LOL, awesome!
Once I got my range to exceed that of a refrigerator, the seat cushion also grew three sizes.
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We have a former P-3 driver that flies with us. His stories redefined my concept of “a long flight”… 
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I think eleven and a half hours is the longest flight I have done in the Global. I was ready to get off the airplane several hours before we landed. 
My trek has hit a speed bump while I go through a complete MSFS reinstall. I’m downloading the optional content now, but at least the main program loads without crashing now. I’m thinking I should make it to Cape Town by tomorrow night. It just depends on how much I dawdle while sight seeing in VR.
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Ok, here comes my final leg!
Loaded up MSFS and, uh, somebody moved my plane.
The red circle is roughly where I spawned, the actual airfield location is within the red rectangle. That explains the oddities with landing there previously.
I may have stepped away from time acceleration a bit too long and flown 100nm past the destination. On a flight that’s already stretching the legs of the TBM, this mistake just upped the pucker factor for gas.
Doing my best to manage throttle and descent to minimize fuel burn. I knew I’d have enough gas to get there, but let’s just say that, regardless of conditions at the field, there would be no going around on a missed approach.
Thankfully, once again the MSFS depiction of the field weather is not as severe as the actual reported METAR.
Shut down after a long trip.
After the weather cleared up, I did an aerial tour of the Table Mountain area and it did not disappoint.
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Hey man…every once in awhile I get deeply interested in the pilot “scheduling system”…
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I’d previously thought to head for Malta, but checking the NOTAM’s Malta isn’t open to international traffic, coupled with that, I’ve previously landed there on the one and only occasion I made the destination of the Mudspike Xmas flight so decided to head for Africa. At least I’ll make the continent I’m supposed to be on.
Leg4: LIRF (Rome Fiumicino International) → HLLT (Tripoli International Airport)
Having checked the NOTAM’s on the Simbrief for Malta, I declined to check if Tripoli is a valid destination from Europe… 
A slightly later departure due to having to download the new patch. Complicated due to Manboy downloading the new COD Warzone patch. #xmasreturningkidsbandwidthproblems
All powered up, ready for the off
“Pushback unavailable” (subtext: WTF are you asking for a pushback for you nobber)
Taxiing out, I realised I was behind traffic, which I could hear on the ATC. All this from a stock Sim…
Follow the Alitalia…
Getting to the runway was easy following the AI. We’d been given the 25 runway departure. Unfortunately I overshot the hold short…
Brake fade
The Alitalia jet was cleared for take off, then requesting clearance, I was told clear for runway 25 and hold position. As I was stopping, clearance for takeoff was given.
Numpty Airways flight 434 departing
Clearance was given up to FL190, but the plan I’d made needed FL370, so I requested higher altitudes to get to CRZ height.
The only way is up…
Hitting the cruise altitude, I could soon see the Sicily coming up. At this point for some reason, the sim decided to get into a progressive right hand bank. I checked all the systems, but couldn’t see anything obvious and could see the trim escalating, so removed the Autopilot. Reducing the bank and getting control of the aircraft, I brought it back towards the heading and re-engaged the AP. All was again well… not sure what happened at all.
Sicily… Mt Etna in the background
Approach into Tripoli was again changed to the preferred 27 runway ILS approach. Fortunately the new A32NX patch now corrects all the issues before an changing approach is relatively easy.
“She’s coming in, 12:30 flight”
As I was handed off to Tripoli approach I was at 15,000ft expecting a call to descend. On handover “continue as planned” was the call. As we approached the turn point I could see the constraint was below 2000ft… hmmmm. Scrolling back over the ATC messages I’d missed a descend to 2000ft. AAAGGGGHHHHHHHH…
AP off, speedbrakes out, nose down and extend the leg before the turn. Called missed approach, then cancelled IFR and called up Tripoli approach for a landing.
I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the flight… is > -3,500ft/minute uncomfortable? 
Getting things back under control and turning over the coast my first impression was this looks a bit arable for Africa…
Libya/Provence…
One panic per flight seems about my average at the minute and the ILS landing went without a hitch. 300ft, AP off. “Retard” (no need to insult me), reverse thrust and slow…
Slightly high on the PAPI but the AP seemed ok.
