That is a nice looking plane 
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Whew! That’s a long hop. Nicely done!
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LEG 3: Saipur Airport, Rangpur Division, Bangladesh (VGSD) TO Mandalay International Airport, Tada-U, Myanmar (VYMD).
Got to keep her rollin’, so we’re on our way, to Mandalay!
I keep trying to experiment with which map format is easiest to see in these posts. The default MSFS map screen seems to win thus far. 466NM as the crow flies.
No surprises after seeing the last pic, today we are in the DA-62, a sleek spaceship of a design.
With an equally Buck Rogers interior. Where are all the exposed bolt heads? Where are the sharp edges? Where’s the inevitable overhead switch placed at just the right location to bonk you in the noodle and deprive you of bladder control for the next 45 minutes? 
She takes off like a rocket too and soon we are on our way over the convincingly damp Bangladeshi countryside.
You can almost feel the humidity, can’t you?
We climb right into the misting rain. I know that I’ll likely not top it in the 62, but I’ll settle for getting a little True Air Speed and avoiding the worst of the storms.
The 62 has NEXRAD capability. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know that the Wx radar worked at all in MSFS.
Took me four years to find it. Pretty cool.
And surprisingly accurate! This isn’t just window dressing. The weather is improving markedly as I leave the green returns.
The land, from what I can glimpse between the clouds, is broad and rich, given over mostly to agriculture…to the extent that it’s given over to anything.
The rivers are wide and flat. And, I get the impression, not too respectful of their boundaries.
Here, the Teesa River that I’ve been paralleling meets the impressive Brahmaputra.
Oddly, though I have left the majority of the weather behind, I find myself beginning to pick up some icing.
I’m a little surprised. Despite the impression that you might get from the picture, I am mostly in the clear.
Skipping ahead a bit, I probably should have read this sooner! 
I think this is just one of those occasions where MSFS decides that you are in an icing layer and the presence or absence of visible moisture is not really material to whether you pick it up of not.
Well, no sense in fighting City Hall, I drop down a couple of thousand feet to find some clear air. Off to my right, the sprawl of Dhaka, alongside the Padma River.
As I passed further southeast, I came to what I guess are the headwaters of the Meghna. This was pretty fascinating to see in the sim. What look to be a few discrete river tributaries of no great notoriety, stretch out for miles in every direction.
This looks more like the Florida Keys to me than deep in Mainland India.
Remarkable!
At about the 1+45 mark, I come to the Naga and Chin hills, and the border of India and Myanmar.
I wouldn’t have called these “hills” but, when you have the Himalayas in your backyard, I guess you can afford to be a bit haughty about it! 
With less of a headache than I was expecting, I got the GPS 17 loaded into the box.
I’m not gonna’ lie, a fella’ could get pretty spoiled by all the finery in this cockpit!
With VNAV, the descent is uneventful…until the FAF, where the aircraft resolutely refuses to descend further. Pilot error, no doubt.
But, at this point, I’m in the clear. I kick off the AP and complete the rest of the approach by hand.
Not a moment too soon either, by the looks of it!
And that’s it. Another leg down and a (baby) step closer to Norway.
I don’t know if I’ll make it. But I’m already glad I went this way. I don’t fly much in this part of the world and the sights thus far have already been worth the trip!
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Nice choice. There is (was?) a flying school in Adelaide that runs a ‘fleet’ of DA-62’s
First time that I saw one I was mesmerised.
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Thanks, I didn’t think 1200 NM would be quite such a stretch, fuel wise…
But, when you are tooling along at 200 (ish) KIAS @ FL 270 and don’t realise that the answer is staring you in the face the entire flight until after you land 
Have I mentioned that I am not a real pilot? That’s probably a good thing 
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Don’t worry, the number of times I’ve been testing things and wondering why the approach profile is wrong … (I never pressed the APPR button on the MCP 
)
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Rotterdam to Helgoland with some 130nm to go calls for something faster than a Stearman. Plenty to chose from 
However, the longest runway of 1554ft (474m) in Helgoland makes the decision making process a little bit more interesting.
In the end I settled on the rather excellent Just Flight’s Arrow III hoping that the strong wind in Helgoland pretty much right down the longest runway would prevail.
