This report was delayed by a sudden onset of new flying jobs when I was just about to finish it. I am now in Herendeen Bay airport … airstrip?
Can’t find much info about it online.
@PaulRix I am looking forward to seeing you too!
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Dec 19th, 2019
Previous report
Leg 13 PALJ Port Alsworth - AK60 Fort Jensen
Leg 14 AK60 Fort Jensen - UGB Ugashik Bay
Leg 15 UGB Ugashik Bay - PAPH Port Heiden
Leg 16 PAPH Port Heiden - AK33 Herendeen Bay
The above is a visual representation of something that resembles what I flew yesterday. It is by no means a flight plan so let’s call it a flight map.
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CLICK HERE FOR REPORT (This is a big one, with a lot of pictures)
I fuelled up and realized that with so many miles to go, I would have to buy fuel a few more times and I was once again running out of my holiday funds. The goat transports barely earned me enough to buy the Dewoitine. But my flying gloves still smelled of them.
I asked around, but could not find any mission with a cargo small enough to fit in my spacious, but still 1-person cockpit, which would also bring me toward the Aleutians.
Taxiing to the end of the runway
Waving goodbye to Port Alsworth
During this segment, I crossed Iliamna Lake, Kukaklek Lake and Nonvianuk Lake, Naknek Lake and Becharot Lake.
Then it was time to take a lunch break at Fort Jensen, which I had spotted on the map.
It should be somewhere between these puddles after Becharot Lake.
After lunch, I ask around and find these missions:
Perryville is the right direction, but I will not be able to fit a person (even a geologist used to small caverns) in here. 30 lbs of money should fit though. Annoyingly, the guy who wants me to do the money transport to Ugashik Bay insists I take a GPS capable device with me, and hands me an old tablet. Whatever, I won’t need it. It’s just 34 nm along the coast.
I will just overfly the bay, heading south-east.
Still the bay… ? I think I’ve been flying over water for too long, let’s just check the GPS quickly.
Oops! Guess I didn’t properly look up the magnetic heading. Turning back around…
Delivery completed! No new jobs here, let’s fly to the next field on the peninsula, Port Heiden, to refuel and look for a job there. It’s a semi-large airfield so there should be something interesting there. Flying responsibly of course…
On final again
The only job in the right direction would take me to Herendeen Bay… Quite a small strip which is not present on all of the charts I have available here. Let’s do it! Delivering 5 kg of LEGO the weekend before Christmas is in the spirit of the holidays, I would say! So I accept the job, sign the contract and stuff the box between my left leg and the sidewall of the cockpit. While adjusting the box during taxi, it makes that characteristic sound of a hundred little pieces of plastic tumbling over each other.
A few minutes into the flight, I realize that I have already skipped one of the most impressive volcanoes in the world by sticking to the north coast of this peninsula: Aniakchak. However, it is not too late yet to visit Veniaminof. It spewed lava not much more than a year ago. I turn south, staying below the clouds, but increasing my speed. I hope I will be able to see the mountain from below the clouds, but am preparing for the worst. I have popped above the overcast earlier today, so I know it is a thin layer that I can quickly cross. At high speed, I will not miss the ADI too much.
The land comes closer and closer to the cloud layer. I pull the stick back smoothly but firmly, and am rewarded with a bright blue light, and then…
I can’t resist the temptation and land on a smooth piece of rock in the crater: this Dewoitine was not just built for speed and maneuverability, but also for take-off and landing runs below 400 m.
I exit the crater, flying between the peaks. The skies look clearer, but by the time I reach Port Moller, the overcast is back.
Into the second bay, it should be just across the water now.
There it is! Herendeen Bay!
Lego delivery completed!
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Only 900 nm left! (in a straight line across the Bering Sea, north of the Aleutians, which I probably won’t be flying).
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Ok, here we go again!
I had some time today so I fired up the Challenger. 
