Recreating "The Hump"

[Guest Mike Pare]

Ok fellas...Kunming is 90% built, and the installer for Chabua is ready for testing. I will email the Chabua installer for anyone willing to put it in their system and look for problems with it. PM your email to me if you are interested. Please note I need people with good FSX computers to test it. There are varying levels of scenery complexity, so if your system can't display full autogen and scenery objects up to "very dense" then I won't get the best feed back I need to make adjustments.

 

I hope to have an installer ready for Kunming tomorrow night.

 

Here's a quick overview screen of Kunming...

http://i60.tinypic.com/htxz7n.jpg

[Guest Jonathan Asher]

I've kept this thread marked unread now for about a week and I just got around to reading it today. Looks like an awesome idea! Are you guys still shooting for a mid-February event date? Also, IMHO think you guys should not try and hand it over to the A-Team, instead, keep it in the forums. There are many readers here (5 pages worth!) that can easily make up the number of pilots we want for the flight. When it turns into an official event, there are many members who don't read the forums or event descriptions, and what results is lots of miscommunication and chaos at the last minute. If the event stays in the forums, the only participants will be those who have been following this thread. Maybe it sounds a bit harsh, but in this instance, it seems like it would be a good idea to filter pilots as much as possible for realism's sake.

[Guest Grant Williams]

Fair enough Chickiee88! What you said definitely makes sense to me. As long as you're willing to join the ranks!

 

I just transitioned to serving at the restaurant I work at now, so my nights run later than usual. It'll have to be on a day that i am off work, hopefully mid-feb. But we'll try to find a time for everyone!

[Guest Max Enis]

Hey Guys,

I have moved this thread to the Events section as you can see. It is starting to turn into an "event" so this is the best place for it. Keep up the good work, looks like it should be a fun and successful event!

[Guest Mike Pare]

I have been contacted by "Bluewarrior" Cody to help review the two airfields I have modified to suit this proposed event. Anyone else want to help test the scenery? PM your email to me if you would like to review the fields so far and provide feedback.

 

Thanks.

[Guest John Girard]

Have not yet received the airfield for review.

[Guest John Girard]

Pegger, I, too, asked for the files but no joy yet. Please send when you have a chance.

Thanks!

[Guest Mike Pare]

Sorry fellas. I haven't forgotten, but do to current reconfiguration of my recording studio, my computer is disassembled awaiting it's new nesting location. Hooking up new ethernet wiring tonight, so i have no hard line, and can only respond from my phone on wifi. I will be putting my computer back together tomorrow night after work, and will send the files then.

[Guest Mike Pare]

Cody (Bluewarrior) has recieved the installer for chabua so far. If you can track him down then maybe he can send you the file before i get back online tomorrow night.

[Guest Mike Pare]

Ok...computer is comfortably nestled into it's new home in the studio. Back to Business!

 

Pegger, I, too, asked for the files but no joy yet. Please send when you have a chance.

Thanks!

John, maybe I missed your email somehow? Please PM your email address to me and I will send the installers.

 

Cody, William, Jonathan...

I have sent along both Chabua and Kunming installers to your emails. Look for something from "flatlander". Don't forget to check your junk mail folders just in case.

 

Looking forward to any items you guys find that need attention, and suggestions for the sceneries if you think something is not quite right.

 

Cheers,

Mike

[Guest Mike Pare]

I need William and Jonathan to add me to your safe contacts list. I think Gmail is blocking the delivery because the files I am trying to send are .exe

Check your inbox and junk mailbox for "flatlander" and add me, then reply back.

 

Thanks

[Guest Grant Williams]

I unfortunately have been having computer problems as well. My FSX seems to crash after running for about 5-10 minutes. Completely random. Sometimes it does it, others it does not. Working on resolving the issue, might be a while before I can get back into FSX unfortunately... :(

[Guest Mike Pare]

So where we at with this idea fellas? Is it dead in the water for now? I haven't had a single comment back about the scenery files, so I've stopped working on them for now.

[Guest John Girard]

Pegger, I never received the files. Please send to [email protected]!

Thanks and good luck!

[Cody Outten]

Scenery looks great from my pov.

[Guest Mike Pare]

Thanks for checking the scenery out Cody. I've been through them a couple times too and they seem to be functioning acceptably.

 

John, I will have to check when I get home, but I think your email might have blocked me because the files I sent were .exe installers. If so I'll send you an invite for a file sharing service where you can get them.

 

Looking forward to this coming back to life.