Well, if not I can always swim back.
Looks like I am the first one to leave the fly-in in Texel.
The weather improved a lot but it was so windy that I could actually see the Arrow III drifting.
Fast forward to Helgoland. The setting Sun should make for a couple of nice screenshots.
Not sure whether the vessel is part of the Helgoland scenery or I should give the credit to GAIST addon.
Short final. The winds were still there and the ground speed was so slow that I had to add power on multiple occasions.
On the apron. Note that the prop is still spinning even though the engine is shut (probably a bug in the sim or the addon). Since I was parked downwind, in theory the prop should have been spinning contrary to its normal sense of operation. I did not check, though.
Shutting the door closed and heading to the bar.
Next leg is Kjevik, near Kristiansand in Norway.
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What a beautiful flight! Perfect timing with the sunset. Looks like something out of a Flying magazine!
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LEG 4: Mandalay International Airport, Tada-U, Myanmar (VYMD) TO Naypyidaw International Airport, Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar (VYNT).
Time to keep on keepin’ on. Next leg was a short one, about 130NM (depending on whom you ask ), as I work my way down to Bangkok.
The LNM shows the topography better. Quite a lot of Myanmar seems to be nestled in between the diversely named mountain ranges to the west and the edge of the Shan Plateau to the east. Since I’m trying to knock out some of the lesser performing aircraft as I go, I intended to stick to the western side of the plateau and make my way down to Nay Pi Taw before crossing the mountains over to Thailand.
Which seemed like as good a place as any for the Pitts.
One big rudder stomping, tire squeeling takeoff behind me and I was on my way!
Not terribly much to see here. The land was swampy, but fertile, and like the road between Dallas and Ft Worth…no curves.
Except for the constant view of the Shan Plateau to my left, only a few small rivers and reservoirs, like the Thin Bon Chaung here in the first picture, crossed my path.
As I began to close on the field, I noticed showers building in the distance. The METAR had showed VFR, but…
Without any Nav instruments that I’m aware of, I was not relishing the idea of clawing my way through any unanticipated weather in the Pitts.
However, as it turned out, the showers remained isolated and limited to the nearby hills.
I spotted Naypyidaw easily enough.
With this one nearly in the box, I began to feel a little guilty for keeping a Pitts straight and level for this long.
So…
After a fairly sloppy inverted pass…
I barely managed to avoid a spin whilst doing a horrendous outside half loop…
followed by a terrifying, “pretty sure this isn’t going to work” Split S…
to stretch the glide juuuuuuuust over the piano keys…
to a landing.
Or, landings…so so many landings! 
Once I cleaned out my seat pan, I shakily taxied over to the nearest ramp to throw up. 
Well, that’s enough of that. 130 miles closer. 
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Next up, LAS-SLC, still in the Delta 739.
I just flew out of Vegas a few weeks ago and noticed this same pit. I’d hate to take a wrong turn off the road running beside it.
First time noticing this. PMDG is generally good about getting the small, technical details correct.
No ATC online at this moment but managed to sequence myself in for a simultaneous approach with another jet on the parallel runway.
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LEG 5: Naypyidaw International Airport, Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar (VYNT) TO Don Mueang International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand (VTBD).
Let’s get started on the right foot.
Murray Head - One Night In Bangkok (Long Video Version) 1984 (youtube.com)
Bangkok, city of…I got nothing here. Feels like I should.
Anyway, let’s just get going.
426NM from Naypyidaw over the southern edge of the Shan Plateau and Dawna Mountains.
Today in an old friend, the Kingair.
But the Kingairs I flew were almost as old as I was. This thing is a Cadillac by comparison!
Pretty quickly, I leave the flats of Myanmar behind and head into the foothills of the Dawnas.
Looks like it’s going to be cloudy most of the way, so my sightseeing may be curtailed a bit.
Luckily, I climb quickly above the most solid layer, which looks to be prowling around primarily in the mountain tops.
I also have Synthetic Vision in this thing, which is a really nice feature on a day like today.
I take longer than I should to climb to my cruising altitude of FL250…just not used to the slow climb speeds of the Kingair anymore.
