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Report:
Hey
everyone, it's your intrepid blind-ass navigator
taking the helm of the PIREP machine this week
to bring you the skinny about our leg between
Newcastle, England and Bergen, Norway. A lot of
water beneath us. That's about the highlight of
it. But, more than that, it also marks a few changes
that are probably more interesting than the actual
flight itself. There are some pictures here that
chronicle the journey over the North Sea, so enjoy
them as I bring you the details of some exciting
differences that will influence the make-up of
this and many legs to come.
As
you look at the pictures, you'll notice that The
Hopper is orange in color. Why is that? Well,
seems that one of our favorite breweries, Dogfish
Head from Milton, Delaware in the US, has an outstanding
seasonal ale called Punkin Ale. You can read the
review here. It kind of inspired us to try something
new with the Hopper: A commemorative paint scheme.
Remember the Great Pumkin 747 from Braniff? Well,
this is our little version. She's still the same
old, dependable Pilatus, but now she's adorned
with the DFH shark and the word "Punk"
on the fuselage. We hope this will be the first
in a long line of beer-inspired liveries that
will grace The Hopper.
If
you own Flight1's Pilatus PC-12, you can download
this and our default livery in Text-o-Matic format
here.
The
second thing that this flight brings us is the
inaugural implementation of FS Passengers. We're
actually flying virtual people now. Crazy, huh?
Actually, there are many reasons that we've taken
to this little add-on, not the least of which
is that it is just plain fun! If you are unfamiliar
with FS Passengers, here's the basic deal: FSP
simulates the presence of actual passengers on
your aircraft. They board your aircraft, buckle
in and react to your flying. Fly a nice flight,
serve them drinks and land smoothly and they'll
reward you with a good rating. Pull some Gs, ignore
their stomachs and forget to light the seat-belt
sign and they'll bitch up a storm. The program
gets much deeper than that, though. Control the
loading of your aircraft, deal with failures such
as bird-strikes and cabin de-pressurization, and
even dodge bullets depending on what area of the
world you are flying in!
Now,
serving food and drinks is well and good, but
the failure matrix and flight logging is the most
compelling reason for The Flight of The Hopper
project. Personally, I love the fact that the
program records all kinds of values for us including
takeoff and landing times, time enroute and even
descent rate at touchdown. Look at the info above.
That's all out of FS Passengers.
So,
in this flight, the passengers liked us a whole
bunch. Nine daring souls made it safely to Bergen
and GB did his usual fine job of landing The Hopper
and all is well. Chances are that FS Passengers
will make us work for our beer from this point
forward, though. We're sure to be a target drone
whenever we finally make it to some place like
Afghanistan, at which point The Hopper will hopefully
be painted in something other than florescent
orange. In the meantime, we'll
worry about making our way to Stockholm in one
piece.
GZ
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