Off We Go Again!

OK, so it's been a while since I landed in Durban on my round-the-world flight. In my virtual flying world, I spent 18 months there, scuba diving and giving flying lessons to the South African glitterati: in the real world, I have rediscovered photography, moved home and coped with various joys, trials and tribulations awaiting that moment when it was time once more to soar off into the wild blue yonder. Several people have tried to persuade me to get back flying (why do you think the Pope came over here?) and have even been kind enough to say how much they have missed the flying blogs so, hopefully, I won't disappoint as and when I get fully back into the swing of them. After the joys of Eastbourne's Airbourne,

I knew that the flying urge was upon me once more but there just don't seem to be enough hours in the day. I dipped a toe in the water (not the best expression, I know) by installing the software once more as I had stripped it all out when I changed to Windows 7 64bit, and spent a few days checking through the wealth of other software I needed to install as well as "obtaining" new terrain software. This new terrain software totals 43GB and is apparently taken directly from a NASA mission sent up specifically to photograph the whole of the Earth. Optimal configuration of Flight Simulator X (FSX) isn't the easiest thing in the world but I read forums, tweaked, twiddled and tinkered until I was happy.I still wasn't quite in the right frame of mind to actually restart my flying so prevaricated by considering a change of aircraft. I had flown this far in my trusty Mooney M20 Bravo but noticed that there have been further additions to the FSX catalogue. Rapidly discarding such esoteric delights as the Vulcan bomber, Apache helicopter gunship and a space shuttle, I was rather taken with a snazzy little number which goes by the name of Beechcraft F33a Bonanza - shades of Hoss Cartwright and the Ponderosa (Google it, young'uns!),

I thought that this could be the new G-BERT. It had a different instrument panel and no all-singing, all-dancing Garmin G1000 glass cockpit

but that didn't phase me as all the many hours I had spent learning how to operate the damn thing have drifted out of my ageing mind. The one problem was that, unlike the Mooney, there was no easy way to change it to G-BERT.

A small thing to some but I was quite possessive of that call-sign and so I resolved to actually repaint the fuselage by busting open the program and changing the textures folder and the config. file. I had seen loads of repaints done by people so figured it shouldn't be too difficult. I could even design a new lime-green livery as well. 3 days later I had got nowhere and was more confused than a cow on astroturf so I thought that perhaps I quite liked my old Mooney after all!

I finally sat there on the tarmac at Shoreham airport, engine ticking over and flaps set at 15 degrees ready for a quick reorientation flight. I was only using the joystick as all my yoke and throttles take up a fair bit of space but that was more than enough to get me going. Engine to full and off I went, tearing down the runway .... that old familiar feeling of exhilaration at the thought of actually flying once more. Reaching rotation speed, I gently pulled back on the stick. A little bit harder ........... harder.......... I finally realised that something was wrong as I trundled over the A27 and headed northwards through the fields. Buggrit!!

2 hours of downloading new drivers, changing registry entries and reading the many complaints from Logitech joystick users later, I realised that perhaps I needed to get my yoke after all. Now where did I put all the different bits?

That was 2 days ago and I am now all set. Yoke and throttles synchronised, Mooney loaded and I'm finally ready to go. Although the blogs finished at Durban, I need to confess I did actually get further - over to Madagascar, up through the island and then on to the Seychelles - so the first blog will effectively be a catch-up.

I'm really quite excited at the thought of carrying on. Sad as it may seem, it's all kind of realistic as I fly and struggle with navigation, radio comms, bad weather and the distinct lack of toilet facilities (OK, don't panic, I don't get THAT realistic!). Dear reader, please feel free to join me on my journey. Pack your travel pills, shorts and camera, cancel the milk and let us sally forth, up into the skies where no man has gone before (ish)!