 

good luck with your new hard drive Grant.

[Cody Outten]

Cody: your sigfile is becoming distracting :)

But who can resist it?

[Guest Grant Williams]

Still no luck on the whole computer getting repaired. Might have to invest in a whole new computer, unfortunately. Which could take some time. I will keep you all posted.

 

Sorry for the inconvenience. I really wanted to do this!

[Guest Bill Kestell]

New member here. This post is what got me interested in BVA! I've been flying the Hump for a solid 18 months now after a year of assembling aircraft and pulling together my research and getting my computer set up in FSX and FSX Acceleration using Alex B. Nicolson's CBI scenery (cbixv1). I'm using THE ALUMINUM TRAIL by Chick Marrs Quinn as my "mission planner" and have completed 173 missions (477 hours of multi-engine) starting in September '42 and I'm up to September '44. My transport aircraft are: Uiver's DC-2 Douglas, Shupe's C-45 Expeditor, Guzman/Gibson's C-46 Commando, MAAM's and Manfred Jahn's C-47 Skytrain, JBK's C-54 Skymaster, and Alpha/Virtavia's C-87 and C-109 Liberator Express (an add-on to their B-24 Liberator). All flights have been done using NDBs, flying historically accurate routes (from FLYING THE HUMP and Nicolson's data) on a waypoint to waypoint basis. To create "missions" from her book, I had to create flight maps, plan routes and course headings, my log book and flight data sheets (containing Base letter codes, Morse code identifiers, Base name, NDB frequency and heading, waypoint-to-waypoint elapsed time, time to next waypoint NDB acquisition and total elapsed time) so that I could re-fly the routes as required, This also means a novice pilot can do it as well.

 

I'd like to be of whatever help I can be toward seeing this "event" become a reality because I have a personal connection to the Hump. My Dad served with the 1333rd AAFBU, flying C-46s out of Chabua and sadly became a part of The Aluminum Trail on 16 March 1945 when the C-46A-55-CK ( #3-47135) he was co-piloting crashed at Kunming. The CBI and the Hump have largely been overlooked and forgotten by history, each year there are fewer and fewer of the people who actually were there. If I can help bring this part of history back to life ... that would be enough for me.

 

So ... let me hear from you guys out there.

[Guest Mike Pare]

Hi Romeo. I was excited about this event too. Gwilliamskc had a great idea and it was starting to shape up. Unfortunately, he seems to have lost a battle with his computer, and hasn't been around since March.

I have stopped working on the sceneries for now. Chabua was 99% complete, and Kunming was almost ready for testing. But with no sign of life on this event from it's owner(s) I haven't had much reason to keep working on it.

 

Maybe a release to a popular freeware sim-site would be in order. As you say, this was a significant part of the war effort that is not well known about. I'll keep you posted if I get around to working on the scenery again. At the moment I am heavily tied up in a major scenery project for KCLE -Cleveland-Hopkins, so Kunming and Chabua are on the back burner.

[Guest Bill Kestell]

Hi!

 

Nice to make your acquaintance, as it were. Too bad about gwilliamskc's computer problems since the timing sure was lousy (though I never lost a computer battle that wasn't lousy). You take your time getting back to this, I know that jumping from pillar to post is the best way to NOT get anything done ... or worse ... get things completely balled up!

 

What I'd ask is for you to shoot me the betas and let me drop them in and play with them. Further, if time permits and you're so inclined, drop Alex D. Nicolson's "cbixv1" into your FSX and take a look at it. He's got all the bases and ndb stations and it's the best thing I've run across for the CBI. In fact, I'm just wrapping up a B-24 cargo mission between Tezpur and Kunming.

 

I know that one of the original thoughts was to fly a formation to Kunming. By 1945 the ATC had refined the process to be almost like a freight railroad. The various routes were mostly either inbound or return only and aircraft sortied individually (I forget the general time between take-offs). A typical mission in 1945 from Chabua to Kunming in a C-46 Commando flying on ROUTE EASY might look like this:

 

Take-off from Chabua (VG [.--. .-- .-.] ) over to Moran (LX [.-.. -..-] @ 1650.0 KHz), course 198* with arrival some 16 minutes later. Then, to Tingkwaksakan (ID [.. -..] @ 345.0 KHz), course 097* with arrival about 1:00 ET. Then to Paoshan (SW [... .--] @ 250.0 KHz), course 123* with arrival 2:05 ET. Then over to Tsuyung (IX [.. -..-] @ 485.0 KHz) course 090* with arrival about 2:47 ET. Finally on to Kunming (RQ [.-. --.- .-.] @215.0 KHz) course 092* with arrival about 3:00 ET.

