It’s been great! One or two minor bugs but nothing show stopping.
I actually think performance in the Fenix is better in 24 than 20.
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My next flight on the trip is my longest, by far, taking me from Boston (KBOS) over to Madrid (LEMD).
Obviously flying down to Madrid does not make for the most direct route to Svalbard but I wanted to prioritize some sightseeing and flying into great airport sceneries.
Note that as of this writing, I’d dropped Leipzig (EDDP) and replaced it with Copenhagen (EKCH)
I did this flight using the PMDG 777 in MSFS2020 and it was just over six hours from takeoff to touchdown. I opted for a real time, real weather flight, resulting in an IMC departure and a mostly dark flight.
The scenery on the way out is the Fly Tampa KBOS and is a great little addition to the sim. It works on 2024, as well, and I used it on the previous flight inbound to Boston.
KBOS-LEMD - MSFS2020 - PMDG 777-300ER
I’m a big fan of the new international terminal, though the coffee selection once you’re past security is minimal, at best. You’ve been warned.
The view for the initial climb out of Boston.
Nice little cabin area. I haven’t tried the GSX seated passenger feature yet, I’m curious how well it runs. (To be fair, I’m not sure if the 777 is compatible yet.)
Can’t complain about .82 and 100 knots of tailwind.
Feet dry and setting up for the approach into Madrid.
No pictures of the shutdown at LEMN, but it’s a pretty nice hand-crafted airport. My next flight will take me over to Nice (LFMN), back in the Airbus.
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LEG 24: Caen–Carpiquet Airport, Carpiquet, Calvados Département, France (LFRK) TO Ostend–Bruges International Airport, Ostend, Belgium (EBOS).
Today’s flight was initially intended to shave about 300 more miles off the 1800 or so I have left on this year’s journey.
As it turned out, I would cut it a bit short due to I and A…Icing and Apathy! 
Here’s the original plan of some 300NM from Caen to De Kooy, just north of Amsterdam.
As you can see, I broke with a bit of tradition by eschewing the usual direct leg. The the hope was that an inland course might let me see some of Belgium and the Netherlands, rather than quite a lot of the Channel.
As you can also see, I was going to be fighting about a 30kt headwind the entire way. Interestingly, this was a remarkably homogenous airmass that ran from nearly the surface to at least 10,000ft, all moving unwaveringly at about 30kts…high or low, there was no escaping it!
I chose not to takeoff on my usual dawn patrol, instead shooting for a dusk landing in Amsterdam. Just to do something different.
As it turned out, I may have miscalculated on that last bit! 
With all the cipherin’ done, I mounted up in the Cubcrafters XCub.
I love this thing. If the original Cub was this:
The XCub was more like this:
(Pics borrowed from the Internet)
Another rip roaring takeoff in the northeasterly winds!
Which again had me on my way long before the upwind numbers.
In a flight which seemed to be dominated by original intents, I originally intended to climb directly to about 5k to take advantage of a little TAS.
But then had to bump it to 7 to stay out of the clouds and icing. Then 9.
But even 9 was only barely topping the deck…and the view quickly promised to be underwhelming.
So I thought I’d try the other end. The local field reports suggested at least 2000-3000ft of ceiling to run beneath. Yes, I’d lose some of the advantages of going high, but I figured that I had plenty of gas, and the sightseeing would be better down in the weeds.
No anti-ice to turn on, so I just flopped, chopped, and dropped down to 2000ft to get through it as quickly as possible.
By chance, I came out almost exactly over the Pont de Normandie. I felt better about the decision already! 
It was about then that I began noticing the lengthening shadows. I might not make Amsterdam by sundown.
Over the next 30 minutes or so, my suspicions were confirmed. I was running out of daylight. Unfortunate for the tourism, but not a showstopper.
On the plus side, I managed to spot the airfield at Abbeville, which I’m assuming is the same (or at least in the same area) as the home of the Abbeville Boys. Always interesting to get a little historical perspective when flying in the modern day. 
