ChuckD

Maybe I missed it somewhere, but when does this group build end?

Thank you very much. I appreciate the compliments.

Oh my goodness. That's absolutely outstanding. I love the finish and the scene altogether.

I can understand the sentiment, Pete. I'm enough of a pragmatist to realize that sometimes the grass that seems so green on the other side of the fence is just astroturf. My day job is IT and sometimes I dream about the idea of being a forest ranger or (shocker) a pilot. But, then I think about trudging around outside when it's 110* or blowing snow. Then I think about being away from my family for extended periods of time... At the end of the day, I recognize that there are pros and cons to every single job out there and, no matter how much you may love it, at the end of the day, it's work. I'm having an absolute blast flying around the world in my simulated Beech 18, but I fully admit that it would be absolute misery to do it in real life. It's great to wake up on a Saturday morning, pour a cup of coffee, trot down to the office, and be playing at winging my way across the globe. To do it in real life would be awful.

Nice! So many computery things in that cockpit. Where are all the steam gauges???

Welcome back and thanks for joining me. Route? Check. A 4-hr flight direct from Mfuwe to Kilimanjaro. Weather? Check. Clear blue with a million miles visibility. Fuel? Check. Full tanks, so ~7hrs endurance. Weight and balance? Check. Fuel, family, Fatpuppy, luggage, and 250lbs of spare parts and materials. No fuel in the ferry tanks. Time? Check. 4hrs will put us there well past sunset. Destination airport? Check. Large, towered, international airport with a ~12,000' runway, instrument procedures, and glidepath lighting. We're good to go! Right? In mid afternoon, we fired up at Mfuwe, Zambia, excited to know that we'd soon be seeing the world famous landmark that is Mt. Kilimanjaro. As the props turned over, I glanced at the Hobbs meter in the aircraft and reflected on the 222+hrs in the Beech 18, most of which is on this trip. Crazy how much time has gone by. Our route today would take us north northeast from Zambia to Tanzania and the international airport at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro itself. A check of the terrain profile showed that a 9,500' cruising altitude would get us over the highest peak by about 1,000', but I figured we'd keep the GTN750 in terrain mode just to be safe. During our stay, we'd learned that the Luangwa River, just north of Mfuwe, is home to many herds of hippos. So, we figured that we'd give it our best to do a little wildlife spotting from the air before climbing out on our en route course. The winds were cooperative, so taxi and take off were uneventful. Slowly advancing the throttles forward to the stops then releasing the brakes, we roared down the runway. Climbing to 1,000' above ground level (AGL), we soon reached the Luangwa River and turned east to begin searching for hippos. At first, we didn't have much luck, so we turned back and trekked further west. Ah ha! A herd of them trundling along the river bank. We made a few low passes for photo ops. Finding these guys was challenging as the game doesn't draw them in until you're right on top of them at very low altitude. With our photos done, we engaged the autopilot and began climbing to our cruise altitude. The African plains spread out below us in every direction. Our path took us over the northern end of Lake Malawi, an enormous freshwater lake near the middle of the continent. Just to the northeast of the lake's northern reaches rose the highest elevation we were to face on this trip. Craggy, peaked plateaus loomed ahead of us. Checking the terrain display, it sure looked like we would clear all the nearby peaks by at least 500' and by over 1500' for anything in our direct path. As we crossed the first row of ridges, I began to doubt. With the last spine of ridges in this chain of mountains looming ahead, I decided that discretion is the better part of valor and pushed the throttles forward into a climb, leveling off again at 11,500. To hell with what the GPS said... the Mk I eyeball says we were going to get too close to terrain for comfort, so up we go. There. That's better. We droned on into the evening, the sun setting at our backs. The setting sun cast long shadows in the cockpit. Soon, we were enveloped by the night. As we neared Kilimanjaro International, I began the preparation for approach and landing. Given the low light, I again opted to fly the ILS approach after being cleared to land on runway 09. Winds were strong at 20kts, but were straight down the runway, and best of all, steady - not gusting. So, unlike some of our other approaches, we were not being tossed around the sky by a strong wind. We began our descent to the approach altitude and intercepted the glideslope and localizer. Out ahead, the runway approach lights gleamed brightly in the darkness. Or did they? Something was wrong. <facepalm> The taxiway was lit. The approach lights were lit. The visual approach slope indicator lights (VASI) were lit. The runway, however, was a dark black hole in the night. Stupid me for overlooking the fact that the airport information report lacked the term "lighted" like in this example: Cool. What do? A quick check of the other two airports in the area showed that they were unlit too, so they were out. The nearest airport with a lit runway was at least an hour's flight away which would put us down to lower fuel and fewer options than I'd like if something went wrong there. I was already established on the glideslope, speed and decent rate were perfectly smooth, winds were favorable... I could tell where the runway was, I just couldn't see the outline of it. Okay, we'll give it a shot. Worst case, if I don't like something on short final, I'll go around and can make an approach on the lit taxiway. There's no regulation saying you're required to land on a runway, so worst case, it would be my backup plan. Down we came, speed pegged at 80kts, eyes glued to the VASI lights to the left of the runway. VASIs are pretty straight forward. Two white and two red lights indicate you're on the optimal glidepath. Three or four white lights indicate you're above, three or four red indicate you're below. As the saying goes, "four white, you'll be flying all night. Four red, you're dead." Flaps and gear down, landing lights burning, we groped further into the darkness. This felt like the longest approach I've ever flown. The runway threshold lights disappeared beneath the nose. Though still shrouded in darkness, we were over the numbers. Pull power. This is it. Out of the gloom in my peripheral vision, the white runway edge lines loomed in the glow of the landing lights. Gentle back pressure... flare... keep the lines in sight... flare... hold it there and let the big bird settle. *squawk* We touched down just left of centerline and rolled to a stop. I felt physically exhausted, but somehow elated at the same time. We taxied to the *lighted* taxiway and parked at the *lighted* apron, shutting down for the night. Would I have made the same decision in real life? I'm not sure. It's tough to say. Fuel would have been a major concern had we tried to make for the nearest lighted field. I had precision approach indicators and terrain avoidance functionality on the GPS. Winds were very favorable too. With the speed pegged right where it should be and the approach so smooth, things were working well. If I'd been getting tossed around the sky or there'd been clouds or other weather, it would have been different. So, in light of the outcome, I suppose I may have tried it in real life. The real lesson here is to not assume that a large, towered, *international airport* is going to be lighted in the game. From here out, I'll double check for the word "lighted" when flight planning. I've run into unlighted fields in the past, but never at a large, international airport, so there were some false assumptions on my part and that's the lesson here. I got lucky and as the saying goes, "it's better to be lucky than good," but I argue that with better planning and decision making, you can be both lucky *and* good. Thanks for following along!

