Flight of Passage - the movie

As reported by Flying Singer.

I found a 2015 journal entry where I wrote about a planned movie of Flight of Passage.

It's listed in IMDB and I found articles about it but it's not on Prime Video or YouTube. Best I can figure is they got funding to produce the short, screened it in LA, and sought funding to complete the full length film and apparently failed (so far).

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In an intimate screening at the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, the premiere of a short version of what may become a full feature movie based on Rinker Buck's highly acclaimed memoir Flight of Passage was shared with a full house of viewers.

The true story follows Buck and his brother Kernahan, who in 1966 at age 15 and 17, flew across the United States in a Piper Cub they had bought and restored. The brothers were at that time the youngest on record to have flown across the country, and the flight drew significant media attention.

Two young actors, Zach Callison and Joseph Schirle, play Rinker and Kernahan Buck. Aviators will also recognize aerobatic pilot extraordinaire Sean Tucker, who acts as “Hank the Stearman Man.” Rinker Buck himself makes a cameo as well.

The short film is well-produced, with spectacular aerial footage and intense scenes that put the viewer right in the cockpit with the two aviators during their adventure. The creators of the short, Henry Saine and Colin Ebeling, are now looking for the funding to complete the full feature.

From www.flyingmag.com - link dead

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ANYWAY, with my new PC coming next Friday, I should be doing some cleanup and prep for that.

But this morning I decided to do some testing of the VFR Flight of Passage re-creation idea in MSFS using the Savage Cub.

It's yellow and it has the most basic VFR panel just like the Piper Cub. I found and edited the aircraft.cfg file for it to change the default tail number to N4971H to match the Buck family Cub. This avoids the need to change it on every flight.

I made a flight plan from Somerset, NJ (KSMQ) to Carlisle, PA (N94), about 117 miles, and set the flight plan for 4500 feet though I flew it around 3000 because the Cub climbs so slowly and I don't have ATC and traffic going right now anyway.

I'm sure I will use that stuff on the new PC but I need all the CPU power on this one for FPS. I chose live weather which as it happens is pretty nice in NJ and PA this morning. It was not so nice when Kern and Rinker flew this leg for real in June 1966. They were deviating all over the place to stay clear of clouds and approaching storms. Fortunately Kern was a great pilot and Rinker was a great navigator.

I pulled up VFRMaps.com on my left monitor so I could have the sectional chart "on my lap."

It's really fantastic for this, and as expected, even with my dialed-down graphics settings, it is totally possible to navigate visually with this thing. I probably will turn off the default cheat of having a giant lollipop label on every airport. That makes it a little TOO easy.

But there are plenty of landmarks easily visible from 3000 feet like big rivers with islands, larger airports, major highways, etc. Lake Nockamixon has a nice distinctive shape.

I also used the VFR map view sometimes in MSFS too. This is like a super GPS. I had a little handheld aviation GPS back in 2000-2001 when I was flying my own solo cross country flights. I didn't rely on it and I didn't tell my CFI I was using it, but it helped me a couple of times when I got turned around looking for an unfamiliar airport up in Maine.

The backup GPS I had in 2000 was not an aviation model. It was a Magellan 315 which I was able to load with an aviation database of airports and VOR’s somehow. It was intended for hikers but it worked at the low speeds and altitudes I was flying. The GPS in an iPhone is much better these days.

As the fighter pilots say, if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'!

With this setup you can do things as you would on a real cross-country, like deviating a bit south to avoid the Allentown Class C airspace. I didn't take this flight any further today since it was really just a proof of concept. But with higher quality graphics and a longer look-ahead, this will be really great for VFR exploration!