Ultimately, there was no sense hanging around at 2000ft in the dark and cloud so, back up I went to 10k.
This is doing no end of good for my fuel planning! 
Within about another 20 minutes, it was dark…like suddenly dark.
I looked up and saw this:
Now, it wasn’t the icing that I noticed, though that might say more about me than the icing.
What I did notice was that I didn’t notice anything else.
And I was immediately put in mind of this passage from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…
"Light on the bridge sank. Pinpoints of light played across the consoles and reflected in four pairs of eyes that stared up at the external monitor screens.
There was absolutely nothing on them.
‘Recognize that?’ whispered Zaphod.
Ford frowned.
‘Er, no,’ he said.
‘What do you see?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Recognize it?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘We’re in the Horsehead Nebula. One whole vast dark cloud.’
‘And I was meant to recognize that from a blank screen?’
‘Inside a dark nebula is the only place in the Galaxy you’d see a dark screen.’"
Point of all that was that, even at my altitude, I was now apparently back in the clag.
And then I noticed the icing.
It was about here that my apathy light came on.
With a long way to go, icing that I couldn’t seem to stay out of, and a ground speed of only about 90kts, I decided to cut the leg short.
After all, if I was going to drone along in the complete dark, I could easily do that in either of my remaining planes.
Faster.
So I pulled out my map and identified Ostend as a likely candidate. Consulting the approach plate, I tuned in what seemed to be the easiest approach to program, the ILS.
Easiest. Not easy. I fumbled my way through yet another iteration of the FMS and Nav radio suite…
At this point, things happened quickly. Ostend was relatively close. I didn’t want to stay in the icing any longer than necessary, so I once again did the Dauntless 1 arrival into EBOS (i.e. I dumped it in like a homesick refrigerator. 
)
As I said earlier, I mostly tuned in the ILS. In an unfortunate bit of muscle memory, I entered the ILS freq into the scratchpad which would (in most of the aircraft I have flown) make it the active freq.
But not in the XCub. There it enters the freq into the standby. You still need to hit the flip flop.
Long story endless, by the time I saw that it wasn’t working, pondered over the interface, and fixed the issue, I had already broken out…and I didn’t need the needles anyway.
Mission…accomplished? 
So, you ever have one of those landings where you accidentally touch down so gently that you don’t know that you’ve touched down?
And then you spend the next several hundred feet trying to figure out why you haven’t touched down yet? 
Ahhhhhhhh, good times, good times.
Hehe, alright. Well, that was a lot more interesting than I had predicted.
Not quite as much ground covered as I had hoped. But, two legs left and a couple of solid stallions to carry me there!
Until next time!
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Leg 5, final leg: ENZV (Stavanger) => ENSB (Svalbard), XP12, real-day, real-time, real-weather, Boeing B720, IFR
Aircraft selection was challenging … About 1200 nm to Svalbard, but about 600 nm back to nearest alternate. So, planning for about 2000 nm, while runway at Svalbard is about 2400 m. B720, shorter version of B707, should be capable, but marginal, runway length limiting.
Departure ENZV:
En-route, at FL350, enough fuel, comfortable M.86, more than 100 kts crosswind:
Into darkness:
Approaching ENSB, ILS RW09, busy airport (!), last parking spot (?):
This completes the Mudspike Christmas Flight 2024 for me!
For those still on their way to Svalbard, enjoy and good luck on your next leg(s).
*Thanks for watching, great initiative, it was fun to do and to read all flight stories. Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2025! *
P.S. Spitsbergen has two additional, small airports. Perhaps I will visit them in summer time … .
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Beautiful choice of aircraft and wonderful screenshots. Congratulations!
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Congratulations and great reports!
That 720 is amazing looking. I wish we had it in MSFS.
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Golden AAR!
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Congratulations on completing the flight.
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Getting closer!
