Halifax to Cincinnati

Back in the saddle after a week. Actually, this past week has been quite busy FS wise. I flew a couple of familiarisation flights in the DF Baron over the region of Brest, France in some pretty tough weather conditions. I had the chance to do a few low visibility non-precision approaches. The Baron flies lovely overall but I found it tricky to land with most of my touchdowns being pretty hard.

A nice surprise last week was (among others) an extremely cool 757 sticker Al sent me. Naturally it went straight on the laptop. It's so cool actually it made me want to roll out my 757 out of the hangar.

Delta Airlines flight 70 (ficticious) was from Halifax to Cincinnati (CYHZ - KCVG) The 1050nm route took exactly 2 hours and 52 minutes from start-up to shut down.

I chose the flysong livery which comes with the PSS install.

Halifax - Cincinnati


Traffic was sparse at Halifax, only a couple of arrivals and departures. The weather was calm winds from the northwest and 13C, chilly compared to the 35C in Istanbul on this Sunday morning.

Halifax terminal


After a swift preflight I pushbacked and was ready to go. The runway 23 was close to my gate and I at the holding point in less than 5 minutes.

Lining up


A Citation was on final for 32 as I started my take-off roll. I have all runways active in this freeware CYHZ.

My GW was 195K, with the conditions permitting I derated the take-off thrust.

Rolling


I headed directly to waypoint HIDIG after take-off per the Halifax 3 departure which is basically vectors to fix.

Climbout


Nothing to report for the climb stage of the flight, cruise altitude was FL 380. The skies were clear until I got close to Boston where clouds formed up and stayed during the rest of the flight.

Over Boston


The route took me over Boston and Kennedy airports, I could really see them as they were right below me but I tuned briefly into their tower and ATIS frequencies to listen to the activity down below.

Around 80nm out, I got cleared to runway 18L for KCVG. Initially the winds were northerly at Covington but they shifted to the south on the way. I kept track of the arrival weather during the flight by the 122.000 Active Sky advisory frequency.

I had set up the TIGRR1 arrival in the FMC at Halifax, I just changed the arrival runway and inserted a couple of new altitude restraints.

TIGRR1 Rnav Arrival


Arrival weather was calm southerly winds with 4 miles visibility.

Final runway 18L


I noticed 2 very eager AI aircraft trying to cut me off on my left side at localizer capture. I realised I wasn't going to be able to outrun them so I slowed down as much as possible to let them land before me. I knew the second one would go around anyway.

AI action


The second one did get the go around instruction but the first fucker who landed didn't vacate the runway soon enough which forced me to pass through it on my landing roll. Of course I got the go around instruction too but honestly I couldn't be bothered.

Very short final


I flew most of the final approach manually and my landing was pretty good too, not a greaser but but still below 200 fpm.

Taxing to the gate


KCVG is a large airport which I knew from my previous experiences here. The best part is the 3 parallel runways which enable a good traffic flow. I set the center runway for take-offs and the left and right ones for landings. Perfect for FS.

Fellow Delta ships


To be honest, I'm not a fan of this flysong livery and don't see myself flying it again. It looks like one of those indistinctive boring charter liveries you can see at European airports... The Delta livery looks much better.

Although I enjoy GA aircraft, airline flying is where my heart lies. Doing touch and go's in Cessnas or Beechcrafts may be a lot of fun but it won't come close to that rewarding feeling you get when you vacate the runway at the arrival airport. What a joy that jet whine is...

Thanks for viewing