Welcome aboard.
You are still a lot closer to Svalbard than I am…
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Part 13 - Lightning Does Strike Twice
As much as I like the Beaver, now that I have had a taste… and that is enough really bad and puerile puns for one post.
But, by my calculations I’m only about half way to Svalbard so I need something a lot quicker and with the range to get me to Vancouver in one hop.
I’m actually surprised it took me this long to get back into it.
Even without full tanks and only a bit over 50% MTOW, I wouldn’t have wanted a shorter runway 
I have more than enough fuel to get me to where I’m going so it is time to have a bit of fun 
That is cross sound which will take me to Juneau.
PAGS just off my port wing so Juneau is at about my 11 o’clock.
But I’m veering right here and continuing to CYYJ.
I’m really starting to understand why ampibians/float planes are so popular in Alaska.
On finals into Vancouver/CYYJ. A bit high and fast…
Yeah just a tad fast, but I only bounced it once, and used a lot of runway.
Got it slowed down enough to take the last taxiway.
This will have to do. And at least it was a lot more interesting than just twiddling with autopilot knobs & buttons.
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LEG 13/14: Geraldton Airport, Geraldton, Australia (YGEL) TO Rottnest Island Airport, Thomson Bay, Rottnest Island, Australia (YRTI).
A TALE OF TWO CESSNAS
Being exceptionally conscious of the ticking clock, I have tried hard to drive on down the Western Australian coastline. At the same time, I’ve been slowly whittling away my remaining list of aircraft. But I admit that it’s been a bit of a struggle to balance the time/speed/distance equation. Distance has appeared to be in the lead so far.
In short, I have both a long way to go and a lot of slow aircraft to fly there.
To address that somewhat, I had originally planned to three leg it down to Perth. This next leg was to be my last. But the desire to actually see something on these flights and not just blast through the Moronosphere onto the ILS final at (Insert Name Here) International Airport, drove me to a slightly different destination.
YRTI Airport, on Rottnest Island. Not exactly inviting sounding, I’ll admit. But it would put me about 20-30NM west of Perth and offer the opportunity to knock out one more leg in something low and slow on a nice tour of the city before settling down on the “long asphalt”.
All of which brought me to the fan favorite (well, I’m a fan of it at least ) Cessna 152.
And off I went on a beautiful coastal desert morning.
I had sort of forgotten that the 152 (in the sim at least) seems to have no lighting whatsoever, so I had to do a little Zen navigating…of both the cockpit and the one VOR available to me, Geraldton.
There was not a single other station between me and Perth, so I hoped it would do until I got closer.
Luckily, the Sun was coming up as I crossed the coast, which I couldn’t help but consider an improvement to my situational awareness! 
The observation shortly thereafter that I was quite heading out to sea clued me in to the fact that I had dialed the wrong radial into the OBS. A little more of “God’s flashlight” helped get me back on course. 
Eventually, my course (plus correction) brought me back ashore in the vicinity of Leeman Beach. This bay appears to be another of those that doesn’t show up on most maps. Curious.
Nice looking place though!
While I was planning my route, I had found that a great many small airfields weren’t depicted on LNM. This tended to give the impression that most of the Western Australian coast was barren, which was not the case at all.
This one, a private strip outside of Jurien Bay, was one that I had spotted on my map study, but didn’t appear as an airfield marker. Having seen that it was all present and accounted for in MSFS, I decided on a whim to turn one leg into two! 
Upon busting into the overhead, all unannounced-like, I noticed that the private airfield’s presumptive owner was there on the ramp.
Well, all Australians I’ve met are friendly, so that’s gotta be a good sign, right?
A little windy…and high.
Probably, should have slipped it in the other way, huh?
As I was taxiing in, I decided that, whatever aircraft happened to be spawned down here, was going to be the next plane I was taking.
172 it is!
Dev mode on aaaaand…
Voilà! Huh, now it’s a TBM…maybe I should take another spin?
Anyway, back to it!
The remainder of the leg took me back off the coast at Wedge Island.
And into a bit of the goo.
Going lower, I did manage to sneek under the clag at about 2,000ft and broke out Rottnest Island in due course.
Hmmm, I think this is one of those Greenland/Iceland things.
“Hey! Let’s call it ‘Rottnest Island’. No one will ever come here!” 
In actuality, it’s quite lovely!
Ahhh, can you think of a more perfect combination than runway ends and tall trees.
Cause I can’t! 
Alright, chocks in, battery off, bottle opener in hand. Where’s the bar?