New brake pads needed
Taxi in was good, though stopping was a bit jaded. I need to work on that a bit.
Flight path…
Overall I’m getting better with the Sim and the mod, though some procedural errors creeping in. This pilot S**t isn’t easy is it. 
Not sure where next, but its south…
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Here is the report for my last leg of this flight, from Walvis Bay, Namibia to Cape Town, South Africa.
Flight plan was: FYWB → RK → ABV → ZR → LWV → CTV → FACT
I changed the time to early morning but kept the live weather.
Takeoff!
Southwestern Namibia is mainly desert. And like the desert in Algeria it looks quite cool in this sim:
Sunrise over the Namib desert.
After I left the desert behind I flew over the Sperrgebiet national park, the Garieb river mouth, and thus passed the border to South Africa.
I flew further along the coast, and then over a little bit of water near the Olifantsriver mouth, before I made my next turn over Vredenburg.
From there it is only 70 miles to Cape Town.
Over the city. Field in sight.
Fluffy clouds on the downwind.
Almost there… This time my final looked pretty good.
That’s it!
A journey of around 5800 miles and around 14 hours. And it was great fun. I’ll definitely do some more long flights with this sim in the future.
I attached a screenshot of the full plan below.
Merry Christmas, Mudspike!
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Well I have set off in my third choice aircraft. I left RAF Cranwell in it, trying to learn FS2020 and the aircraft I was in. It is a reasonable likeness in handling provided you don’t stall. I took off really just for a training flight, but since I have reached Lydd on the English Channel I have to be about half way to my first official landing point at Montpellier. I am not going back and will press on. I may not make it as I am in a normally aspirated piston single. And I hope Lydd flying club can sell me some maps I can access in VR. I was an hour down route and realised that MS had not yet made the country realistic so my visual nav and dr was a challenge. after London and being at least 10 off track crossing the Thames I decided on turning ten right of my heading, left at the English Channel until I found either Lydd or Manston. Lydd it was. I got most of the controls set up but desperately need a map in flight as I am doing it without using the electronics Might have to follow the coast down Africa… Then there is taking photographs
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Addis Abeba (HAAB) to Nairobi (HKJK)… in VR. The screenshots are very low res,sorry. But I had to try.
The FPS display of OpenXR was switched on, it’s aweful and can not be disabled in flight. I also learned not to enable motion reprocejtion. It judders and gives artefacts for me when using the mouse. So this flight was a bit of a torture 
Cold and dark
climbing out
Handling ATC and the plane (IFR) at the same time in VR is a challenge for me.
The mountain range around Butajira
Enroute to wpt SHALA, which is next to lake Shala.
Found a cosy place. It’s fun to do stupid stuff like this in VR.
Lake Abaya and Aruro Island with the village Arura
I was expecting mount Kenya, not sure if I found it 
ATC asked me to fly very close to the ground.
The landing was too shallow but okay. I messed up and had to descend manually again.
Welcome to Nairobi, Kenya! Hey where’s all the planes?
Oh, here they are!
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And you thought it was all tea and medals… 
Seriously, don’t sweat the small stuff and have fun. It’s all about the journey and you have until New Year’s Eve anyway.
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Nairobi (HKJK) to Lusaka, Zambia (FLKK), this time 2D again for nicer pictures.
Managed to pull off an RNAV approach using VNAV. Yay!
Climbing out of Nairobi, with lightning going off. The airport is lit below.
Sunrise
Oh look who else is peeking through the clouds. Hello Mr. Mt. Kilimanjaro!
At almost 6000 meters it is truly remarkable.
(Yes, the altimeter is set wrong. ATC started bitching about it later, as I was a few feet off)
Swooooooosh!
Cloud cover coming up, just to clear again over the destination. I am a lucky guy.
Cleared to land on runway 10
Look Ma, no hands!
Welcome to Lusaka!
I feel lucky, so I’ll hit the casino.
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No more glorious screenies from me, as A it looks like dog barf tbh, B in the hood I can’t easly copy-paste screenshots into the spike.
Flew in to Yaoundé city yesterday from Doala. Today flew from FKKY to FCPP (Pointe Noire in southern Kongo, on the coast)
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Well it is certainly problematic taking photos in VR. I got a few by ‘Alt tab’ , regaining control, taking a photo with Nvidea and then doing the reverse to get back into VR.