From Madrid, I flew over to Nice and then up to Innsbruck.
Not too much on the flight to Nice as it was all night time but the leg to Innsbruck more than made up for it.
Madrid LEMD - Nice LFMN - MSFS2024 - Fenix A321
One of the (valid) complaints with FS24 is showcased in the shot above, with airport taxiway lighting being entirely too bright, especially with third party airports. I think this has been fixed, for the most part, with the most recent patch.
Nice LFMN - Innsbruck LOWI - MSFS2024 - Fenix A321
This has to have been my favorite flight so far this year. It started out strong and just kept getting better as I got into Innsbruck. The mountains, snow, and weather all looked pretty phenomenal.
For my next flight, I head up to Copenhagen. Should just be four flights away!
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Nice! That’s definitely a bucket list item for me.
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Is that last shot real? If not, holy smokes that’s a great screen grab!
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Yep it’s a real shot during the decent.
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Part 25 - Pining for the fjords
Next stop Stavanger. Flying to Norway is giving me EF2000 flashbacks and I did intend to hit all those ‘familiar’ airfields, such as Bodø, Andøya, etc. But time is short and there is one other stop that I have to make along the way, so I will have to make do with a nostalgia visit to ENZV.
Crossing the coast at Whitby
Not very inspiring visually with lots of North Sea, so a short post.
And I’m down, for a very untidy landing, well left of the centreline.
Two legs to go.
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You should have seen the landing. I was very nearly an ex-parrot!
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LEG 25: Ostend–Bruges International Airport, Ostend, Belgium (EBOS) TO Bergen Flesland Airport, Flesland, Vestland, Norway (ENBR).
Well, we’re down to it lads.
Having used up all my wiggle room, I was left with about 1600NM to go and two aircraft to get them in. So no stopping to see Europe’s second largest ball of twine or anything fun like that…I had to go to work.
In keeping with my new "professional"™ outlook on the matter, I planned…yes, I actually, planned…my first leg to Bergen, some 552NM across the North Sea.
The winds are quite light, which was nice. The weather in Bergen, maybe not so much.
But legal enough.
I even went so far as to plan the SID and STAR.
And I know what you’re thinking…who writing this and what have you done with the real Deacon?
For my penultimate leg, I chose the capable Beechcraft Bonanza G36. This beauty should have no problem flying through this goo.
Armed again with an embarrassment of professionalism, I fully loaded the box, thus to avoid any unpleasantness at the Top Of Descent.
That completed, and with a whiff of Avgas, off I went!
The Bonanza climbed like a champion (the concept, not the aircraft). Soon I was above the cloud deck.
And on my way.
With most of my work done before takeoff, and little to see out to sea…
I settled down and enjoyed the view.
“Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky.”
In time, my long watch of the lonely sea gave way to land as the Southern Scandanavian Mountains broke free from the horizon to the northwest.
OK, well I programmed in all this crap, let’s see how it does this time!
Better than I had hoped! The VNAV path captures and down I come. Interestingly, the VNAV in the Bonanza will continue to level off at intermediate altitudes until the programmed descent angle is reached again…a little different than in the Bus.
Trying to play the game, I follow the ILS chart note to maintain 160kts until 4 miles from the field. But no one consulted with the Bonanza’s autopilot and she began to fishtail across the LOC a bit.
But she settled down nicely enough, once I let her slow a bit to more Bonanza friendly speeds.
The clouds closed in as I turned final and the visibility dropped.
Still, I think the weather was better than forecasted. I could barely make out the Askøy Bridge off my left side.
Looking through the mist into the Sun didn’t make spotting the field any easier, but I still managed to pick it up passing 500ft or so.
The winds were light with just a bit of crosswind and I actually managed to set her down (intentionally this time) lightly enough to avoid setting off the ELT!
And here we are. Only one leg to go!
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That was just poetic. Great AAR Deacon!
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Bonanzas and Barons. Oh my, what designs their creators have penned.
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