A Flight Sim Enthusiast's Notebook
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Sichuan Airlines Flight 3U8633 Airbus A319 Cockpit Windshield Cracks and Detaches
Undoubtedly, this is another miracle in aviation history. Although many facts have not yet been officially released, the cause of the windshield crack is unknown, and various data are still under investigation. This page will be continuously updated when there is new news.
According to this site’s past experience in summarizing accident reports, such as the investigation of the TransAsia Airways Flight GE235 accident, it took a year and a half to close the case. So, collecting information on the 3U8633 flight incident will also be a long process.
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X-Plane 11.20 Official Release and Chinese Airport Promotional Video
The official release of version 11.20 is finally here: X-Plane 11.20 final released Aside from bug fixes, features such as VR, Sydney Scenery, and the Ultralight Aerolite 103 have all been introduced previously, so there aren’t really any more surprises. X-Plane 11.20 Release Notes
However, I just saw that the official team released a video specifically promoting Chinese airport Scenery, which was quite unexpected—I wonder if this is to expand into the Chinese market. I’ve posted it here for everyone to enjoy.
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Featured on Airliners.net's Official SNS Account
It is a great honor to have my photo featured for the first time by Airliners.net’s official SNS account. This ANA A321neo, registration JA131A, was shot at Haneda at the end of last month. In fact, I had also photographed this airframe in Osaka before, and that shot was accepted by anet as well. It seems I have some fate with this aircraft.
JA131A is ANA’s first A321neo, and the first domestic route aircraft equipped with an inflight entertainment system at every seat, entering service on September 8, 2017.
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Spotting Planes at Haneda during Golden Week
Typically, there is a holiday of about one week spanning from the end of April to early May. If there are no special travel plans, I usually spend about 2 or 3 days spotting planes nearby.
Below are a few photos of aircraft with special liveries that I recently captured.
This is a JAL (Japan Airlines) special livery commemorating the FIFA World Cup to be held in Russia next month. Themed “SAMURAI BLUE 2018,” it features designs of Japanese national football team members. The aircraft type is Boeing 777-200, registration JA8979.
SAMURAI BLUE 応援ジェット 1号機 -
Encountering a Russian Tycoon's Yacht and Private Jet
While walking by the seaside in Yokohama, I stumbled upon a ship with a very unique appearance,
After consulting a friend familiar with ships, it turned out to be a super luxury Megayacht “A”,
a work by French designer Philippe Starck.
The ship is named "A", and the "BIKINI" below indicates its home port is Bikini, flying the Marshall Islands flag.
The owner is reportedly Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko,
a major shareholder of a Siberian coal and energy company, and a coal and fertilizer magnate,
ranked 56th in the 2013 Forbes global rich list.
The estimated cost of the entire ship is 300 million USD.
I checked Chinese media online and found this article's description is quite good, for reference only:
Russian tycoon spends $400 million to build private yacht that looks like a warship and a submarine
The next day, I went to Haneda to take photos of airplanes, and had the pleasure of meeting several aviation enthusiasts who came specifically from Beijing for this.
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History of X-Plane
A historical record regarding X-Plane was published on the official website here, so here is a brief introduction.
1989 Austin Meyer began writing flight simulation software himself 1992 Austin and Randy Witt met in college 1993 The first version of X-Plane was released, named “Piper Archer-II IFR” at the time, with a price of approximately $650 1995 Austin founded the company Laminar Research 1996 The second version of X-Plane was released, adding support for Windows 1997 X-Plane 3 was released 1997 X-Plane 4 was released, priced at $199 1999 X-Plane 5 was released 2001 X-Plane 6 was released
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A Quick Visit to the Aichi Museum of Flight
A few months ago, I took a trip to the Aichi Museum of Flight. Since the itinerary was rushed, I only stayed for about two hours. I just snapped some souvenir photos with a point-and-shoot camera (RX100) and am posting them here to introduce the place.
The Aichi Museum of Flight is located right next to Nagoya Airport. (This is not Nagoya Chubu Centrair International Airport, but a joint civil-military local airport.) It just opened on November 30, last year (2017). According to the official Aichi tourism website, the facility consists of:
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Instantbook: A Service for Printing Instagram Photos into Mini Photo Books
There is an online service in Japan called instantbook that can turn photos from Instagram into a small photo book. I make one every once in a while, looking like this:
Sydney Scenery in X-Plane 11.20
The 11.20 beta3 has been released. Aside from VR, it mainly consists of bug fixes.
