The scenery for the main civilian and international airport at Boryspil (UKBB) which we visited last October is also worth installing, while there is also a secondary airport called Zhuliany Igor Sikorsky Airport (UKKK) covered by the default X-Plane database.

A word of caution: if you plan on flying the An-225, there is currently an unresolved flight server bug where logging on in the An-225 (or, I suspect, any aircraft with more than four engines) will cause the entire server to crash and all online pilots to get disconnected! There is no known workaround for this, so unfortunately any An-225 flights must be conducted offline until the bug is fixed.

And finally, the week after this we'll be heading for the home of Saab AB in Sweden, if you need a refueling stop EYKA Kaunas, Lithuania is about halfway there and not too far off the route.

Updated tour schedule:

January 8th: HAL Airport, Bengaluru, India (VOBG)
Optional refueling stop: Mary International Airport, Turkmenistan (UTAM)
January 15th: Zhukovsky International Airport, Moscow, Russia (UUBW)
Optional refueling stop: Bryansk, Russia (UUBP)
January 22nd: Hostomel "Antonov-2" Airport, Kyiv, Ukraine (UKKM)
Optional refueling stop: Kaunas, Lithuania (EYKA)
January 29th: ????

 

Have a good journey - Щасливої подорожі!

 

 

 

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)

 

[ostkamp]

Scenery for next optional refueling stop after main destination:

 

[surfintucson]

Greetings, Pilots.  A little non-aviation diversion. I saw this on BBC today and, of course, thought of @Kumiankka, the little policeman, and our fly-in to Oulu during the homebases tour. Enjoy:

"The cycle-mad city in Finland that doesn't stop for snow":
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-64354089

 

 

[Vega66]

Greetings, great Pilots

 

Arrived early at Zhukovsky in order to perform the pit stop at Bryansk, before reach towards Hostomel. The A321 was stationed at the farthest Technical Ramp, which in turn was not the worst place to get to the active Runway 12. 

Cold and snowy morning at Zhukovsy. The quick de-icing procedures barely allowed for the plane to get sufficient power to rotate, but although on the edge the slim Airbus managed to get up in the air.

Short trip towards Bryansk, somewhat delayed by multiple speed and altitude constraints around Moscow. The weather also stood very nasty up to Bryansk.

About 5 nm short of the field it improved a little, which facilitated the RNAV approach. A quick stop by the apron for refuel and change some passengers, and off we go towards Hostomel.

A KLM491 B738 was also getting ready for departure towards Hostomel, getting up in the air a couple of minutes after.

Over Kiev, got better visibility than reported by other pilots, catching nice views from the city on approach. 

Nice scenery, but with all the slots occupied by static acft, it was difficult to find a parking place. Amazing detail with a Ruslan and the unique Mryia, side by side. 

The time was just tight to pay a quick visit to my wife's hometown, Mykolaiv. The Colimata Mig29 with the Ukranian colors was the best choice I had available for the task. Although the aircraft is a XP11 version, it still performs well enough on XP12. It would be great if a XP12 would be made available, as Colimata already did for the Concorde.

Took off smoothly and performed some turns just to welcome arriving pilots. Here KLM491 and @Kumiankka on a AN124, mapped on my side as a B2 (at least it got the 4 engines right)

Approaching Mykolaiv.

A very fast refueling stop at Mykolaiv apron, just before heading back to Hostomel.

Nice view above Kiev

And one final fly-by over Hostomel, catching @Quintao, @Big-IN and @ostkamp down below.

Expedited the landing and parked next KLM491 and @rajo, pausing for a necessary break.

Finally, the last leg of the day towards the next refueling stop at EYKA - Kaunas

Very nice scenery at Kaunas.

One final snapshot with Rajo on the foreground, who arrived a few minutes later, just before we both log out.

Looking forward to join next week. Wish you all great times. 

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by Vega66

[Quintao]

Great pictures @Vega66 ! Very unfortunate the entire situation in Ukraine, hope your wife's family is safe and well!

I am trying to complete this tour with minimal refueling stops, hence my choice for the C750, let's see how far can I get when we need to go across continents, but for this leg of the tour I started at UUBW in Moscow and departed from RWY 12, the same I had landed a week ago.

 

 

 

Shortly after I took off, was already in the soup and could see that @Big-IN Dino5 and Merlin getting ready for departure as per the labels.

 

Continued climbing until reaching my cruise altitude of FL380.

 

 

The nice cruise speed of Mach .91 allowed for a flight of about 1h long to UKKM. Just like Vega said, the weather was clear in Kyiv during the approach and visual landing on RWY 15.

 

 

 

Had to taxi all the way to the end of the runway given that the first exit had a "Do not enter" sign, and the second was being used for holding for take off, @ostkamp was the first in line!

 

Nice static aircraft as part of the scenery!

 

Like I mentioned on the audio during the fly-in, I had the nice surprise of seeing an Antonov irl this past December during a short business trip to Toronto. I searched online and it has some interesting news about it: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/russian-plane-toronto-pearson-1.6475279 .