Not much to look at out the window at this point. Only the tallest peaks, like Mela Taung out there, poke through the clouds.
As I make my way farther southeast and approach the end of the mountain spine, the overcast begins to clear. Here, I straddle the border of Myanmar and Thailand as defined by the Moei River below.
About 30 minutes out, it was time to get to work.
After years of hemming and hawing, I finally caved and subscribed to Navigraph.
Amazing feature set, I have to admit!
I even manage, mostly, to program the Kingair’s FMS. With the touchscreen, this is a little out of my wheelhouse, and most of the buttons on the FMS pedestal mounted control panel are INOP.
So there are some things that I’m just at a loss to find.
All that to say that I find myself quite high by the time I get everything uploaded. Even with the turboprop’s prodigious descent rate, I’m racing to get down.
And my lack of system’s knowledge eventually catches up with me as I switch pig my way onto the ILS.
I predict that this is going to be a thing for me as I switch planes repeatedly this trip.
Luckily, I get ground contact and kick everything off in time to get her down onto glideslope.
Another one down. Time to see what kind of trouble I can find here in Bangkok!
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Great report Deacon211. The King Air is such a perfectly penned aircraft. May they fly forever.
Has anyone been able to use the Navigraph charts app in VR successfully? For me it works, but the fonts are so tiny that it’s pretty much useless.
Edit: it seems that there is a settings option for both the UI and map font size. Will test and report back.
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Nice reports with some dramatic screenshots, I have to say
@Deacon211 how do you manage to get those touch down shots? They look pretty cool!
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I can see some serious ground is covered in the above AARs so I can’t just sit idle…
Time to leave Helgoland and swap it for Kristiansand in Norway. Not too far, not too close at some 240nm it seemed to be just a perfect leg for…
Motivated by having read this book recently…
…I let you guess which one I opted for!
Late evening or early morning - Helgoland just looks great any time of the day.
As mentioned in my previous AAR, the longest runway in Helgoland is still pretty short in comparison to others. Therefore I took some time to figure out (thank you ChatGPT) whether the 18, at the end of its take off roll, would be on the tarmac or already sinking in the bay. Tarmac it seemed to be if lightly loaded and so, looking at the windsock promising some crosswind with a good headwind component, I pressed on.
Tracking the Helgoland VORDME along the Danish coast towards Norway. Never been there in a sim before.
A glimpse of Denmark. I might come back for more once the weather improves
Kristiansand below and Kjevik airport ahead.
At this point I noticed something weird with the #2 engine.
I am flying with Denarq mod which adds a ton of systems and immersion to the stock Beech 18 simulation. One of the benefits is more complex engine management which, I assume, caught me here.
Thing is - I remembered I got the Denarq mod installed only some 20ish seconds after take off of course with throttles firewalled (!). In the 18 at sea level this means severely overboosting the engines. Which most likely caused some damage. I eased the throttles and was monitoring the engines all the way up to Norway but did not notice anything abnormal with the ts and ps… except rather high oil temp… of the #1 engine. Also checked the inbuilt Denarq system monitor for leaks or failed pumps but all good (with the exception of detected detonation of course).
Actually I never really learnt what caused the right engine to fail so the cause shall remain a mystery forever…
Landed with one and a half engine just fine, taxied to the apron and shut down. Another fine day for flying!
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Great shots yourself, @apollon01!
That deep red 18 and the long amber evening light is spectacular.
In answer to your question, I perfectly time the descent and pitch rates so as to freeze the aircraft in the perfect flare position, take the picture, unfreeze, then…
BAM! Drop it on the ground like a garbage truck falling from 10 feet!
Great reports everyone! It wouldn’t feel like the holidays without them. 
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Part Eight - 親日的な観光客
I have probably travelled to, or through, more countries than most Australians… I was even born in a different country to the one where I have lived most of my life.
While there are some places that I have absolutely no desire to ever step foot in again, there is one country that has been at the top of my bucket list of places to visit for as long as I can remember - Japan.
While I am here, even if only virtually, I must have a bit of a look around.
The following route was flown over multiple days, with the last leg completed today, and totally random. Literally looking at a dot on the map and ‘saying’ I’m going there next, with zero knowledge of what awaited… I have always found that is the best way to be a tourist, rather than a tightly scheduled itinerary… Besides, I had enough of being told where to go and when to be there when I was in the Army!