Ha! Yes, to say nothing of customs hassles, aircraft breakdowns, political unrest, vandals stealing airplane parts, finding places to stay, finding fuel, finding oil, finding maintenance services, etc. The logistics of doing this in the game are a lot more fun that doing it in real life. edit: Oh yeah, and costs. Conservatively, I've probably burned $100k in fuel alone.

Welcome back and thanks for joining me. When last we left off, we had just landed in Toliara, a small town on the southwest coast of the island of Madagascar. Due to strong crosswinds, I'd been forced to land on a small dirt strip instead of the main asphalt runway, but had, surprisingly, made a really nice landing. In my general plan to see most of Africa, I wanted to make sure that I hit up some of the smaller island countries off the eastern coast. So the idea for the next couple legs was to first head northeast to traverse the backbone Madagascar, then swing out east to hit Reunion and Mauritius, before turning back towards the continent with an overnight stop in Comoros. This would be multiple legs over the course of several days. A map to help visualize: Note that FMMT was just a waypoint, not an actual landing. We were wheels down at the rest of the locations shown though. We have been more or less blessed with good weather throughout most of these flights and these last few legs have been no exception. The only real challenge I've been handed is the screwy winds. Here the GTN750 shows the winds rifling along perfectly perpendicular to the asphalt runway at 17kts. I do love the Beech 18, but with her relatively small vertical tail surfaces, directional control in the yaw axis is not her strongest suit. As I've mentioned before, the maximum demonstrated crosswind for the Beech 18 is 11kts, so, a takeoff in the 17kt crosswind was out. To the dirt strip we go. Given the long length of this flight, we were fully topped off with 900 extra pounds of fuel, including 600lbs in the fore tank and 300 in the aft. Knowing we were going to be heavy, I opted for a short field takeoff procedure. In the Beech 18, this involves taking off with one notch of flaps (vs. no flaps for normal takeoffs) and a full power climb until obstacles are cleared (vs pulling power slightly immediately after takeoff). Once the obstacles are cleared, accelerate to 90kts, then retract the flaps, reduce power to climb settings, and continue the climb as normal. Sweetpea II performed wonderfully and we were quickly off the deck, climbing away to the north. The first phase of our cruise flight took us northeast over the spine of Madagascar's central ridges. A dusty, red clay coastal plain soon gave way to rolling hills, then mountainous ridges. On the east side of the mountains, the terrain rapidly turned green. You can definitely tell where the rainy areas are. We dodged a few thunderheads as we neared the coast... ...but in all, the weather was very cooperative over Madagascar. Soon we were cruising in glassy air over the ocean on our way to Reunion island. Over the ocean, I transferred fuel from the aux tanks to the main front and rear tanks to top them off. This is something of a creative license, but it is plausible. Most Beech 18s originally came with fuel tanks in the nose compartment, but that's not modeled in the game. So, to simulate that, and to allow me to have longer legs required for over water flights, I add weight to the forward and aft baggage compartments when preparing the weight and balance for the flight. Once the main fuel tanks are down 900lbs of fuel, I use the weight and balance menu to remove the fore and aft baggage and refill the fuel tanks. Again, it's not quite how things would work in the real aircraft, but it's close enough for what we're doing here. A low hanging cloud deck surrounded Reunion island, so we ducked below it to maintain VFR. Tower cleared us to land on runway 14 and we began our final approach. The runway configuration here is weird. Runways 14 and 12 intersect in their first couple hundred feet, so from a distance it's hard to tell which is which. Owing to that, I opted to follow the ILS approach for 14. Final configuration checks done, winds calm and down the runway... here we go. After a quick top off (and a reboot since my PC was, for some reason, on the struggle bus at that moment), we departed late in the day for Mauritius. The sun was low in the sky as we neared out destination. With terrain in the area, some light clouds, and light fading, I opted to do the RNAV (GPS) approach to runway 14. Best to follow procedures than risk finding an unexpected hill blocking the way. Touchdown and rollout were clean as the winds were mercifully cooperative. A few days later, it was time to begin our trek back towards the continent. We'd first pass over Madagascar's northern tip again, then overnight on the island of Comoros before making continental landfall in eastern Zambia. We took off from Mauritius early, into the rising sun, following an Standard Instrument Departure (SID) procedure to keep us well clear of any terrain. We cruised over the ocean on smooth air. As we neared Madagascar, I discovered something ... interesting... about FS2020. It appears that when you cross the border of a time zone, the game doesn't just set the time on the clock - it sets time in the world. So, all of a sudden, what had been late afternoon became near dusk in an instant. I'm not sure the logic there, but that's apparently how the game handles time changes. The end result of that peculiarity being that, in this 7.1hr flight, I got to see sunrise, sunset, and full on darkness. Neat, I guess. At least it made for some pretty visuals. By the time we reached Comoros, it was extremely dark. With no horizon and few stars, it's no wonder why a lot of people have crashed due to becoming disoriented at night. I was very glad I had a good autopilot and instrument flying skills. It would have been very easy to lose situational awareness and succumb to vertigo otherwise. This is all I could see of the island as we made our approach. Given the visual conditions, and the knowledge that there was a gigantic mountain looming out there in the darkness, I opted to fly the ILS approach. See that big red blob? Avoid. Following the prescribed approach, the runway soon came into view. Even with Sweetpea's powerful twin landing lights burning, the darkness was still all consuming. Depth perception for the final flare to touchdown was extremely challenging, but ultimately the landing wasn't too bad. A little bounce, then a recovery to a 3-point attitude and we were soon rolling to the parking area. 7.1hrs in the cockpit made for a long day. A few days later, it was time to leave and head back to the continent, but there was a bit of a wrinkle in the plan. I'd tried to leave a couple times, but the winds would just not cooperate. A gusty, 15kt crosswind seemed to plague this place, so I had two options: use the game's weather controls to kill the wind (lame), or try something new. I found a USAF Beech 18 (technically a C-45H) flight manual from the 1950s that talked about procedures for high crosswinds. Basically, you advance the throttle of the upwind engine more than that of the downwind engine to help compensate for yaw. In this case, the wind was coming from my left. This would hit the tail and fuselage, pushing them to my right and thus - like a weather vane - yawing the nose to left. By bringing up power on the left engine higher than that of the right, I would induce a natural tendency for the nose to swing right, thus helping to counteract the wind-induced yaw. I was hoping that between differential power and the yaw authority of the rudders, I'd be able to maintain directional control. Fortunately, the runway at Comoros was large, both long and wide, giving me plenty of room to maneuver and to recover if things went south. We taxied out and lined up. I went through the procedures in my head a couple times, then slowly increased power with the brakes locked. With the left engine at full power and the right slightly lower, I released the brakes. At 40kts, the tail came off the ground and this is usually where things go hinky in this airplane. A slight yaw to the left, but quick rudder compensation brought it center again. And we were off! All things considered, it really wasn't a bad takeoff. Wild. Once airborne, I quickly set standard climb power configurations and we made our climb over the ocean. The air grew bumpy as we crossed the continental coast and made our way towards Zambia on the inner plains. For the most part, the weather cooperated outside of the turbulence. And we were soon lining up over the Mfuwe International in Zambia. Despite a sloppy approach (I couldn't seem to manage my speed well. Maybe I had turkey on the brain...) the final flare and touchdown were smooth. We taxied to the edge of the tarmac and shut down for the day. 222.0 hours in the Beech as of now. Thanks for following along! Next up, something a little special on the plains of Africa.