Here’s the flight plan, just over a thousand miles:
from UHMM (Magadan Sokol)
via PKK (Petropavlosk Kamchatsky)
to PAAT (called PATU in X-plane for some reason)
The northern half of Kamchatka often is basically one huge no fly zone, so I didn’t go directly.
I wasn’t going to risk getting that S-400 or R-73 up my tailpipes.
When I looked at the weather I saw this:
It didn’t worry me much though, as I knew it was going northeast, and the forecast for Attu was only a mild crosswind, IIRC the crosswind component for the intended runway was only 10 knots or so, the Challenger can take 20.
I didn’t use real time, instead started at 0800 local time.
Weather in Magadan was… not nice. Could have been worse though.
And off we go!
Flying directly toward the sun. But hey, that’s where those things are for!
The weather was nice enough to look at some lakes and mountains.
There’s the first glimpse of Kamchatka. More clouds here though. And my ground speed wasn’t really great, since the wind was coming my way.
The cabin altitude acted up again, so I again set it to manual, and didn’t fly at FL420 but only at FL380, to keep it below 8000.
Some mountains sticking out of the clouds. I am approaching my first waypoint, PKK.
Those high mountains there are Koryaksky and Avachinsky, two big volcanos (9000ft. and 11000ft.)
Here is a real life picture, source: Avachinsky-Koryaksky, Kamchatka (Russia) - Volcano Blog by Tom Pering
This is how things looked from the ground, the airport is UHPP (Petropavlosk Kamchatsky).
On the next leg the wind was better for me. Now that’s some ground speed!
Leaving Kamchatka.
Next a couple of things happened at once.
- I was leaving Russian airspace. До свидания!
- I was entering US airspace. Hi!
- I was crossing the international date line. So I had to change my calendar back to one day before. Does that mean I get another piece of chocolate from my advent calendar?
And there was a carrier down there.
Next I was ordered to descend and… I admit I wasn’t looking forward to that.
I turned on my terrain radar because… well… let’s say I know that ATC by now.
Not a fan of this…
I am glad they vectored my out to sea, so I could be sure not to hit mountains. There’s the island!
Getting closer. At this point they asked me to report the field in sight and I was laughing hysterically. 
But then I saw it. Some seconds later:
Yeah I know. That’s not exactly a great approach but I was paranoid because of the winds, and I knew I had a lot of runway in front of me. I also wished I had installed som addon scenery, because this place is pretty boring.
I had quite a crab angle there. The picture doesn’t do it justice.
And that’s it! I made it! Now, where’s that bar?
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Nice…that last bit of the last leg sure looked like some fun weather…!
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Congrats on making it @Aginor ! With all the proper procedures too, very professional!
Meanwhile I just flew to Atka, not so professionally…
But I made it!
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And down at Adak!
When I saw this visbility forecast at Atka, I thought I would find better visbility ahead, especially as the system appeared to be moving northeast according to Windy, as @Aginor said.
Didn’t have a lot of luck with respect to the visbility, but luckily I had an Avitab GPS on hand and the 35-knot wind was almost perfectly aligned with the runway, which made for an absurdly short roll.
Taxiing the rest of the runway against that wind was so difficult, it was easier to just throttle up and accelerate to ~100 km/h indicated and lift the tail.
EDIT: Just 380 nmi to go to Casco Cove. That’s one day of flying at my current pace. Tomorrow I have to work, but I will probably make it Tuesday. Just in time.
Technically, because of the 11-hour time difference, early Wednesday morning in Europe would still be before Christmas in Alaska.
EDIT2: I just looked it up, flights can be flown at any time up until New Year’s Day, according to the announcement, so I can relax and maybe enjoy some DCS again (haven’t even configured my controls for the new stick in any aircraft)
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As usual, I will be a late arrival on this event. Real life flying schedule coupled with a magazine deadline are conspiring against me!
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Speaking of which, I received my January/February issue just yesterday! 
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