One more leg, and it’s, “Goodbye Eastern Hemisphere!”
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Rottnest (Dutch for rats nest) was so named by the explorer who mistook the Quokka’s for giant rats.
“What’s a Quokka?” I hear you ask. Only the worlds cutest marsupial:
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Just me?
Great story though! Australia has a lot of incredibly cute animals…
…and, you know, ones that kill you horribly. 
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I had to look it up. But the original inhabitants of the land, the Noongar people, know it as Wadjemup. Which means - place of spirits
Looking at Quokkas, I reckon they already knew a thing or two more about the place than a Dutch tourist
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Kristiansund to Stokka, which I believe is one of the default enhanced airports in MSFS. I sticked to the Transall because it was not easy to leave it behind 
and I also wanted to check how much of its FMS operation I forgot.
It took a little longer than initially expected but I managed to punch everything to the Transall’s FMS. Twice actually because I messed up the destination in the first go
So long and North we go.
The flight path took me along the Norwegian coast. I only wished the weather was better.
And then - out of nowhere and out of visible moisture - I got into this:
Almost breaking my neck and spine (mind, I am flying in VR and the Transall has a pretty steep engineer panel) I flipped few switches and few windows cleared in no time.
In case this mountain range looks familiar to you then be assured we are arriving to Stokka.
Oh and… I did not manage to set the approach to the field. For some reason only German and French engineers know (or perhaps - and more likely - AzurPoly as the developer of this addon), the FMS stubbornly requested an arrival before letting me key in the approach. And Stokka does not have an arrival. That left me with two options really: either a visual approach or ILS. Visual seemed too a pity for such an aircraft so few clicks later I got the NAV1 tuned to Stokka’s ILS frequency.
Time to turn in, maybe?
Beautiful setting beautifully represented by MSFS. Can’t wait for the 2024 version.
Landing and safely on the ground.
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Leg 9
First of all, a hearty congrats to those that have made it already, and a welcome to those who have joined us recently!
I have found that the Asobo King Air (even with the nice upgraded cockpit) wasn’t making the book numbers for cruise, but after my last stop I got set up with a mod by MG Enterprises that … let’s just pretend it straightened out the plane and now it isn’t so draggy 
I have a shorter leg planned today, but hopefully we’ll have a couple of sights to see:
We’re going to fly across the Gulf of Oman, avoiding Iranian airspace (no airways fee for you!
), and then fly across Oman and the UAE to get to Qatar.
We’re going to depart before dawn for this leg - since I’m flying this using real time and weather that’s likely to become more common for the rest of the legs.
Lining up for Runway 24 at Gwadar.
We make it across the gulf, and head west across Oman.
And we’re treated to a sunrise at 20,000 ft over Seeb!
What a view!
I forget whether it was Thom Hogan that said it, or maybe he was quoting Galen Rowell, but if you’ve got a beautiful sunrise or sunset, don’t forget to turn around…
Because the view the other way can be stunning too!
We keep flying, and eventually get to the UAE
Jabal Hafeet just south of Al Ain
Turning onto the next waypoint, and watching the sun catch the tops of the hills
The runway-looking-thing under the King Air is actually a waste dump, I was disappointed to discover
Al Ain from FL200:
Jabal Hafeet in the distance.
As we approach Dubai we see a coastal sandstorm is going to get in the way of our sightseeing 
The circular tracks just outside the storm is the Dubai Camel Racing Club!
OK, we’re just going to have to do our best on this sightseeing trip! Descending to 2500 feet…
We see the Burj Khalifa
And the Burj Al Arab
With The Palm Jumeirah emerging from the haze behind it!
Fuel is not an issue now we’ve straightened out the plane, so I decide to fly IFR (“I Follow Roads” ) down the highway between Dubai and Abu Dhabi
The sandstorm is suspiciously absent outside the cities … I guess there’s no weather reporting here that FS2020 has access to?
After the disappointment of Marina Bay, we make up for it with a flyover of the Yas Marina Grand Prix circuit
Ferrari World just above the tail, and the yellow building towards the top of the picture is Warner Bros. World
We then cross the Persian Gulf direct to Doha.
Hamad International Airport, but we’re not landing here - we’re going inland to Doha International Airport that you can see further towards the city. I got visual joining instructions… so I figured overflying Hamad Internation at the centre was safest (you can probably see the lights of some traffic in this photo…)
Made it safely to join downwind Runway 33
Doha is an impressive city!
And about to touch down on Runway 33.
I’ll spare you the photos of the airport, this one isn’t particularly detailed … I couldn’t even find the fuel pump!