I haven’t upgraded yet, but I was stunned by the introduction on the official website, so I’d like to share it. X-Plane 11 Landmarks: Sydney, Australia
The Sydney Harbour Bridge, nicknamed the “Coathanger”
Sydney Opera House at night
Close-up of the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge
China-Japan routes overfly Korea without Korean control? Does Korean Air still have to pay transit fees to China?
Two years ago, I wrote an article titled Waypoints Named After Cars and Food, introducing some interesting names of navigation points. Among them, I mentioned a segment on the China-Japan route located south of Jeju Island, where the “AKARA Fukue Air Corridor” uses names like Ramen and Leeks for waypoints.
(The green area at the top of the image is Jeju Island)
Recently, I came across this article: China and Japan Controlled Korean Airspace for 35 Years; China Even Collects Transit Fees. It explains that although the AKARA Fukue Air Corridor passes through the Flight Information Regions (FIR) of China, South Korea, and Japan, it is not managed by South Korean air traffic control when flying over it, which makes Koreans quite unhappy.
Traveling on Civil Aircraft and the Social Credit System
Saw news regarding the Opinions on Restricting Specific Seriously Dishonest Persons from Boarding Civil Aircraft within a Certain Time Limit to Promote the Construction of Social Credit System and Opinions on Restricting Specific Seriously Dishonest Persons from Boarding Trains within a Certain Time Limit to Promote the Construction of Social Credit System.
In recent years, the uncivilized behavior of a few passengers at airports and on aircraft has had a negative impact on aviation safety. The new regulations are believed to play a positive role in the good operation of airlines. Below is an excerpt of some content.
Objective To prevent the adverse effects of illegal acts by some passengers on civil aviation flight safety, and to further increase the punishment for serious illegal and dishonest behaviors in other fields.
Did a Garmin Smartwatch Save a Fighter Jet?
Saw someone discussing this on Weibo, so I looked up the original articles: Aircrew that landed a Growler while blind and freezing awarded for bravery Flying blind and freezing: Navy investigating terrifying EA-18G Growler flight It turns out it is indeed a case with significant reference value.
On January 29, a US Navy EA-18G fighter was cruising at 25,000 feet when the ECS (Environmental Control System) suddenly issued air conditioning and pressurization warnings. The temperature in the cockpit dropped to minus 30 degrees, water vapor fogged up, and ice formed on the glass and instrument panels, leaving the pilots with virtually zero visibility.
The Future of Autonomous Air Taxi: Cora Unveiled
According to a report on the New York Times website, Larry Page’s Flying Taxis, Now Exiting Stealth Mode Need a Lift? Check Out This Flying Taxi This is truly the latest revolution in the history of aviation, too cool.
This futuristic autonomous aircraft with tail number N301XZ belongs to the company KITTY HAWK, which is the investment company of Google founder Larry Page.
From the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the aviationdb website, its data can be found, For example: Engine Type Electric Number Engines 13 Aircraft Weight CLASS 1 Aircraft Type Rotorcraft Manufacturer_Name ZEE AERO etc. From regosearch, it is seen that there is another prototype, N303XZ.
The Volcano Crater Erupts in the 007 Movie
This month, Mount Kirishima (KIRISHIMAYAMA) located in Kagoshima, South Kyushu, Japan, has seen the eruption of the Shinmoedake volcano. Shinmoedake
新燃岳の噴火活動続く 噴煙の高さ一時３００メートルに #西日本新聞 #ニュースhttps://t.co/6Gq31VY8Yq
— 西日本新聞web (@nishinippon_dsg) March 2, 2018Consequently, I checked the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center website. You can see that new information has been issued every few hours since March 1st.
When mentioning Shinmoedake volcano, people generally have no concept of it, but when referring to the famous 007 series movie “You Only Live Twice” from 1967, a vast number of people should know about it.
Photos of Recently Taken Painted Aircraft, etc.
I haven’t been out much on weekends lately, so I don’t have many photos, but I’ll share a few here.
Boeing 777-346/ER - Japan Airlines - JAL JA733J “JET-KEI” <img src=https://imgproc.airliners.net/photos/airliners/5/0/0/4880005.jpg?v=v409b469e077> A JAL 777 themed after tennis player Kei Nishikori. Kei Nishikori, from Shimane Prefecture, Japan, is a male tennis player and the second Asian man to reach a Grand Slam singles final (2014 US Open Runner-up; the previous one was Zenzo Shimizu in 1920 at Wimbledon). He is one of only eight Asian players to reach the Grand Slam quarterfinals, with a highest ranking of No. 4.
