MONDAY MAIL RUN #21: Puget Sound

[Storm]

Expect to get your feet wet on this tour of Puget Sound that ROBERT DUNN 2 will be guiding us on!

This week's Monday Mail Run group flight will feature amphibians from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to south Lake Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA. The route includes stops at either default seaplane bases or alternate airports nearby. After our final stop, all are welcome to once again race the freeware Smeiman Stingray in speedboat configuration on a hydroplane racecourse in Lake Washington (using Lazer's special scenery - see below).

Week 21: Puget Sound (BC and WA) The group will gather at Vancouver International, CYVR AT 21:00, (9:00PM) EDT and depart southbound approximately 10 minutes thereafter. The airports/water bases on our route are as follows: CYVR > W49 > WA45 > 2WA2 > W36 After conclusion of this route, interested pilots are welcome to spawn Storm's modification of the Smeiman Stingray in folded wing raceboat configuration at Renton Muni, navigate 6 miles north up the adjacent Lake Washington and participate in informal course racing for the balance of the evening. Alternates Four stops are scheduled at seaplane bases adjacent to hard surface airports at Orcas Island-KORS, Olympic Field/Discovery Bay-WA45 (or Jefferson County-0S9), Wax Orchards-WA69 (or Vashon Island-2S1) and final destination Renton Municipal-KRNT. FLIGHT PLANS (updated with v2 PLN file!) Skyvector route map: http://tinyurl.com/m9a9h8v PLN file (for your GPS and/or Plan-G): http://tinyurl.com/storms-flight-plans Full description here. VFR flight plan listing here. Detailed maps here. AIRCRAFT NO JETS ✔ Amphibians (i.e. wheels and floats) that can cruise at 120 knots are appropriate to the theme of this group flight. Freeware, payware and default (the Grumman Goose) will work well. Please explore Storm's OneDrive for good appropriate aircraft including the Riviera amphibian, the Beriev be-103 Snipe, and the fictional Smeiman Stingray, as well as several others. Storm's OneDrive can be accessed from this URL: http://tinyurl.com/storms-onedrive Videos of two of the recommended aircraft here. IMPORTANT SCENERY Racecourse - essential! An add-on scenery racecourse has been generated by Lazerbolt and should be downloaded if you intend to participate on the hydroplane course. That scenery can be downloaded from the following URL (Seattle SeaFair H1 hydroplane race course.bgl): http://1drv.ms/1ouQFZC The .bgl file should be added to your root FSX directory/Addon Scenery/scenery folder before starting FSX. An FSX scenery rebuild upon the next start of FSX program will add the racecourse. Highly recommended: FSgenesis US landclass (inexpensive payware). You may wish to try... Free ORBX scenery for the WA Olympic peninsula and for Vashon Island. Be aware that the scenery is great but the framerate hit can be high if you don't take note of the accompanying documentation! Downloads: Pacific Northwest Demo (here) and the 2S1 freeware (here). Respects, Bob... ROBERT DUNN 2 (N2RD) with some edits by Storm (HA1L)

Please click "View replies to this Event", lower right corner of this Event thread to read further information, comments, replies, videos and screenshots.

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

This Event "reply" contains further details. Please select an amphibian and assemble at the starting airport, Vancouver International-CYVR at 9:00PM EDT Monday night. Storm has previously provided guidance on freeware amphibian aircraft in this post:

http://msflights.net/forum/showthrea...ll=1#post10227

Storm has since added the Beriev be-103 Snipe amphibian to his OneDrive/Modern Oddities.

Amphibious helicopters are welcome. Cruising speed will be 120 knots. Cruising altitude will be at or below 1,500 feet ASL. There will be water racing activities or further water and land based optional legs after reaching our final destination of Renton Muni-KRNT.

I will be on our TeamSpeak from 6:00PM 'til 8:00PM EDT to offer file installation assistance and answer any questions. After 8:00PM I will be busy managing the group flight settings and preparation and much less available for assistance.

VFR flight plan:

After departure from Vancouver-CYVR, we will head 140 degrees for 35 nm to water base W49 at Rosario seaplane base, East Sound, center of Orcas Island. Water runway 16/34 is 10,000 feet. Our course will take us directly over Orcas Island airport-KORS which has spawnable parking and is 5 nm northwest of W49.

Next we will head 160 degrees for 40 nm to Olympic Field/Discovery Bay-WA45 and land 1 nm east of that airport at the southern end of Discovery Bay. We will then take a short break before departure.

From there we will head 135 degrees for 35 nm and overfly Wax Orchard, Vashon Island-WA69. 5 nm further on that same 135` heading we will land at Quartermaster Harbor seaplane base-2WA2 located between Vashon and Maury Islands.

Our final leg will be a heading of 45 degrees for 15 nm to the seaplane base immediately to the north of Renton Municipal-KRNT located at the south end of Lake Washington.

Optionally, upon this completion of the scheduled route, we will configure Storm's Stingray as speedboat and race Lazerbolt's SeaFair hydroplane racecourse. This optional scenery is located 6 nm north of Renton Muni, south of the Interstate 90 bridge between Seattle and Mercer Island. Lazerbolt's scenery is accurate to the real hydroplane course, very detailed and extremely well done with lots to see.

For those who want to further explore the central Puget Sound-Lake Washington area, additional legs can be added instead of boat racing. I recommend overflight of metro Seattle, stops at Boeing Field Seattle-KBFI, SeaTac Intl-KSEA, Paine Field Everett-KPAE, Kenmore Air Harbor north end of Lake Washington-S60 and Vashon Island-2S1.

Topics of discussion may include:

The Boeing Airplane and Furniture Company
Frederick Weyerhaeuser
Micro-Soft Inc.
2014-15 prospects for several popular National Football League teams
Early history of printed circuit board manufacturing in greater Seattle.
Seattle SeaFair


Respects, Bob...

[Storm]

Updated flight plan (v2) with more waypoints.
Please download the new PLN file here.

[Storm]

Detailed maps for each leg:

[Storm]

Videos of two recommended aircraft for tonight's flight.
Both are fully amphibious and will cruise at 120 knots.
Both are on my OneDrive (one Vintage, one Modern).
The Riviera's frame rates are slightly better than Snipe's.
Naturally, many other aircraft are suitable.

Turn the sound off for the last video (unless you like bad 1960s music)!

Snipe (Beriev Be-103)

Riviera (Nardi/SIAI-Marchetti FN.333)

Recent flight but no water landing:

Water operations but awful music!

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

Thank you Storm for all the extensive support to this newbie guest flight lead. We appreciate the informative maps, flight plans and videos. Special thanks also to that master scenery artist Lazerbolt, for the detailed and accurate Seattle SeaFair hydroplane racecourse. You both have my gratitude.

[Storm]

Reminder! Bring your amphibian to CYVR at 9pm ET tonight!

Trivia question: who is in this photo, what were they doing, and why is it relevant to this flight? Find out this evening.

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

Amazing photo find, Storm. Doesn't this image and its backstory tie together the overall theme of Monday mail runs with famous aviation entrepreneurs relevant to tonight's locale well?

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

Thank you to all the pilots that joined us this Monday night and made this flight so memorable, at least for me. I extend special gratitude to Storm and Lazer, among others, who helped me with the preparation and execution of tonight's theme and route.