[ MSFS2020 | VATSIM ] an Aegean "Island Cruise Excursions" adventure in the Duckworks DC-3!

Tonight we returned to our "Island Cruise Excursions" series, now featuring the Duckworks DC-3, and came back to the Aegean Islands south and east of mainland Greece! For many such streams, I feature locations I have been to for real -- but tonight, this wasn't the case. Virtually, we had flown in the Aegean at least twice -- however, I've never had the opportunity to visit Greece in real life, and thus had precious little geographical and cultural knowledge to pass on during our "tour" this evening. But it gave us a chance to talk about the genesis of the series and some of my real life "Cruise Excursion" adventures!
We also discussed VFR navigation -- and in theory, there are three different forms of it. "Pilotage" refers to looking out the window and comparing what you see to what's on your sectional. As simple as that sounds, in practice it's not so straightforward. A few landmarks, water bodies, or coastlines are distinct enough -- but other times, each little bend in a creek or a road or a ridgeline can start to look similar. "Deduced reckoning" (AKA "ded reckoning" or "dead reckoning") is keeping track of your position purely via a compass and stopwatch. But, turns and speeds and headings are often imprecise, and wind plays a role in one's ground track too. The third form is "borrowing" radio-based nav-aids as a means to account for your position. One can track a route just as you would if you were IFR, or, can use radio nav-aids as "cross-references." VFR navigation on my channel tends to blend all three techniques. Tonight's focus was on pilotage, with some broad time estimates as additional data.
We departed from Mikonos (LGMK) on a right downwind and first endeavored to head to Astypalaia (LGPL). Because I had gotten a late start on the stream and was a bit under the weather, I chose this as the first stop because the terrain looked the most interesting. The runway is nestled between two "lobes" of the island. We flew a nice wide left-hand pattern, partially just because we needed to, but also to ensure Goodfixins had time to backtrack and vacate ahead of us. While adhering to the radial engine management method of reducing power only a set number of times, we lost too much altitude too quickly, then struggled to maintain airspeed. But once we lowered the nose for final, we extended all of our drag quickly enough to avoid building too much speed back, and managed a pretty passable landing.
Leg two took us to Naxos (LGNX) and we nearly turned north too early and got lost. Having caught the error before making it, we turned onto a ten-mile straight-in (generally not advisable in real life, but for VATSIM we took the liberty). This time we tried to keep our profile based on having 1,000 feet for every three miles remaining. But whereas in our first approach we were too flat and slow, here we were too steep and fast. We landed hot and long, and overran the end of the runway by a little bit. In my frustration I over-controlled the taxi-in and spun the plane around a couple times.
The trip from there to Paros (LGPA) should have been a short crosswind, downwind, base, and final. Instead we caught sight of the runway late and had to go around. The second time in we were once again struggling to maintain airspeed. We still had problems getting aligned on the second pass. But eventually we pointed ourselves up the runway, lowered the nose, threw all drag out again to keep speed from billowing, and still wound up landing a bit hot. This time, though, we were closer to the aiming blocks and quicker on the brakes, so we kept the plane on pavement. My biggest mistake on this one was forgetting I had the tailwheel lock on while trying to 180 at the end.
Leaving Paros was a bit dicey as I should have taken more care to execute a short-field takeoff with full power applied before releasing brakes. We made it, though, and took the quick hop to Dimitrios Vikelas (LGSO) on the island of Syros. Our first attempt there was looking pretty golden until a horn began sounding on short final. I had enough wits about me to realize the plane was warning me that my gear were still up. On the go-around and second attempt, I lined up with the wrong thing and started going around again -- but caught sight of the runway just in time to reset power, redeploy flaps and gear, and actually make a surprisingly good arrival out of the mess.
The return leg was mercifully short and our path led us to a three-mile final approach. For what felt like the first time, we seemed to manage the base turn, the altitude, the power, and the drag properly all at once, and plant the plane right on the blocks. It felt like a somewhat firm touchdown but the stats put it right in the same range we'd been in all night. Because we were on the blocks at the correct speed, we were able to vacate nice and quickly to end the night on a well-executed final leg! -- Watch live at / slantalphaadventures