Congrats! Welcome to the club!
5 Likes
Great work! Welcome!
6 Likes
Awesome job. We almost have enough Mudspikers gathered to stage a raid on Santa’s Village.
7 Likes
We gotta tie Arma into this somehow 
3 Likes
Will be slightly late for Christmas Eve. Second but last leg, Narvik to Tromso, albeit I’m probably on my own there by now 
Back in FS2020 for this leg, with the trusted FW-200 Condor. Not much to see throughout the flight, engulfed in darkness.
I did some nice pirouettes after take-off and had a hard time staying aligned with the horizon in this darkness. But, didn’t crash at least 
Following the magenta line more or less, with the radio instructions from ATC.
There in the distance is Tromso, hopefully!
Canvy transition? What does that even mean. I transition to VFR soonish after that radio message.
Back on the ground, more or less an uneventful short hop…
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Leg 6: ENTC (Tromso) → ENSB (Svalbard Airport)
With the beer rapidly running out in Svalbard, I’m on the way with an A400 packed to the gunnels with party juice.
Lined up and ready to roll
Up and away, nice millpond in Tromso sound
Back over Tromso at 10k
The sun is going
Getting a bit dark now
Approaching Svalbard
Its down there somewhere
I’ve got to fly this in, hope nobody is watching this
Oh lordy, I’ve made a right hash of it
Down just after 12.30pm
An enjoyable Xmas flight, shorter than its ever been for me and a fun one exploring MSFS2024 as its given me an opportunity to set it up. No negatives from me as the minor issues I can live with. It’ll buff up nicely in the next few months.
I now need a hand unloading and getting all this beer to the Mudspike party.
Merry Christmas all.
15 Likes
Thank you for being the right man at the right moment!
What do you mean? HIRL to the left of you. HIRL to the right of you.
That sounds like a successful approach to me!
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Merry Christmas and well done.
Thanks for the resup.
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1 KSGR-KDPK
Introduction
For the flight to ENSB I selected the PC-21 from Iris. I hate big planes. Or rather, anything bigger than a business jet. The CRJ in MSFS2020 just didn’t fit well. Since the Dassault Falcon 7X isn’t available yet for MSFS2020, I grabbed the smaller PC-21 for its agility and performance as expected for a jet trainer.
I set the following conditions for myself.
- Fly in daylight when possible (which becomes impossible later in the flight)
- Avoid flying over water as much as possible (which becomes impossible later in the flight)
- VFR, not IFR (what are all those IFR buttons for?)
- Divert to another airport if the weather gets too bad
- Fly solo (GIB stays home this time)
Note: I had a continual problem with getting the transponder to behave. After RTFM it still went to the wrong settings. Veterans can have a good laugh throughout my flight. I suspect it is “operator error” and not plane dysfunction.
It’s a busy day.
Nice day for flying.
609 miles to go.
Flying over Houston on the outbound.
Perfect weather. Enjoying it while it lasts.
Getting close.
Damnit, Doug. Way too fast! Go around!
14 Likes
2 KDPK-KJYO
Next morning…
…and on the way.
Another clear day.
Nice detail MSFS2020!
Dusk looks nice.
A full day of flying.
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3 KJYO-CYQB
Next day and some clouds for the first time.
The PC-21 has some nice in-flight reading material.
More clouds…
…and then my VFR goes away.
Getting lower, I start to get under them.
Too fast again! Go around!
Parked.
12 Likes
4 CYQB-CYYR
It was an uneventful leg of the flight and fortunately clear skies again until arrival when some clouds appeared near Goose Bay.
Getting close to the Arctic Circle, but no snowfall. Yet.
12 Likes
5 CYYR-BGBW
It’s cold!
It’s time to break one of the objectives – avoid large areas of water as I fly over the Labrador Sea.
Now there’s snow. The last time I saw snow in Houston was a few years ago.
The winter wonderland arrives. Another go around.
The clouds break as I reach Narsarnaq.
Not quite the Arctic Circle yet, but closer!
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6 BGBW-BIRK
The next day I was blessed with a mostly clear sky leaving Narsarnaq.
Back to flying over large areas of water in the North Atlantic.
The clear sky really shows the curvature of the earth.
Arriving in Reykjavik, Iceland.
That night, the Aurora Borealis made its first appearance in the flight. It wouldn’t be the last. Only previous time I had seen the “Northern Lights” was outside Anchorage, Alaska (IRL). But that’s a story for another time.
11 Likes
7 BIRK-EGPC
Outbound from Reykjavik.
Because of the range of the PC-21, it necessitated my flying south to Wick, Caithness, Scotland. And that meant another flight over water and along the coastline of the North Sea.
Welcome to Scotland.
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8 EGPC-ENAL
Such diversity from the snow previously. Surprising to me because we’re near the bitter cold along the North Sea coastline.
Heavy clouds at 4800 feet.
An uneventful flight to the north…
…and it is getting dark by the time I arrive in Norway.
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9 ENAL-ENBO
Cold rain flying from Norway.
Note: The MSFS2020 bug that shows rain on the HUD lingers on. As far as I know, it’s not been fixed yet, and I haven’t tried rain in MSFS2024 to see if it’s any better.
A wet takeoff.
Climbing on top of the nasty weather.
A lot of turbulence coming into Bodø…
…but a beautiful sky once I arrived.
Now I am finally in the Arctic Circle!
10 Likes
10 ENBO-ENSB
Should I be concerned about the mileage of the flight?
Lifting off from ENBO.
Once on top, more enjoyable views.
My favorite screenshot in this flight.
Another Aurora Borealis light show.
Surprise. No go around.
fini!
Postscript
I have never been keen on civil aviation flight sims excepting the novelty of Looking Glass’ Flight Unlimited releases, and the historical aspects of FSX. Even in FSX I would fly through the base of the Eiffel Tower and do other such antics, but mostly it didn’t give me the excitement of Falcon 4 and variations, EECH, and DCS military sims. MSFS2020 changed all that because of its amazing graphics and features.
MSFS2024 will do even better with the increased content and graphic quality once they swat down the worst of the ridiculous bugs. I’ll purchase it again in about 6-12 months.
System
AMD 5900x processor
NVIDIA 3090
32 GB DDR4 3600 RAM
NVMe drives
Win10
Thrustmaster HOTAS
Add-ons
PC-21 Trainer - Iris Simulations
Aurora Borealis - South Oak Co
Enhanced Airport Graphics - Zinertek
10 Likes
Okay, next leg and last stop in Canada:
Canada gets cold, dark and snowy in the Winter but waiting was not going to make it any better so off I went:
Despite some white knuckle moments, by the time I was approaching Makkoivik it had cleared nicely:
The rainbow was encouraging. But…remember when I said I was flying with a small chance of failure?
Well, my number came up. Landing gear would not deploy which seems kind of crucial. I went around and (using the exterior view) validated that they looked down and went in for a try. They did hold but the slippy slidy runway made for a very uncomfortable long roll out. Winter flying, what a treat!
Next stop Greenland!
14 Likes
I feel that. The largest planes I regularly flew were the Citation X (in FSX) and the Challenger 300 (in XPlane). I have flown airliners such as the A320 a few times, and even crossed the Atlantic in a Lockheed Starliner, just to show that I can, but I never feel comfortable in them. I am playing with the thought of getting that BAe 146 though, although it is a tad too large…
Nice to see AARs from you as well!
8 Likes