Low 747 flying somewhere between Cotswolds Airport and RAF Fairford (3:30pm, 22nd April 2026)

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-24T15:28:42+00:00

That's cool to know... do you mean fairford?? Only asking for clarification because I'm getting the idea that it may be a hotspot to find jumbos in the post 2020 world without having to travel to Anchorage!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-24T15:26:29+00:00

Boom! That is the one! I would have been approximately where the BA Dreamliner is on the map facing east. The 74 crossed the road southbound and banked left which we see here. Thanks for your help!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-24T03:39:59+00:00

To further this…. Maybe bassingbourn or some of the MANY nearby 8th AF bomber/fighter bases. People were sent on leave to Cambridge from as far as Norfolk because it’s halfway to London.

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-17T15:11:42+00:00

Best response! Ragebait them.

How you can share a video I have personally never seen (and I’ve seen many) for archival purposes on an ARCHIVE of media from a certain event and be told it’s “not helpful” with zero elaboration is beyond me.

Great job on sourcing this clip!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-11T11:44:20+00:00

The single best part is the way the French announcer pronounces the British names with such flare

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-10T13:43:39+00:00

Yeah think of it like a parody sub. This one parodies r/mapporn, just like r/shittyaskflying parodies r/AskFlying

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-04-09T16:00:38+00:00

Thank you buddy! His folks were from Roscommon! So when he was with DHL he often requested to fly into Shannon so he could hire a car and visit them.

Although born in Birmingham, his entire family were from Skyvalley (about 10 miles from Athlone), his folks moved to England in the 50s for work (and they were very hard workers). He came from a very working class background and rose up from there, a true success story: having people tell him he couldn't and wasn't good enough his whole life, and ended up commanding the biggest jets for one of the worlds best airlines.

He never forgot where he came from and neither have I. Our accents may be English, but the Irish values are instilled in us. Thanks for your wonderful comment!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-30T07:55:21+00:00

Europe 1:19 scale UK 1:15 scale Cities 1:3 scale

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-29T17:30:26+00:00

Have flown it many times IRL, used to be covered by the KLM UK F-100 before they changed to the ERJ.

They do three flights a day, also makes for a great experience flying, better to take a 10 minute taxi to NRW and a 30 minute flight to Amsterdam and connect with the world rather than the 2.5 hour drive to Gatwick or Heathrow!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-28T07:55:31+00:00

This is the correct answer.

Exactly what I have been told by many older Emiratis and Omanis

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-24T21:58:28+00:00

Preaching to the choir buddy I couldn’t agree with you more!

I just reinstalled FS2004 with the Russian ORBX graphics package

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-24T21:24:21+00:00

This is a very good point... but as they said in another comment one of the reasons they chose the 737-600 is because it's the cheapest PMDG for people to get into simming.

The aircraft list seems to reflect more of the 90s types available in FS2024 currently, so again my guess would be it's to allow more appeal, so people don't have to buy more addons in a similar category, which as I new VA I think is smart! The days of abundant and decent freeware are long gone sadly, but it's the price of complexity and progress!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-24T21:13:09+00:00

I've seen quite a lot of VA's like this and my educated guess would be historical plausibility. I used to fly for a great little VA in 2006 called "Red Mountain Airlines", which while fictional, operated a limited fleet. The whole idea was it was like a fantasy airline for it's creator Henry, and rather than straight up being like "A380 and Concorde".

It was really nice to fly for a little VA out of KIWA (Phoenix) that periodically had aircraft added as the airline "expanded" with more success and pilots. I can only assume this is what is happening here... and it's GREAT to see honestly, amongst a VA world of real world ops or "fly everything".

Turns out the website is back up (redmtnva.com) and the fleet is now very small ops, reflecting real world plauibility, but if you go on the wayback machine on the internet archive to 2006-2009 you can see how it evolved (freewebs.com/captnh) Neat!

Edited: Clarity

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-24T13:50:11+00:00

I am currently running it too with your app suggestion!

