There is actually a silhouette cutout standing on the corner there.
thats the way! 
Winslow, AZ to Albuquerque, NM.
I’m not much of a racer type, but I this event pushed me over the edge to try the Gee Bee.
I’m glad it did. The Gee Bee set is really well done and a hoot to fly. The view is better than expected, though it’s a ^%$& to takeoff in a crosswind.
So, with literally seconds in type, I take off with 25 knots of quartering headwind, gusting to 40 in a maneuver that I can only refer to as the “Winslow Dumpster Fire”.
Big honking wind and no NAVAIDs, I set up a best guess heading ENE.
I try picking various terrain references in the distance to combat any drift. Eventually I overfly a dry wash and a NE-SW highway which I’m taking to be I-40.
I actually had an inexplicable crash here and had to start over. I’m not sure what caused it but, being as I can’t find a manual or recommended power settings for this bird, I may have blown the engine somehow.
My second attempt really put the “gross” in gross navigational error! I sighted little in the way of solid checkpoints and found myself looking more generally at the terrain contours as a navigation guide.
I had hoped to spy the very distinct (on paper) looking Mt. Taylor in the San Mateo mountain range, but it was far less singular in the pixel.
I believe that this is it here to the right.
Passing east on the back side or the mountain range, which felt more like a plateau, I dropped into the flats. Some pretty fascinating scenery here showing what must have been New Mexico’s volcanic past.
Off in the distance, I see the broad back of what can only be (I’m hoping) the Sandia Mountains, my backstop for today. On the western slopes should be the city of Albuquerque, famed for its many missed opportunities for making left hand turns.
Pop up to find the airfield. There’s Billy’s Long Bar…if you have to ask, you’ve never been there! 
If landing this, ahem, lady is anything like taking her off, I’m putting myself on whatever runway is most aligned to the wind.
Here’s one considerately marked out with amber Xs. That must mean it’s the active, right? 
Not as horrifying as I feared.
I really need to start paying attention to my course plotting. The terrain is only going to get flatter and less descript from here on out.
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Great pictures 
!
Indeed the end of the race is the hardest because the terrain is flatter and it’s harder to find remarkable landmarks.
Did you time your legs?
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Thanks!
I have not up until now as I’ve been flying several of the planes for the first time and I was not too certain as to what they would cruise at. The winds have also been quite strong.
So I’ve been keeping a general clock running in my head, but not to the level that I would in real
life. So far in MSFS I’ve been mostly terrain associating and bounding myself in by strong terrain features, like the Colorado or the Sandias to keep me hemmed in.
But, once the big ranges, lone roads, and major rivers peter out, I’m going to need to actually spend a little time flight planning.
A VOR would be nice too! 
isnt it race!?
good progress btw
Yes, but if I just firewall the engine and slag it somewhere between Santa Fe and Tucumcari, it will be a race to see who gets me first.
The SAR crew…or the coyotes. 
I’m thinking the times should be in the in-game flight log?
Yes, but on the discord we use FSACARS to get the exact time the wheels leave the ground and the exact time of landing. So we calculate with the exact flight times. 
Here are the times that the three finishers have achieved on the discord of Virtual Air racing association:
Voodoo - Gee Bee R2 : 07:16:32
Marnacle - Wedell Williams 44 : 08:09:54
Sal1800 - Wedell Williams 44 : 08:28:59
They are not very far from the real times except for the Gee Bee which was faster but it had suffered a technical failure in 1932.
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That’s very cool!
Figuring I was going to swap planes and muck my way over there, I was really just playing for the experience.
And it’s great like that too!
We take the times just for fun and compare with what happened in real life but there is no competitive spirit on this event.
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Cool.
Well, I think the ship has sailed for exact OFF/ON times. But I can probably pull up my Nav times in the sim…as soon as I can figure out how that all works.
In the meantime, I knocked out another leg from Albuquerque to Amarillo. This one was comparatively easy considering I had I-40 to follow the whole way, though I’m guessing that I-40 as such wasn’t a thing back in the '30s!