 

After parking and watching Vega's buzzing the tower, waited for @rajo to land, then I got in line behind Guido and Dino 5.

 

I took off from Antonov and headed to Boryspill, visual approach on RWY 18L, where I plan to depart form in a week's time to Saab.

 

Very nice seeing a busy airspace during this fly-in!

[Kumiankka]

Interesting to see my home town mentioned in the news abroad @surfintucson, tradition demands we must now gather in the town square to celebrate such fame 😄

Largely accurate too, I can confirm we have very good bicycle paths here - in fact, they recently overhauled some of the main ones and they're now almost as wide as some city streets!

 

Since we couldn't fly the mighty An-225 online due to Swift client issues, its smaller cousin the An-124 was a suitable substitute to continue the tour from Zhukovsky to Hostomel. The old XP8 model by @ghun1 had survived the conversion process surprisingly well, although I had to run the airfoils through two different converters before it would load in XP11!

 

Lucky we had ILS for Hostomel, because otherwise this would've been a no-go with the cloud ceiling just around minimums. The real weather obviously was coming from someplace else since none of the Ukrainian airports are reporting any data due to the war, but the cloud deck seemed to be similar across much of eastern Europe.

 

@Vega66 made a flyby in his MiG-29 while I was trying to figure out where to find enough parking space for this big bird

 

Ready to head for Zhuliany in the slightly smaller An-12, while @CHASMAN2014's lights are visible during a very steep approach through the clouds… a little too steep in fact, as he plowed into the ground just moments afterwards!

 

Just after departure I was already running into some problems of my own, you'd think four engines would be plenty to climb out on, but I was barely getting enough power to remain airborne around treetop level!

 

Staying below the low cloud deck (not like I had much choice in the matter anyway) I was able to make it to Zhuliany to perform an emergency landing. Still no idea what went wrong, especially since I had no such issues with the An-12 during our last visit to Kyiv for the anniversary fly-in.

 

Same as last time, I loaded up the tiny Aeroprakt A-22 ultralight for a short hop to Boryspil. While not as famous as the Antonov Design Bureau, Aeroprakt is another local aircraft manufacturer from Kyiv, specializing in the ultralight and general aviation market rather than setting any "world's largest aircraft" records.

 

The tiny A-22 was a better choice for the bridge challenge, going under the South Bridge here

 

Incredibly enough the weather was even worse at Boryspil - I nearly flew into some of the airport buildings in the soup before finally spotting the runway.

 

Starting a return trip in the DMO Sikorsky S-92. While Sikorsky is actually a US aircraft manufacturer, their founder Igor Sikorsky was from Kyiv.

 

 On the way back through the city center

 

Down on the ramp at Hostomel again: Chaser, Merlin, Vega and KLM491 in the background

 

Although the S-92 flight was my last online one for the evening, I made a quick offline hop in the An-225 before shutting down

 

Not that there was much to take screenshots of, with the daylight fading and cloud deck still hanging very low.

 

I ended up just flying a quick circuit to come back for an ILS approach and landing - the weather wouldn't even permit a flyby, since the An-225 was big enough that just getting it off the ground was basically enough to put you in the soup!

 

[rajo]

All flights for pilot rajo

Date	From	To	Aircraft	Type	Duration	Distance	Earnings	Action
2023/01/22 17:01:53	UKDD	EYKA	D-RAJ750	Cessna Citation X	01:38	570	$4,414.48	View
2023/01/22 15:17:30	UKKK	UKDD	D-RAJ750	Cessna Citation X	00:39	220	$2,718.69	View
2023/01/22 14:25:22	UKKM	UKKK	D-RAJ750	Cessna Citation X	00:12	15	-$214.13	View
2023/01/22 14:07:37	UKHH	UKKM	D-RAJ750	Cessna Citation X	00:49	237	-$310.98	View
2023/01/22 13:10:41	UUBP	UKHH	D-RAJ750	Cessna Citation X	00:43	213	-$419.30

When I regained consciousness in Bryansk, @ostkamp was already there. I let him fly alone, since I still wanted to fulfill a Red Cross order, namely to fly out wounded from Kharkiv.

Just above the clouds in the best weather

something went wrong (maybe because of jammers?), and I had to land completely by hand

the old and new terminals look harmonious next to each other

but now quickly to Antonov Airport

this is the river Dnepr, isn't it?

approaching rwy 15, @ostkampand KLM91 is already there, @Quintaojust lands

suddenly @Big-IN in the Tupolev Tu-144 whizzes by under me

when taxiing to the gate could admire them from close up

again to the war zone to fly out the wounded

there are a lot of airplanes at the old Kiev airport

the sun is just setting

refueling stop

the weather was good on the whole. In contrast to the reports of the XP11 fliers. I wonder if the latest XP12 release candidate has a problem there?

Happy Landings! Happy week!