Having failed to get satisfaction with the avionics of the King Air and then the Citation I decided on the Cub. Then I had a glass of wine and decided on an out of the box solution. I would fly my own aircraft, or at least the nearest I could get to it.
The real G-BMUG
Instead I bought the Long Eze for FS2020 and took off in that. Its not overly realistic in that the sim you can spin. It also will not accept a vne dive at 196knots. Something I have done twice this year in the real Long Eze when testing it for its annual Permit to Fly. The sim doesn’t like that speed. Buying the eze was a gamble as in the early release videos of it on Youtube, the canopy was covered with fingerprint smudges. I never allow mine to look like that.
Having positioned yesterday from Cranwell I departed Lydd on the south coast of England and turned onto a track of 193 degrees adding one degree for drift at 145kts. (wind speed divided by airspeed in miles minute factored for the clock code as a fraction of max drift.) One degree, I cant fly to that accuracy. The weather was much better then expected, I had cheated and gone back in time one week.
Scenery wise blocks of flats have been built on the nearby Army Northern Ireland Training town. It has now been demolished but nothing is built there. Just as in my own home village microsoft have added extra houses and flats to fill in wide gaps. In the real world there are places with wide gaps and I am lucky enough to live in one. I must fly over my previous house in Aberdeenshire. I could only just see a neighbours house, and only then if it was not low cloud or Haar.
The Channel crossing was uneventful climbing to 8,000’ Altitude. When not stalling or diving fast it is not to dissimilar to the real aircraft.
France and maybe five or so miles offshore was 7 octas at what proved to be 2,300ft. As I wanted to see the scenery, I was limited to VFR and also above the icing level I reduced power to 2,000 and kept the speed up at 150kts. Just lost the height in time and then went feet dry over Veules-les-Roses (I think). This put me a good 3.8nm east of track and a 3 degree track error. Over the remainder of the sector it could put me about twenty miles from my destination. I therefore adjusted heading 5 degrees west to ensure the nav error would be solved on reaching the Mediterranean with an easterly course change.
The frustration of not photographing the Normandy Beaches, the Somme Battlefields or the crash sites of McCudden VC and Hawker VC was a disappointment. I was very chuffed at being able to navigate to find the latter two.
I cannot see what people like in the French Riviera. Like Las Vegas, Skegness and Scunthorpe it is a place I would avoid. I did not mind going in VR or in the real world sailing there down the Rhone. My cross France Canal trip had involved the regions of Iles de France, Champagne, Bourgogne, Cotes de Rhone and Languedoc. I was moved with the reminiscence to pop out and buy some since in VR I could not visit the vineyards the way I had from the canal.
I used Google Maps as my charts, jumping out of VR to try and plot a position on my phone and then back to VR again. Less than ideal. WIth a combination of max drift and constant closing angle technique I arrived as planned well to the west of my destination. A left turn along the coast brought me to Montpelier. I was able to cheat because the distinctive mouth of the River Rhone was visible a good distance out just beyond the airport. That and the coastal ‘Etangs’ along the shore which made visual position fixing easy.
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My next leg took me from Entebbe (HUEN), Uganda to Kisauni (HTZA), Tanzania.
I will say it upfront - the weather was s#&t so the flight was anything but scenic
Taking off from Entebbe. Only then I realized that it was one of the detailed fields in the sim. Interesting to note that it said “rivals” on the gates
Lake Victoria is a BIG lake. With nearly 60k sq km (23k sq miles) it is the largest African lake and the second one in the world. It is actually bigger than Croatia and almost the same size as West Virginia. Yeah, definitely a big one.
Now it became clear that again the weather will spoil my sightseeing.
As promised: Kilimanjaro from the other side (I am flying with real weather).
Descending towards the Indian ocean coast.
Destination is sight.
Turning final.
Landing.
The next leg will be a rather short hop over to Mozambique along the coast. This one will be the first one in VR so I am not sure about the screens… we will see
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UP next my6th leg of the trip, LEMD(Madrid) to GMMN(Casablanca)
We will be in the beautiful MD-88! And for this flight we will board from the rear,
Pushed back and ready to taxi
Holding at the runway
Climb out and up!