Back to low and slow and I might have been a little bit naughty departing RJTT?
I knew Tokyo was big, I mean with 37 million people living there, it had to be… but I had no idea 
Although graphically XP11 gives a good sense of the ‘terrain’ it isn’t even close to MSFS for virtual sightseeing from the air… But with enough ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ I can pretend that I have a Monet instead of a photo of a water lily pond.
I have decided that I really don’t like the strut/brace that obscures the view at the most inconvenient times in the EuroFox. It isn’t as noticable in VR because with 6DOF it is easy too look around it. But because this was such a short leg I flew it in 2D.
So for my next leg, I am in a 172. I have never flown one in a sim before now, but I have flown one IRL.
The TL:DR version is - When I was a teen, a good friend of mine got his pilots licence before he could legally drive a car. I was his 2nd passenger. His Dad, who was also a real pilot, was the first.
If you count moving the controls and making the aircraft go up & down and left & right, then I have flown a Cessna 172?
Departing RJTY. And I have what looks like solid cloud just as I am about to fly over a reasonably substantial mountain range
With discretion being the better part of valour, I have decided to thread the needle and fly below the cloud base even if it does mean a bit of a detour… probably a good choice?
Maybe, I’m not sure if approaching from the South was a good idea? Mountains - more mountains - Ooh, finally a lovely flat plain… with power pylons!
But I made it.
A brief stop and with a new found confidence in it, I will stick with the 172 for now.
Next stop, Toyama.
At least the weather is looking a bit better.
Let me just squeak over these ‘hills’ to the West,
And…
This is starting to remind me too much of ‘that’ Farside cartoon.
The map shows a valley that should almost have me lined up with Rwy 02 at RJNT?
Well that was interesting.
But not perhaps as interesting as what I have decided to fly next.
Believe it or not, this is a real aircraft!
The X-Plane version was a freebie by Aerobask and I haven’t ever flown it before now, it just looked too weird.
But now I am in Japan… Flying this makes me feel like an extra in Porco Rosso (yes, I know it was set in the Adriatic).
I think I will just VFR it along the coast, until I find a convenient place to land… Now I’m feeling like a proper ‘air pirate’.
That’s Niigata, the region is supposed to grow the best rice in Japan, so the sake should be good? Might as well land here.
But am I landing if it is on the water?
I think I’ll head back to the East coast from here, but in something with a bit more ‘punch’ to get me over the hills than the 172.
This was a favourite from the 2022 holiday flight.
Departing RJSN enroute to RJSS
For the next leg to Akita… I’m guessing that’s where the dogs come from? I chose another Beechcraft. One that comes bundled with XP11 and another that I have never flown before now.
To round out this week’s flying I might as well jump on the bandwagon and fly the King Air. And coincidentally, another Beechcraft 
Like the Baron this is one of the aicraft that comes ‘gratis’ with XP11. A quick 130 NM to Hakodate.
I have no idea what power and prop settings I should be using to land this thing, but I guess I was close enough?
That’s a smidge over 5000 NM done which is about 1/3 of the way. I’m doing better than I expected.
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For the King Air: not sure about the C90, but for the 200 and 300 I got told prop levers fully forwards (so you can use reverse if you need it) and power levers idle … of course I’m a sim tech not a pilot so when I get it wrong I just hit “total reset” and try again 
Nice writeup, and nice choice of route!
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Leg 1: Berlin Schönefeld (EDDB) to Heringsdorf (EDAH)
(Neither Airport is located in the town they claim, but I guess that’s pretty normal)
As I’m pretty unfamiliar to all this civvy flying, I brought an experienced co pilot. Mudspike, meet Uschi. She handled ATC during this first leg. I’ve got to say this was pretty immersive. A little disappointing was the fact that all the other ATC comms used the same voice. So hand overs were a little immersion breaking. I dabbled into VATSIM some 20 years ago but I still don’t feel ready for this level
Note that I opted out of the Garmin stuff und stuck to old school Instruments. During the whole flight I could not figure out where to find the DME display. VOR radials worked and the whole flight was scheduled VFR anyway so not really an issue. Once I cross water I have to improve my IFR game, I guess.