It's something of a trade-off really. The general consensus is that FS2020 is much very accessible and has phenomenal visuals, but it does sacrifice some realism even at its highest settings. X-Plane 12 and Prepar3D apparently take it the opposite direction - hyper realism for the loss of graphical fidelity. I'm all for the realism, but I do like eye candy too. So when the visuals are vastly different and the realism is slightly different, it pushed me towards FS2020. If I get back into actual flying and truly want to *practice,* I will probably invest in one of the other sims.

Interesting. That's SOP for me though. Pretty much as soon as I have a stable positive rate of climb, I pull up the gear and reduce power then accelerate to climb speed of around 105-110kts. Those are based on settings published in a C-45H POH that's dated July 1953 as published here: https://www.avialogs.com/aircraft-b/beechcraft/item/55359-an-01-90cdc-1-flight-handbook-c-45h-aircraft before it recently got locked behind a paywall. I've found a few other fragmentary POHs, but the problem is that pretty much every iteration that I've been able to find has vastly different information on prescribed engine management procedures. I'll be the first to admit that I've only got about .5hrs in a real Beech 18 and thus didn't dive into engine management in any depth, but I do have quite a bit of time in high performance complex aircraft, so managing props and power settings are pretty familiar to me.

Thanks, Michael. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I'm having more fun than I thought I would exploring the world this way. Sure, I could fire up Google Earth and essentially do the same thing in a fraction of the time and effort, but this has proved pretty engaging and enjoyable. I agree that the DC-3 still needs a little more time in the oven and will benefit from a few more updates to get it up to snuff. I'd say the 1500fpm descent happens ~70% of the time I engage the autopilot in alt hold mode. I still haven't figured out what causes it and it does it regardless of whether I use the classic or modern instrument sets. So, hopefully it'll get squared away in another update. I feel like engine modeling, at least in GA aircraft, isn't really this game's strongest suit. I'm pretty sure I could run the Beech 18 wide open in perpetuity without any ill effects, but as I said, I like to keep things in the green. I did try the float Beaver tonight at your suggestion. I was going nuts with the damn rattling in the cockpit for about an hour until I found some obscure reddit post that pointed out the need to tighten down the oil filler cap to get it to stop. What a godsend. So, my first (post-oil-filler-cap-rattle) impression of the Beaver is that it climbs like a rocket. The fact that it uses the same engine as the Beech means I'm pretty familiar with its power settings, so that's a plus. I think when I get the urge to do some bush flying, it's going to be my go-to. I also picked up the L-4 Grasshopper from the marketplace the other day. It's okay, but I can't really recommend it. It flies nicely enough, but it doesn't slow down and has no flaps, so landings are an unexpectedly fast affair.

