[DCS World]Your Favourite Free Flight Routes

I’ll be working on a little project for the Mudspike Fly-In in the next couple of weeks and I already have some ideas but I thought it would be fun to share some of your favourite areas and routes to fly in a non combat environment to gather ideas and vary it up a little. I’ll start by describing some of my absolute favourites (speed always in Mach numbers so I don’t have to provide km/h and knots):

#1.
Route: Kutaisi-Mozdok
Designed for: Fast jets, the MiG-21Bis is my go to module on this route.
Fuel requirements for the MiG-21Bis: Full tank & 800l Droptank flying supersonic, full tank subsonic
Duration: 25-45min
Map:

Description:
Note: I’ll reference the MiG-21Bis in regards to fuel management but you can do this in any DCS aircraft although I prefer supersonic jets due to the wide valleys and the length of this particular route.

After take off from Kutaisi accelerate to ~M0.8 while ascending to ~1500m/5000ft and start following the river south of the airbase into Kutaisi. Set up your aircraft for low altitude flight (radar altimeter, minimum altitude etc) and after overflying Kutaisi City coming from the south descent to low level. Keep following the river at ~Mach 0.6 leading into the wide valley of Ambrolauri. The first part of the valley is quite windy and narrow so keep your speed down until the valley widens.
Once you cleared the narrow valleys north of Kutaisi, heading east towards Ambrolauri, accelerate to ~Mach 1.2 (flying in burner around 680-720°C EGT in the MiG-21), keep that speed until you pass the town of Oni (LN71) heading in a northerly direction towards Gomi and Utsera (LN81) decelerate to high subsonic speeds and then follow the river East towards Glola.
After passing Glola, follow the valley to the right and select full burner to clear the upcoming mountain tops.
Falling back down low into the next valley heading East (MN02), keep your speed around Mach 0.8 and take the first valley to the left heading North (MN12, very sharp turn, deep, narrow valley) and follow the valley towards Alagir (MN36).
Once clear of the mountains accelerate to Mach 1.2 again, heading North over the plains, Beslan to the right, Nalchik somewhere off to the left.
Flying parts of the route at supersonic speeds in the MiG-21Bis with the 800l drop tank you should be down to around 1200-1500l of fuel. Simply follow the River North and then East until you reach Mozdok. Once you’re down to ~900l of fuel deselect burner and climb up to around 3000m/10000ft to make your approach into Mozdok. Flying a RSBN Box landing pattern at 600m AGL you should land with 400-500l of fuel left.

#2.
Route: The Georgian Mach Loop: Kutaisi - Ambrolauri - Kutaisi
Designed for: Any flyable fixed wing aircraft
Duration: 15-30min
Map:

Description:
The Georgian Mach Loop as I like to call it is a rather short but very beautiful route through the mountains and valleys East and North-East of Kutaisi.

After taking off from Kutaisi ascend to about 1000m/3000ft and follow the river towards Kutaisi. With Kutaisi City to your left, turn right heading East towards the lake. Again, do your low level checks and prepare to descend. Once you clear the mountains west of the lake depart to low level and overfly the lake coming from the South-West to the North-East. Fly through the valley of Tkibuli and clear the ridge-line North-East of Tkibuli. Now, follow the road on the West side of the next lake towards Ambrolauri and enter the wide valley of Ambrolauri from the East flying West.
Stay in the valley until you reach Zeda-Sairme (LN21). Reaching Zeda-Sairme take the valley to the right leading North towards another lake.
After passing the lake fly west over the mountain ridge into the next valley. Turn left flying North to South through the valley. Follow this valley towards the South-West until the mountains open up. Keep following the river towards the South until you have Kutaisi AFB on your left and ascend to ~600m/2000ft to setup for landing.

…more to follow

4 Likes

That “Around The Lake” tour you took me on in the L-39C was pretty fun, Derby - return trip back to Kutaisi as well. I think that’d be a great route to fly formation in L-39Cs in 1.5.

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Guess what I just edited into my OP? :smiley:

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How many guesses do I get? :wink:

Never really gave this any thought. But years ago my normal, relaxed, route was a CAP or CAS along the Turkish boarder and then along the Georgian Russian border. Take off from Batumi fly straight out to sector FG92 then down to sector FG90 and then over to the Turkish border. I follow the border until I get to Vaziani which I fly over en route to the Russian border. I then follow the Russian border to Adler. Once at Adler I have two options. Option one is Refuel and re trace the route. Option two is RTB down the coast to Batumi.

This works for any jet. If I am in the A-10 or SU-25 I fly at FL150-FL200. In Fighters it was FL300-FL350.

Might try to make a mission with this route and some triggers that spawn enemies at random percentages.

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Really, really enjoying this thread! Anybody else enjoy coastal flights as much as I do?

2 Likes

I used to fly a mission with helos out of Novo or Gelenzdhik along the Russian coast to a FARP in Tuapse (@fourthwingman). Then I’d head north – nap-of-Earth, of course – zooming up and down random valleys, tracing railroad tracks, flying under power lines, etc.

Another option was to keep heading southeast and try to land on the oil derricks at Sochi, but that was a looong flight.

I’ll have to see if I can dredge up the old files and make them 1.2/1.5 compliant.

2 Likes

One, @EinsteinEP :smiley:

I hope I can add some more routes this evening. I’ve become a bit of a MiG-21 addict so a lot of them are best flown with jets. I’ll try to dig something up for the old warbirds but I’ll have to re-fly them to refresh my memory. I do like to land them on that short landing strip in Kutaisi though.

Another thing I like to do in the MiG-21 are high altitude Mach 2 runs from airbase to airbase using ARK and RSBN for navigation. The challenge is not to over speed to keep the engine running. The MiG-21 accelerates like crazy once you get through the trans-sonic flight regime. I manage to outrun F-15C on a regular basis until I reach Mmax and they catch up. The MiG-21’s Engines cut out around Mach 2.10-2.15 due to shock waves entering the turbine, max allowed speed is M2.05 or 1300km/h IAS depending on altitude. Having used the RSBN on the L-39 I wish LN would update their RSBN to be more realistic. It’s a really cool system.

@BeachAV8R and I have flown a long(ish) endurance run mission on the MiG-21bis from Tbilisi to Krasnodar-Center that is actually more of an exercise in fuel usage prediction. It’s a long flight, but lots of radio nav, optimal climb/cruise/descent planning, etc. and, of course, fun with right wingman/men/persons.

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Ah I love these sort of things. We did something similar in the P-51D. Not quite as long but fun nonetheless. Mission was to bomb Nalchik and destroy the german fighters on the ground before they manage to take off and then RTB. Take off from Tblisi with two Bombs, climb to 25000ft flying north over the Caucasus using dead reckoning for navigation, strike Nalchik with Bombs and guns, regroup and return to Tblisi (though we decided to cut it short and land in Beslan because it was getting late)^^

Some screens from that mission:

All 6 Mustangs safe and sound (more or less :smiley: )

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Thank you for this You really make DCS even more enjoyable. Keep up the hard work.

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I’m a bit of a creature of habit for ‘I just want to fly’ flights. This thread made me think about it for the first time, but I always tend to do Batumi → Kobuleti → Sukhumi legs if I’m just pottering around. Like a lot of others (I think?) I used the disused airfield north of Batumi as my ‘now I remember how TMS Forward Long works’ warm-up targets and pretend those trucks are made of cardboard.

Alternatively, I start out at Sukhumi and then do canyon runs to the North-East - good times…