Edited January 24, 2023 by rajo

[ostkamp]

Hi all,

it seems I am already late with my PIREP on Tuesday evening. 😉

I departed from Bryansk (UUBP) where I had left off last time - now taking the Aerobask Phenom 300. Programming the G1000 is still problematic at least for me since on the first attempt to load flightplan from disk prepared by Little Navmap some popup appeared telling me it couldn´t be loaded without giving a reason and then XP11 immediately exited to desktop - oops. 😟

The next time I tried it manually but entering all of it via the knobs really takes time. Also I have still a lot of trouble with entering any planned STAR or APPROACH from the internal database. Sometimes you have to choose between loading and activating. Activating immediately seems to setup the leg to start of approach or to next waypoint as active leg. Just loading it does not activate it later. Have to consult the manuals in more depth, if they exist at all. Here in the Phenom the AP is on top and the buttons are not included left or right of the main displays as I have seen it with other aircraft using the G1000.

Anyway, I taxied to runway 16 here with @rajo still preparing his flight in the background. I later learned from Teamspeak that he was performing some extra flights.

As already mentioned the weather was most likely not real, however I ended up in the soup somehow.

Climbed on top of the overcast layer.

Reaching river Dnieper or Dnipro or Dnjepr (German) next to Kyiv.

The original plan was to get in via STAR passing waypoint LC and then turn North West for right turn into runway 15 ILS approach but the FMC decided to turn us South after reaching LC. So I had to take control and get back North before finally turning in for ILS with another right turn.

The landing was hard (not used to this A/C) and I turned off at the very end of the runway. Got parked for cake break near @Kumiankka´s A/C.

Later I changed A/C to Embraer 650 Legacy for flight to Kaunas Intl (EYKA). Since the taxiway to runway 15 was marked as unusable I needed to backtrack and this wasn´t possible for a while. @Big-IN aka DIno5 landed and taxied to apron with the Tu-444 (he selects Tu-144 for Swift, since there is no CSL for Tu-444).

After some others had landed too, there was sufficient time to backtrace and have an immediate departure after a quick turn at end of runway before the next A/C was closing up for landing, I think this was @Vega66.

I had a nice sunset trip to the North.

Finally got setup for ILS landing on runway 08. @Big-IN had already landed earlier.

That landing was considered acceptable 😄.

@CHASMAN2014 landed as well and we parked next to each other. Nice custom airport scenery was available here.

I still have to check the next leg for the next ride and whether it is suitable for a Saab - I have got the Saab 340 model but am yet unfamiliar with it.

I am still hoping the Swift developers will finally publish a new beta since the last one is now counting down via popup. But the latest alpha is also rather old yet and I don´t want to spend the effort twice on migrating to new versions. They said they were still fixing some bugs.

The trusty FS Economy Python plugin that could easily be invoked from within XP11 has also reached end of lifetime and will not be accepted any longer. Now one needs an extra external application (Windows / Mac etc.) that runs somewhere in the background and a connector plugin.

Hope to see you next Sunday! 🙂

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by ostkamp

[rajo]

"The trusty FS Economy Python plugin that could easily be invoked from within XP11 has also reached end of lifetime and will not be accepted any longer. Now one needs an extra external application (Windows / Mac etc.) that runs somewhere in the background and a connector plugin."

As long as the external program with the NASA Connector frequently loses the connection and I have never managed to reconnect, FSE must still support the Python Connector, which works perfectly fine on my latest Mac operating system (Ventura 13.1 (22C65)). Since Ventura no longer includes Python 2.7, I had to install that myself using MacPorts.

[ostkamp]

15 hours ago, rajo said:

As long as the external program with the NASA Connector frequently loses the connection and I have never managed to reconnect, FSE must still support the Python Connector, which works perfectly fine on my latest Mac operating system (Ventura 13.1 (22C65)). Since Ventura no longer includes Python 2.7, I had to install that myself using MacPorts.

@rajo The FSE Discord announcement section contains this:

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Dear X-Plane pilots,

We would like to inform you about a couple of upcoming changes, as well as give you an outlook on the further development and support of the X-Plane client.

**Legacy Client (x-economy) Decommissioning by February 1, 2023**
We have decided to deactivate the legacy Python script on February 1, 2023. This means from this date on, the server will no longer accept flight reports submitted by the legacy client script. If you haven't tackled migrating to XFSE yet, now is a good time to do so.
…

There is now also an announcement at https://server.fseconomy.net/index.jsp

Edited January 25, 2023 by ostkamp

[F5Chaser]

I continued this week from Zhukovsky, attempting to fly the Phenom 300 again this week. No icing this time since I manually set the temperature.

The cloud deck was low and covered most of the trip. It was mostly a straight cruise at FL390 with a 30 knot headwind for the 90 minute flight to Hostomel.

Shortly after crossing the Ukrainian border I reenabled real weather to see what it was like. To my surprise it was a clear day with a few cumulus clouds above. Interesting how 12 differs so much from the weather in 11 when the real world METAR stations are offline.

The approach into Hostomel went pretty close to plan this time with a slight crosswind from the east. I made the second to last turnoff following another smooth landing. I feel like my speed control was much better this time, staying stable very close to VREF through most of the approach. The plane flies really well, even with a few more bugs to iron out in 12.

I didn't have much time to stick around after landing this week, but it was enough to still see everyone land.

See you next week in Linköping!