Welcome back and thanks for joining me. Our last leg saw us landing in stiff winds at Beira, Mozambique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beira,_Mozambique) on what was to be our last continental stop before winging our way over the Mozambique Channel to visit the island of Madagascar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar). Today's leg would be about a 4 hour, 537 mile hop over the channel in a flight from Beira to Toliara, a small uncontrolled field on the western coast of Madagascar. Toliara has no weather reporting station, so planning for the winds had to be based on weather reports for Tolagnaro... a mere 203 nautical miles away... on the opposite side of the island. This would prove to be important later. True to its coastal form, winds were strong at Beira for our departure. At least they were again straight down runway 12. Unlike our arrival, they weren't overly gusty, so the takeoff and climb out were fairly routine. Note the two closed intersecting runways. We slipped out over the coast and climbed to our cruise altitude of 9,500 in clear blue skies. Setting the Beech 18 for cruise configuration involves a few steps. (here the pilot's yoke is removed for better visibility) - [Red boxes] Adjust the throttle levers (1) until the manifold pressure gauge (2) reads 25" of manifold absolute pressure (MAP). Throttles, as can be expected, regulate engine power output. - [Dark blue boxes] Adjust the propeller levers (3) until the RPMs (4) come down to 1800 RPM. This changes the pitch of the propeller blades, allowing them to take a larger "bite" out of the air. This is akin to shifting up in a manual transmission vehicle or a bicycle. - [Green boxes] Adjust the mixture levers (5) until the Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) gauges (6) reach their peak temperature. This ensures that you're getting the most complete combustion of the fuel/air mixture in the cylinders. Too lean a mixture (a low ratio of fuel to air) and the cylinders will burn hotter and potentially damage the engine. Too rich a mixture (a high ratio of fuel to air) and the spark plugs will foul with lead and fail to fire properly. As you climb from sea level to cruise in this aircraft, you must constantly adjust the mixture leaner and leaner to account for the thinner air at altitude. The opposite is true on descent. - [Yellow boxes] Adjust the oil shutter levers (7) to maintain oil temperatures (8) in the green arc. This is modeled a little poorly in the game. As I understand it, the oil shutter system allows you to bypass the oil coolers and is typically used just after start up to help warm the engine oil more quickly. Once warm, you typically open the shutters again so that the oil flows through the coolers. For whatever reason, in the game, you keep the shutters on/open on the ground and off/closed in the air. I doubt the R-985s in the game really give a damn about the oil temp being slightly out of the green arc, but I prefer things to be green whenever possible. - [Magenta boxes] Turn both fuel selector valves (9) to the rear/aux tanks and adjust the fuel gauge selector switch (10) to display fuel for one of the two rear tanks. This ensures that you're burning fuel from the auxiliary tanks before pulling from the mains. At cruise power settings, the aux tanks provide about 1hr 45 mins of flight time. I use a timer on my phone to keep track of when I need to reselect the mains. - [Teal boxes] Close the cowl flaps (11) and monitor the behavior of the cylinder head temperature gauge (12) to ensure that the cylinder heads in the engines stay in the green temperature range. Cowl flaps sit at the trailing edge of the engine cowls and regulate the amount of cooling air that passes through the cowl and the cooling fins on the cylinder heads. Given that radial engines are air-cooled, this is a very important control. Open cowl flaps allow more cooling air through, but create more drag as they stick out into the slipstream. Closed cowl flaps are the reverse. Similar to the oil shutters, this isn't modeled all that accurately in the game. Real Beech 18s have 3 cowl flap settings - open, closed, and trail, which is kind of a halfway point. Generally, you leave them open on the ground, kick them to trail on takeoff and climb, then close them when established in cruise. In the game, you get open and closed, so there's not much adjusting to be done. As we descended towards Madagascar, the wind began to pick up. And we were met with a conundrum. As it turns out, the wind reports from the station 200nm away were completely inaccurate for my destination field (shockedpikachu.jpg). The wind report from the GTN750 - and verified by a look at the field's windsock - showed about an 18knt direct crosswind (arrow) to the main asphalt runway (box). But then, I saw this... ... what I can only surmise is/was an old dirt strip that happened to be perfectly parallel to the wind. Jackpot. Down we came, and I entered the pattern to the dirt strip. GUMPS check and the first notch of flaps on downwind... 2nd notch of flaps on base leg... Turning final... last notch of flaps out. Lined up on final, the wind was strong, but not gusty, so the ride down was reasonably smooth. Trimmed for 80kts on short final, we were committed to the landing. No happy chirp from the wheels kissing asphalt, just the crunch of gravel under our tires. Shooting for a 3-point landing to get the tailwheel down as quickly as possible, we touched down just above stall speed. Oddly enough, it was probably one of my best landings yet. Go figure... 10,000' of asphalt and I bounce and wobble down the runway. 1500' of single track and I'm in like Flynn. :/ Ah well, I takes what I can gets. We taxied to the pumps and shut down with the setting sun. Thanks for following along! Next up, island adventures in the Indian Ocean.