 

Upon take-off, you need to climb to 10-11,000' minimum after leaving "LX" because you will be crossing the Patkai Range ("First Ridge") lest you become a part of The Aluminum Trail. Then you need to keep climbing to 20,000' and once there set cruise speed at 140K/IAS.

 

The radioman will need to have been cleared out of "VG" and then report in to "LX". Once reporting clear there, the next contact will be "ID" ... then "SW" ... then "IX" ... and finally "RQ" for landing clearance. This allowed the tracking of aircraft over dangerous and hostile terrain. Weather more often than not caused problems with both voice and ADF signals. Apparently an aircraft being out of contact was not an automatic red flag ... just another day over the Hump.

 

I am not familiar with all the nuances that might come into play doing this on BVA, you are. I'm certain it would be workable. Additionally, there are several hundred crash sights with latitude and longitude noted. I'm not a mission or scenery builder, but always thought it would be interesting to have some missions using the 1352nd AAFBU and its predecessor started by "Blackie" Porter. An aircraft is reported overdue at destination, there may or may not have been a "last radio contact". The player's mission is to locate the downed aircraft.

 

Anyway ... that's where I'm at. I'd sure like to see this go forward and hope to maybe give a push to the rest of our crew so we have something to show when "gwilliamskc" gets his computer back online.

 

Cheers,

 

Bill

[Guest John Girard]

Bill, I was in Texas last month visiting my dad (who turned 94 yesterday!) and asked him about intervals between flights. You may remember he was primarily flying C-46's from Sookerating to Kunming and was his squadron's flight instructor qualifying pilots as PIC for most of his time there. He told me that the planes were generally in sight of each other, only 10 to 15 miles apart. This is what caused real trouble when destination airfields were IMC. Planes stacked up in a holding pattern directly over the airfield. Often only at 500 ft altitude intervals up to 10K feet; meaning as many as 20 aircraft letting down 50 ft each as a plane landed. Worst part of trip he said - very tedious and tense as tower instructed each pilot to descend another 500 ft. in zero visibility. He has his complete flight log with all of his flights recorded from basic in 1942 through the 1960's. Only thing I asked him to leave me. We do need to try to put this together!

[Guest Bill Kestell]

Hi, John!

 

I had thought it was about 10 to 15 minutes intervals ... but without confirmation, I wasn't inclined to state it as fact. I can't begin to imagine what 20 plus transports in a stack up over a primitive field with primitive communications equipment, some possibly running low on fuel, weather of a horrific nature must have been like. Thanks for the info and your Dad's log book is truly a treasure, as I know you know.

 

My new computer is here, just need a VGA to DVI adapter and I should be ready to transfer files and FINALLY after some 14 years ... be able to fly on something really good that doesn't require me to dump all sliders to zero just to fly a couple hour mission! OH HAPPY DAY!

 

I agree with you about making this happen. Right now I'm cleaning up my flight data sheets, doing a few check flights when what I have written down just strikes me as not quite right, Since I'm up to September 1944 ... I think I just forge ahead with the 1944 missions. Then, when I hit 1945, I'll take a break and get ready for the "big change" ... when things went from operations with a degree of haphazardness to the kind of order and polish that would manifest itself so proudly in the Berlin Airlift.

 

In 1945 it appears that almost all flight ops were sent out and back on Able, Charlie, Easy, Fox, Nan, King, Love, Oboe, Peter and Roger routes. Some were Eastbound or Westbound only while others ran both directions. The point I gather was to keep aircraft out of each other's airspace to the greatest degree possible. Hopefully I will shortly be able to send you some of what I'm talking about. Then you can tell me how this might interface with the controllers.

 

Till a bit later then ...

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Evan Reiter]

Quick sidebar...

 

In response to some of the messaging earlier on this thread about it being a 'community-driven' event without administrative involvement, I've kept out of this discussion. Please don't let the absence of the A-Team on this thread indicate our preference for our against the event; we're simply doing as asked.

 

Whenever any administrative assistance would be of value, please let us know.

[Guest John Girard]

Bill, I'm not certain of this explanation about the intervals but here is my understanding. Planes left individual Northern Assam bases at maybe 10-15 min intervals. But those planes joined on the same routes. So adding Chabua a/c to those from Sook, etc. caused the denser traffic where they could see each other in clear weather.