How to Look Up Aircraft Codes
Last week, I saw someone on Twitter asking what the aircraft designator code for the Boeing 787-10 is.
Coincidentally, I came across ICAO DOC8643 regarding Aircraft Type Designators, which perfectly solved this problem.
So, I went to the ICAO website DOC 8643 - Aircraft Type Designators to check.
The answer is: the designator for the Boeing 787-10 is **B78X**.
Similarly:
- 737 MAX 7 is B37M
- 737 MAX 8 is B38M
- 737 MAX 9 is B39M
- 747-400LCF Dreamlifter is BLCF
- 747SCA Shuttle Carrier is BSCA
- 747SP is B74S
- 747SR is B74R
- 747-8 is B748
- 777-200LR and 777-F are B77L
- 777-300 is B773
- 777-300ER is B77W
- A-300ST Beluga and A-300ST Super Transporter are A3ST
- A-320neo is A20N
- A-319neo is A19N
- A-321neo is A21N
- A-330-900 is A339
- A-330-800 is A338
- A-350-900 XWB is A359
- A-350-1000 XWB is A35K
- A-380-800 is A388, and so on.
Additionally, the designator for the Cessna 172 is C172, but for the 172RG Cutlass RG it is C72R. The PA-28 Piper Cherokee has a large number of variants, and they are quite peculiar.
Garmin D2 Charlie User Manual
I noticed many search queries looking for the D2 Charlie user manual, so here is a collection of links.
Garmin D2 Charlie User Manual China (Mainland) Version Product Page
Garmin D2 Charlie Chinese User Manual Taiwan Version Product Page
Garmin D2 Charlie Instruction Manual Japanese Version Product Page
Garmin D2 Charlie Owner’s Manual (PDF) English Version Product Page
Introduction to Little Navmap, an Excellent Free Flight Planning Tool
I found a very popular free flight planning tool on x-plane.org called Little Navmap. I downloaded it for a trial run and found it to be extremely powerful. I highly recommend it. Here is a brief introduction to how to use Little Navmap.
First, download Little Navmap from the official website, unzip the
LittleNavmap-macOS-1.8.5.ziparchive, and it is ready to use.
Upon the first launch, you need to specify the path to **X-Plane 11**,
the "Flight Simulator Base Path",
and Little Navmap will automatically check the flight database.
It took nearly 5 minutes to complete the scan.
It found 34,968 airports, 4,545 VORs, 5,572 NDBs,
4,138 ILSs, 190,261 waypoints, and 3,011 airspace information entries.Did the US Air Force Equip U-2 Pilots with Garmin D2 Charlie Aviation Watches?
According to the announcement on Garmin’s official website, United States Air Force selects Garmin® D2 Charlie aviator watch, stating that the United States Air Force will provide 100 D2 Charlie aviator watches to U-2 pilots to serve as backup GPS devices within the cockpit.
Garmin International, Inc. a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), today announced that the D2™ Charlie aviator watch has been selected by the United States Air Force (USAF) for use by the pilots of the Lockheed U-2 aircraft. The high-sensitivity WAAS GPS-enabled D2 Charlie aviator watch incorporates global navigation capability, rich and colorful moving maps and more, providing pilots in the USAF with an exclusive, back-up navigation timepiece in the cockpit.
With a service ceiling of 70,000 feet, the D2 Charlie will provide unique benefits such as barometric-based O2 alerting and GPS-specific features including track, distance to the next waypoint, estimated time enroute and more.
According to the above statement, the D2 Charlie can provide barometric altitude alerts, GPS tracks, distance and time to the next Waypoint, and other information at an altitude of 70,000 feet.
Ramblings on Aircraft Safety and Such
Chatting with friends, we always seem to come back to the same topics: “Is Airbus or Boeing safer?” “Are ANA flights stable?” “Are big planes safer than small planes?” “Which planes won’t make my ears hurt?” “Which aircraft model is the quietest?” And so on.
I’m not a professional, so naturally I can’t give authoritative answers to these questions. But speaking from my own experience, flying is not only safe but actually enjoyable. So today, I’ll jot down some thoughts on these casual topics.