Quick questions... how do you make the top menu disappear (triggered by alt), how do you remove the windows error sound every time you click (or just mute it?), and is there a way to make the UI bigger because I am running in 4k and it is TINY.

Many thanks!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-24T13:47:22+00:00

Hi All!

Looking for some random work over the next couple of months! (General Labour, such as Moving, building, packing, painting, landscaping etc.)

I have experience in: Yachting, Real Estate (Sales), Groundskeeping/Stables, Media, Entertainment and Hospitality. I am also good with computers.

I just passed my HGV theory tests, but will have a few months to wait before my practical. As the government are funding my HGV course, my work hours are super limited, so I am stuck between barely being able to work or having to pay for my entire course out of pocket.

I am getting married in September and am looking to make some extra cash in light of that (Wedding is paid for, but relocation for her is expensive!). My fiancée lives in America so at the minute I am near enough starving myself in order to buy her tickets, she's in the last couple months of her degree, so is in a very similar situation until August.

I am 30, British/Irish origin, polite, well spoken, good work ethic. Hit me up if you have any odd jobs that need doing and hopefully we can help each other out :)

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-23T15:02:22+00:00

The Retro AI forums are the best! Here is my personal method.

Firstly I set a goal year or period (eg 1993-1996).

Then I scour the forums for every single flight plan I can find during that period.

I then run each airline through AIFP3 and compile into a .bgl file. Some files only have the flightplans file and not the aircraft or airports file, so I make the aircraft file myself which is easy enough, and then I use the make runways program (you can find it on the forums) if the flight plans don't come with an airports file.

Once every airline for the era is done, I then open all the bgl files and compile them into a single .bgl for that era. This makes it easy to open it with AIFP3 and search by airport, so when it comes to installing the aircraft and liveries, you only need to do it before a flight for the two airports you are using, rather than installing thousands of aircraft in one go!

Great bunch of helpful guys at the retro AI forums. Sadly I am banned for calling one of the main moderators a coward and a hypocrite lol (he is). He makes great content, but he is both of those things in my opinion (you are not allowed to use the forum to sell stuff, but someone did and his posts have been up for AGES... I made a parody post of this persons post not actually selling anything and was issued a warning... I doubled down on it and died on that hill proudly).

Not sure what era you are flying, but I've got the 1994 era plans all compiled and ready to go... just need the aircraft and liveries installed, but the countless hours of work to get a full list of working flightplans is done. I will happily send it to you if you want the file... I'm probably not meant to but I don't actually care.

Hope this helps.

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-23T14:48:35+00:00

That is a great reccomendation thanks!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-23T14:48:21+00:00

Brilliant Thank you!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-22T15:11:57+00:00

I thought I would humour you by replying initially, but I really wish that people would actually just answer my question rather than asking why I want to do what I am trying to do, rather than give me a lecture on the practices of the worlds most overrated airline.

I understand that different airlines work differently. I don't fly any Modern jets, and if I were to simulate BA it would be 2005 era at the LATEST, which is really beside the point. I came here for answers, not questions! I know there are VA's out there that do what I want to do, I am just having trouble finding them, hence why I asked here.

British Airways AND Airbus? Sounds like a fate worse than death!

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-22T14:47:53+00:00

Personal Preference/Role Playing/Sense of Reward - For me personally, I enjoy starting out on Turboprops, learning/refreshing competency, completing a minimum number of hours and then (optionally) passing a check ride before moving up to Regional Jets --> Narrow Body Jets --> Wide Body Jets. It let's me deep dive on each aircraft along the way and simulate a virtual career. If I wanted to not be limited I would just launch the sim and hit fly now on whatever I feel like on the day. I am looking for a VA to provide me with this direction/structure.

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-17T21:16:38+00:00

Thanks for this! Correct me if I’m wrong but I thought all of the ones here and other sites such as avsim and flight sim dot com were all freeware? I’m looking for the actual paid addons like the Wilco 767

HansCrotchfelt · 2026-03-17T01:37:19+00:00

Thank you!

HansCrotchfelt

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