At cruise,
Descending towards final
On Final
And at the gate in GMMN
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My first leg in VR! I hope you like the screenshots because I did not find a better way to take them
One remark upfront: VR… wow! The OpenXR reprojection implementation from 30fps to 90fps is VERY good. I did not expect it to be so good actually. If it gets even better with the time I think we are into a very nice VR simming. I got really sucked in. I think my wife was talking to me at some point but I was just dealing with icing and busy cilmbing…
Kisauni (HTZA), Tanzania (yeah, not much time spent on a beach in Zanzibar…) to Pemba (FQPB), Mozambique. A leg of about 400nm made in VR exclusively. I really felt like being in (did I say that already?)
Right after take off.
I mean, the 2D screenshots do not do it justice but looking at the coast & beaches down there when climbing out was really great… the sensation of the depth… for some reason nothing like in P3D…
As already mentioned by @Poneybirds, you can have some fun in VR (it is a virtual reality in the end 
) - here I am sitting on a wing 
“Ice Ice Baby”
I have to find what setting can go down so that the cloud slider can go up. The Medium clouds look… well… medium. I got too much used to the Ultra on the screen
In VR in this sim, the bad weather really looks bad I mean it is the same depiction as on a 2D screen but - you guessed it - the feeling definitely is different.
And a bit hairy landing since I was (blindfold) reaching for the Win+PrintScreen combo while not letting the TBM to drift away too much.
So yeah, by this point I think it is clear I really enjoyed this flight in VR. If only I knew how to take the screens so that you could actually see something (without having to switch in-and-out of VR).
Anyway, next leg will be an intranational flight from Pemba to Beira in Mozambique. If the weather’s good I could get a glimpse over Madagascar but given my track record as far as “good weather” goes, I doubt it 
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And for the 7th leg of this trip, we find ourselves in an A330 going from GMMN to FTTJ
Boarding from the ramp
No push back required from this location, ready for taxi
Waiting for clearance
And off we go into the clouds
Clouds gave way fairly quick as we climbed
At cruise over the Sahara
Descending into FTTJ
On final
Had to turn around on the runway,
And finally parked and unloading in FTTJ
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Getting a bit behind with the reports, I flew this leg on the 24th.
Leg 5: HLLT (Tripoli International) Libya → FTTJ (Hassan Djamous) Chad
I had wondered why I couldn’t get a METAR for Tripoli, a quick google search revealed its been closed since April last year. 
Never mind, time to get further south. There’s not a great deal in between North Africa and Central Africa, but keeping capital cities as the destination N’Djamena seemed about the right distance.
A deserted airport.
Departing Tripoli. Mind the craters.
I think when I flew in to Tripoli, the sim hadn’t downloaded the scenery as I thought it looked a bit green. The scenery, now downloaded, looked more like what I was expecting.
Tripoli, not Toulouse
After departure and getting to cruise altitude, there was little to do aside from look at the Sahara.
Africa is big…
Really big…
As usual, no flight on Keets airways would be complete without some self induced drama. Looking round the cockpit, I was trying to zoom out and didn’t realise I had the cursor over the undercarriage lever. Scrolling down I managed to throw the switch and the “Overspeed” alarms started. Quickly looking round in a panic, I spotted what I’d done and hopefully got the gear back up before any major damage on the airframe occurred.
“Pre-contact”
As the sun began to set the wind from the west picked up to around 90kts and the aircraft was flying with an offset from the flight path of about 20 degrees. Fortunately I’d put on enough fuel to fly there and back, a big mistake on the profile numbers I’d put into Simbrief.
Desert sunset
As the last bits of evening light faded to the west, I could pick out the glow of D’Jamena on the horizon.
Nicely lined up, on the glideslope
I’ll be spending Xmas here as I wont get chance for another flight until the 26th. @weaponz248 has dropped in, so need to find a bar.
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I had to do the same thing. I managed to find a taxiway, but I think it was a small road. Fortunately it led to the GA parking. 
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Yay, I found time controls! coupled with the wing leveller cheat, it makes the flight go rather quickly. Welp, the MB-339’s range circle is still a great big fat liar liar pants on fire. I managed to plonk it down just seconds before flaming out.
FCCP > FNUB
Perhaps another flight later. I might make it before New Years’…
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