I still haven't tried out the Beaver yet. I've been flying the Arrow III and the DC-3 quite a bit though. The Arrow is just the bee's knees. I'm still kinda middling on the DC-3 though. Its autopilot is disastrously bad. Maybe I just don't understand it enough yet, but any time I engage it, it kicks me into about a 1500fpm descent which is... problematic to say the least. It's fast for sure, but it still feels incomplete. I'm glad I've got the Beech for my round the world flying.

Welcome back and thanks for joining me. When last we left off, we had landed in Johannesburg, South Africa after dodging rain and errant AI ATC traffic routing. From here, I want to swing east to get over Madagascar and some of the smaller island countries of the continental east coast. To do this, we would first head north then east, allowing us to check the countries of Botswana and Zimbabwe off the list before finally landing on the coast at Beira, Mozambique. Yes, it's circuitous, but again, I'm in this for the journey and adventure, not to rip around the world as fast as I can. When the morning came to board Sweetpea II for the departure, the crack of thunder and a steady, heavy rain drummed the tarmac around us. Pulling up the NEXRAD function of the GTN750 showed yellow, orange, and a few red splotches all around us - scattered, but intense thunderstorms. By using that function, I reasoned that we would be able to dodge the worst of the rain and heavy winds until we cleared the squall line to the north of Johannesburg. Taxi and takeoff were gloomy affairs. We turned to our northly en route heading and began picking our way through the storms. This was probably the heaviest rain I've seen yet, but because the storms were scattered, I still had at least a margin of visibility on the horizon. So, climb out, while still "on instruments," wasn't truly *hard* IFR as it was coming out of Tenerife. Johannesburg was busy this today, despite the weather. We reached our cruising altitude of 14,000' but still had a wall of clouds in front of us, so requested and were granted 16,000 from the center controllers. This put us over the top of most of the weather in the area. As we flew further north, the clouds began to break as predicted. Below us, the African plains stretched for miles, broken only by the occasional lake or river. Nearing the coast, we began our descent and canceled our IFR flight plan. With the weather being so clear, there was no need for it, and it allowed us some flexibility to how we approached the field. Everything here took on a hue of deep, lush green and small villages dotted the landscape. Beira, our destination, sits right on the coast. It was originally built with three runways that intersected roughly at the midpoint of each, but two of them are now closed, so my only option was runway 12/30. Tower cleared us for the approach into runway 12, which was fortunate in that there was a stiff and gusty 15kt wind running straight down the runway. Coming up from the south, we entered the traffic pattern in a right base leg. GUMPS check - Gas (correct tank selected), Undercarriage (down and locked), Mixture (full rich), Props (full forward), Seatbelts (locked and secured) - we were ready for landing. Turning in on final approach, the wind buffeted us and tossed us all over the sky. I kept the speed on final a little higher to account for the wind shear. It's always a good idea to give yourself a little bit extra speed when the wind is gusting heavily, else it could shift unexpectedly and suddenly your wing stalls 100' from the ground. Lots of people have died that way and I'm doing my level best not to become a statistic on this flight. Holding about 90kts, we tossed and bumped our way down the glidepath. Over the numbers, chop the throttles and let physics take care of the rest. Touchdown! The tires squawked happily as we bumped down on the asphalt. Considering the winds and buffeting, it wasn't a bad landing. Holding aileron correction to compensate for the winds, we taxied to parking and shut down at the GA ramp. When taxiing in high winds, you try to keep the ailerons oriented so that the wind can't get under the wing and lift it up unexpectedly. Thanks for following along! Next stop: Madagascar!

Seems straight forward enough. How do you not loosen up other nearby completed solder joints while working on the next join?