Here’s my ride. The stock DHC-2 is a really nice plane. I spare you the beaver jokes
I run MSFS2020 without any DLC. The scenery for BER is ok, I guess. Once the cause for a lot of ridicule because of long delays during planning & construction, it got relatively quite around Berlins only remaining airport. From experience I have to say it was the right decision to close down Tegel and Tempelhof (which were inside the city of Berlin). Schönefeld is close enough to the city center compared to the other options that were considered (Sperrenberg or even Leipzig). It’s roughly a 40 min train ride and there’s a station right underneath the terminal. I always despised Tegel because you had to use Taxi or Bus.
I departed the CTR to the south and continued eastbound. I live roughly 4km to the north of the eastern threshold. On the left you can see the lacking skyline of Berlin, which is quite realistic. Especially the southern districts are characterized by lots of green and water, which makes it pretty unique compared to other +1 million cities I’ve seen in real life.
You should see some taller buildings to the left but I have turned down the details quite low on my 7 year old rig.
As we turn north, we pass the “Märkische Schweiz” (Markish Switzerland). Since everything was under a 70m thick glacier during the ice age, there are no high elevations all the way to the Baltic Sea (which is todays destination, btw). As a result we call every slight hill a “Berg” (mountain). This area has a couple of hills, hence we compare it to Switzerland
We pass Prenzlau and enter the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
On the horizon through the clouds you can faintly see the Baltic Sea in the distance. The large body of water close to us is called “Stettiner Haff”. Behind that is the island of Usedom which is a pretty popular vacation area for more than 150 years. It’s also notorious for Peenemünde on the north-western tip of the island, where V2 rockets were developed and tested during WW2.
Crossing the Haff to the north. Our destination is close to the southern shoreline.
ATC is giving us runway 10 and expecting a left hand base leg. Here’s the VFR-Chart I used: AIP VFR Germany
Not sure what you would do in real life but I took this as an opportunity to make an overhead break into the downwind
I don’t know why there is a bus driving on the taxiway. Heringsdorf sees maybe 2 small airlines per day. It was home to a pretty nice warbird collection though, which also had a little museum: Hangar 10.
Unfortunately the owner died a few years ago when he crashed one of his oldtimers during approach to this very airport. The whole collection is on sale now and consisted of a P-51, a Spitfire and I think two Bf-109Gs.
Right before turning left into downwind you can see the village where the family of my significant other is living. It’s roughly a 3.5h car ride from Berlin. The DHC-2 took only a little over 1h.
I ignored the taxi instructions since this was obviously broken and Ground tried to send me on a tour around the whole airport.
First leg in the books. I might have turned in the wrong radial, if I compare it to the flight plan. The needle was centered.
Next leg would be crossing the Baltic Sea to Copenhagen. Guess I really should try to figure out where to get my DME-readings for this.
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And another flight departing from Berlin, EDDB. In the FW-200 Condor I’ll do my next leg to Copenhagen right away.
Sky looks a bit grim on departure.
For some time and while flying over the outskirts of Berlin I stay below the cloud layer.
Eventually I’ve got enough and climbed above, maybe at 6000 - 8000 feet I greet the sun. Not as high as other traffic…
Luckily the autopilot in the Condor allows for heading (Kurs) and altitude (Höhe) holding in parallel. To my surprise I can do 300-350 km/h easily today. In the last flight I had to dive to get to those speeds. Maybe some patch fixed that or I got a strong tailwind?
The farther north I get, the more the clouds dissolve.
In my four engines I trust and check them from the window periodically.
Finally over the Baltic Sea and Denmark to our left, Sweden to the right.
Before us the bridge spanning the straight between Copenhagen and Malmo.
On the GPS I see a ton of traffic around us, but luckily our slow approach is not hindering anyone.
Not sure I was supposed to exit the runway here, but I feel like a sitting duck on the tarmac with traffic coming in and out of Copenhagen.
Time for some Danish pastries now.
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You should clean the side window
Nice flight
As for the DME - I am not sure whether there is a DME in the Beaver. But if it sports a gps you might to use it to get your distance to the station reading.
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