Some more Night hours added, and we’re still making good progress. I feel like we are on track to make it before December 25 
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Part 14 - Wait a minute. We are going where now?
This journey to date has been one of short term planning, which works perfectly with my total reliance on short term memory… because be buggered if I could remember what I wanted to do tomorrow, yesterday!
Instead of heading due East from here, which I think might have been the original plan, but that was at least a couple of days ago, so ‘I dunno’.
All I know for now is that I am going to take a little diversion to San Francisco.
No time for faffing about, so I’m back in the Pocket Rocket, I program a flight plan and it is time to get on with twiddling autopilot knobs & buttons.
San Francisco, here I come…
And after a wobbly taxi out to RWY 09
A slightly less wobbly take off
And time to let this thing fly itself for a while. Yet people get all excited about self driving cars, pfffft!
Columbia River if I’m not mistaken?
Halfway
Descent into Oakland
On finals
And… Not the tidiest landing ever, but I’ll take it.
I know that I said I would be using the trike/retractrable gear version next, but right now I need all the practice in a high performance tail dragger that I can get
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LEG 15: Rottnest Island Airport, Thomson Bay, Rottnest Island, Australia (YRTI) TO Perth International Airport, Perth, Western Australia (YPPH).
This was a short repo flight to set me up for my long transpolar hop next week.
Roughly, 30NM as the crow flies. But with a detour to check out Perth along the way.
I said that I wanted to work through some of the slower aircraft left on my list. So today I chose the slowest, the Zlin Shock Ultra.
Spartan…I like it!
One thing that I always mean to mention in these reports is the amazing (and occasionally a little surreal) ambient sound that Asobo kind of sneaks into the sim.
Usually, you don’t even hear it unless you hit freeze. But, when you do, you get jungle birds, rain, or even just the wind singing in the background…like you were just sitting a thousand feet, or more, in the air.
Today as I sat frozen on the numbers, I heard the lonely wind blowing across the isle from the sea.
Which I probably should have paid more attention to when I took off!
Luckily, I was off the ground in about three feet.
Because, had it been four, I almost certainly would have dragged the wing, having just hit the stops on both the rudder and the aileron.
Once I got used to looking out the side window at my direction of travel, things settled down a bit and I left the Rottnest Island behind me.
A beautiful flying day, windy or not.
I keep meaning to reinstall GAIST in order to get shipping traffic back, but MSFS at least threw me a trawler or two along the way.
It took a bit of fishing to get the crab down right (neither of those puns were intended ), but eventually I managed to spot Freemantle Harbour, entrance to the Swan River and gateway to Perth.
I had been coming in fairly low because, why not, when I realized that the high bluffs of King’s Park were likely going to completely obscure my view (to the left in the picture). So I popped on up to about a grand as I crossed the Narrows Bridge. From what I can tell, this separates the Swan River from what seems to be referred to as “Perth Water” on the map.
With a better vantage, I pass downtown with the convention center in the foreground and Elizabeth Quay off the nose.
Navigation was just as I liked it…obvious! I just continued to follow the Swan up past the very impressive Optus Stadium and the Matagarup Bridge, which loses something in the translation to PG.
Surely much prettier in real life!
Not so very long thereafter, I made it to YPPH. With no great choices considering the wind and whilst looking somewhat wearily at the long taxi I would need to take to get to the hangar…
I remembered that I was in a STOVL aircraft.
As such…
Get that damned forklift out of the way! Can’t you see that people are trying to land here!
Some people! I tell ya.
Well that was much shorter!
OK, all set. Next stop, the South Pole!
The South Pole? Oooh, I’m dyin’ again!
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Love it!
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Part 15 - PO(n)D Racing
This idea has actually been gestating for while now. Yeah, thanks heaps Chris for the Pond racer as pod racer brainworm post you made earlier: Official 10th Annual Mudspike Christmas Flight 2024 - Discussion and AAR Thread - #17 by BeachAV8R
Due to real life intervening, this little detour has taken a lot longer than expected. I might have to rethink some of the other destinations and/or routes I was going to do? Like some of the ‘classic’ transatlantic routes of the 1940’s & 50’s?
Time will tell. But ‘what the heck’ I had to do this.
Especially after downloading 70GB of hi-rez ortho of the Bay area…
Which meant that I was committed, which then meant a lot* of last minute practice with this particular aircraft.
Which brings us to
The sole reason for a diversion to San Francisco. So that I can buzz a specific group of buildings.