Some high altitude sunshine for takeoff, though I wish it were darker to hide the horror of my takeoff technique!
Hooked an immediate left to get on I-40 as it cut through the mountains. I still would like to find a decent map site that gave me topographical names.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t called, “The Sandia McDonalds Pass”. 
Out the other side and into the less, cough, featureful section of the journey.
Miles and miles of rolling terrain, all the way to the horizon.
While I did detour slightly south to take advantage of the road, it was a relatively straight shot to Amarillo.
The first of what was to be a sea of windmills was a pretty good indication that I had reached the outskirts of Amarillo.
And there’s the skyline now:
Just a turn to final and one sabre dance down the runway before I go find me a bottle of Lone Star.
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Well, I feel a little bad that this thread had become the Deacon Show, so I may make this my last entry. I had thought that maybe this might turn into a bit of the Christmas Trek, but I know guys have other journeys going right now as well.
I’ll still finish the trek, just for fun and maybe I’ll just do a summary post at the end.
Anyway, this one is from Amarillo, TX to Kegelman AF Aux Field, north of Cherokee, OK.
I had intended to fly this in the Corsair in racing colors, but I misdropped my racing scheme in the Community folder and it didn’t show up. So, I chose a nice, shiny, Korea era Blacksheep livery (Jan Kees Blom again IIRC).
The weather throughout this entire journey so far has been severe clear. But windy, like “Auntie Em! Aunrtie Em!” windy.
To keep it short, I’ll just say that the easy days of big terrain features and four lane interstates are O.V.E.R.
Managed to spot a couple of towns to keep me honest. This here’s Hoover, TX.
And a few wind farms, some a bit misleading…
Eventually, I decided to pop up and see if I could get a better lay of the land as I was approaching my ETA. Good thing too. That last correction at the wind farm had put me north of this baby, the Great Salt Plains Reservoir.
Which was a great lead in to Kegelman, north of Vance AFB.
A quick trip into the carrier break so as to wake up the base ops cook.
And we’re done.
You’ve never had a breakfast burrito until you’ve had one cooked on a grill that hasn’t been cleaned since 1942!
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I have been so swamped at work recently that I haven’t been able to spend much time simming…and flying enough that I haven’t felt the urge to do much of that anyway.
I still need to complete the Lewis and Clark trek…but we are already halfway through May and it will soon be time for me to start pestering Chris @BeachAV8R for a Christmas destination 
.
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no way, keep them coming!
I am in the process of selecting my bird for this race so I will definitely join despite I have the L&C track going. gravitating towards that Boeing 247. I know that it isnt any racer but it seems to be enough fragile bird for this kind of flying 
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@NEVO. I’d love to have another flyboy on the trip. Is it possible to fly the AN range all the way across the country? That would be quite a challenge. In either case, the Boeing would be a fun choice and a good looking ride!
@PaulRix. I’m looking forward to seeing you finish the L&C! Love the historical notes. I still have a crate parked somewhere in western Missouri myself, but got distracted by NeoFly somewhere along the way.
as the weather in PA wasnt flyable went to check Burbank and surroundings (forgot to install Boeing 247 from external drive to my NB)
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What a cool looking aircraft. I’d love to fly one!
started my ‘race’ 
it was from Burbank to Victorville
with this beautiful lady. after just only one flight I can say she is worth all the money imo
after few tries and referencing the manual the first success. starting these engines is real fun with starter crank
successfully started up the second engine and off we go
this seems like enough space for my first landing.
solid 170kt IAS cruise. didnt burn the engines actually as I was babysitting them on this first flight. saving my luck for second flight
did you now that this lady has no landing flaps !?
cockpit was nicely shaking and rattling on descent. and one need to take care not to pull the throttles to full idle as engines will starve and quit. you dont need to ask me how I know that
already looking forward to the next hop 
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