No, not these ones
Here’s the flight plan. A short flight because full fuel only gives me 1hr 30min @ normal cruise… And I’m not planning on cruising:
Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home!
Stay on target
And if you are down there?
This is for ■■■■■■■ up the originals with your endless re-edits and added CGI… And for Episode 1
- NB. When I said earlier that I had “A lot of practice with this particular aircraft” that meant a couple of hours of resetting finals so I could successfully land it more often than not; provided I had a nice long runway
Which is why I ended up at Travis AFB. I’m probably lucky I didn’t get shot down, especially after that little stunt over George’s place? And I’m really lucky that nobody mistook me for an unknown ‘weather balloon’ over the West Coast of the U.S.?
Maybe be they updated their Aircraft Recognition charts?
Disneyland aint that far away, but I don’t have the time. Otherwise I’d be coming for you next ‘Mouse’. Remaking the first three films and calling it a sequel. Seriously?
But for now.
Because I don’t have a steerable tail wheel, I am going to need some type of tow… Ummm, little help here?.. Please?
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Yeah! Take that Neckbeard!
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LEG 15: Perth International Airport, Perth, Western Australia (YPPH) TO Almirante Marcos A. Zar Airport, Trelew, Chubut Province, Argentina, (SAVT) [At least that was the idea…]
Well, this was something that happened.
This was to have been the “Big Hop”, the hail Mary transpolar flight from Perth to Argentina. 6296NM from wheels up to wheels down.
I had chosen these two airfields in particular since the route would take me almost perfectly across the pole.
No time for foolin’ on this one. I saddled up the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747, for the trip. I considered the 78, but it was only marginally faster.
After a little “on the job training”, I got something that resembled a flight plan and some V speeds loaded.
Off we went…next stop, Argentina!
Since I didn’t do much planning, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t need to reject.
Stopping margin was, shall we say, negligible?
After a less than textbook departure, I got all the stuff in or up that needed to be. The Sun broke the horizon as I climbed to FL350.
I had chosen a dawn takeoff only partly for the view. I was really interested in seeing what the southernmost continent looked like (spoiler: it was white) and was banking on the extended daylight of the approaching southern summer to light the way.
Turns out, the Sun wasn’t what I should have been worried about!
Pretty soon I was feet wet over Cape D’Entrecasteaux…
and out to sea.
Though the clouds closed in until they almost reached me in the high thirties, they mercifully parted just in time to allow me to spot the coast of Antarctica.
Feet dry (and cold) once again.
Like I said, white. It’s an interesting effect. The ice is so uniform that, aside from the cloud shadows, it’s difficult to tell if you are actually looking at the ground or an undercast down there.
As I broke two hundred miles to the pole I chose (unwisely as it would happen) to make it a true polar crossing. That required me to select Heading Select mode as my FMS course would only get me to within about 50NM. I would need to hand steer it the rest of the way.
I had also begun noticing some odd indications from the box. Clearly it didn’t quite know what to do with this part of the globe and the magenta line began bending back on itself.
Though I have never flown near the poles IRL (Iceland is as close as I think I’ve gotten), I did recall that FMSs can act a little wonky there. So maybe this was accurate.
No matter, I’d degrade as necessary to fly through any uncertain regions.
100NM. My FMS course had completely wrapped around itself like a magenta Ouroboros.
50 miles. As the compass card begins to swing, the autopilot makes erratic changes in heading.
I have also lost all sound in external views and the view controls will only let me tilt down, but not up. I also begin to detect stuttering in the video.
This is the last thing I see.
The sim freezes over the pole. It hasn’t crashed yet, but the long pauses make almost any control input impossible.
I couldn’t help but be reminded of this. Only slower!
I was sitting almost directly over the pole. The AP was still trying to hold heading. But, since the HSI was spinning, the aircraft was in a constant angle of bank.
This was potentially going to be a problem. If proximity to the pole was what was slowing the sim down, I was now caught in an endless left hand turn around it.
After much trying, I did manage to kick the autopilot off and level the wings. Sadly, the sim was just so slow that, even if it worked, it would have taken me hours to get away.
Maybe these guys were on to something…
To Be Continued…
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Is it feasible to alter the route a little bit, avoid the Aliens underground base at the South Pole?
And turn that frown upside down.
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Honestly, it wouldn’t even have taken that much.
My original attempt to connect two airports through the pole didn’t get me closer than about 50NM. At that range there was some slow down, but I think it would have worked.
It was only my anal retention in insisting that I pass directly over the pole that led to my downfall.
Apparently, something in MSFS doesn’t like the poles!
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