You’re not wrong…but I kept seeing these interesting places I wanted to see in MSFS, like a kid in the candy shop! I drew the line at not making a detour to Sakhalin Island off the coast of Japan…but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to overfly the Kuril Islands, Kamchatcka and the Aleutian Islands…so yeah, a bit of a detour. 
I can always take a long-legged jet and cut a corner if it’s looking bad 
4 Likes
Leg 5 - Pista de Jalpan to Mexico City
113.3 NM
The trusty Islander is on the runway for another leg. Flying to Mexico city would entail getting up past the critical altitude for the NA engines on the Islander, I was curious to see how it handled it.
I decided to try out the IFR routing via ATC in MSFS to see how it compared to FSX. Overall no major complaints except one…
ATC had told me to expedite my descent to 9700 ft.
Umm… I don’t think I’m gonna make it. I’m not sure if the Islanders altimeter is reading off, or the geomesh is just off at the point. Either way it’s the only time ATC tried to kill me which is a vast improvement over most FSX flights under ATC.
Leg 6 - Mexico City to Cordoba
124.6 nm
For this leg I took up the newly released Milviz Pilatus PC-6. The terrain for most of the route is pretty high, and having a turboprop seemed a better idea then the Islander (beside I had to test the PC-6 out right?). We have approximately 400 lbs of people, and 1000lbs of cargo loaded just to give it a mid range weight, with 50% internal fuel.
Even relatively loaded she will come off the runway pretty quickly. Short field ops should be a breeze.
Head out over the Cementerio de aviones del aeropuerto de la CDMX.
MSFS does weather really well.
Yeah I don’t really want to fly into all of that, particularly as I’m headed right past Pico de Orizaba, which is Mexico’s highest peak at ~18,500’.
So we offset a bit to head towards some clear, well clearer air.
So this is where I managed to crash MSFS. Don’t try and load an approach on an airport that has no approaches listed, it’ll crash. As I didn’t want to repeat the roughly 90 minutes of flying, in even worse weather I loaded MSFS back up, and elected to fast forward to the approach. The PC-6 did not like that, and when I clicked fly I was head straight down from about 2000’ AGL. I managed to save it, but there are definitely some birds bests in the undercarriage.
Playing a bit with the Beta range approach
And down
Real world MM20
Added: For my first impression on the PC-6 see here.
8 Likes
Knowing that the rest of the year is going to be insanely busy for a number of reasons, I also figured I’d start getting this knocked out when I had a free moment (read: stuck on a long webinar all afternoon).
Leg 1: KRDU - KPIE
After my grandfather retired after 40-some years in the Army, my grandparents moved to Florida and bought a place in St. Petersburg. This was the place I grew up visiting them through my childhood, and I have a lot of fond memories of St. Pete, Pass-A-Grille Beach, and the Tampa Bay area in general, so with ORBX’s very nice HD scenery, I thought it’d be worth visiting familiar childhood stomping grounds. Plus, X-Plane still has all the planes I’ve had the most fun flying, so I’m starting with that one for this trip.
The trusty Digital Replica C-310L is once again my mount for the first leg, leaving Raleigh on an absolutely gorgeous fall day.
Presents loaded up and wingtip tanks full for the longish leg, and heading south.
Flying over the booming metropolis of Fayetteville- such a fun town to visit.
As a cool Easter egg, I’m fairly sure this is a project that I worked on. Pretty cool to see it in the Orthos here.
A bit later, approaching the town of Monck’s Corner near Lake Moultrie, as well as the Santee and Cooper Rivers. Charleston is roughly 20 miles east of here.
As pretty as MSFS is when it comes to scenery and clouds, I still find myself partial to X-Plane for aircraft, at least for the time being. This one has options for several different avionics suites, and for this flight I’ve loaded her up with the G5’s. It’s nice still having some steam gauges alongside the LCD panels.
The clear skies of the Carolinas gave way to broken cloud cover over Georgia. The King’s Bay submarine base is visible under the left wing here.
Some time later, now flying over ORBX’s HD Florida scenery, and Gainesville below the nose.
Apparently some sportsball things happen at the stadium just under the nose in this picture.
Flying over Tampa as I’m ready to make my approach into St. Petersburg- Clearwater International. I’ll see about doing a bit of sightseeing for the next leg.
Not pictured: the gusting crosswind that popped up as I was on short final (hence no pictures of the landing approach). Shutting down for the day on the FBO ramp.
9 Likes
Isle of Pines (NWWE) - Noumea Magenta (NWWM)
I had a short 58NM hop to do to reach the main island of New Caledonia - so I chose the Pipistrel to do the island hop.
Vroom vroom! Said the little Pipistrel and put-putted down the runway, up, up and away. Not very far up and not very far away…or not very fast…but up, up and away, nevertheless.
In fairness, it was a fun flight and the visibility out of the cockpit was great. I believe the body of water between the islands is called Passe de la Sarcelle - I stayed nice and low and inspected the sights on the way in.
Noumea Magenta (NWWM) - Norsup (NVSP)
After Noumea, I headed north, across the eastern boundary of the Coral Sea, I believe…towards Norsup, on the island of Malekula, part of the republic of Vanuatu. This was a 373 NM leg.
I wanted to get some miles behind me while it’s still September, so I chose the Citation Logitude again. The weather at Noumea was very pleasant, a nice 21 degrees Celsius with a bit of an easterly breeze.
The cruise was uneventful. On the descent I passed through a cloud layer and got a little bit of icing.
Malekula had a bit of weather - a thunderstorm was brewing and I flew through some heavy showers on the way in.
I expected a relatively small airfield - I had not quite appreciated quite how small it would be. I’m glad it was a daytime flight - no lights at this strip. I don’t know why I’m complaining - it’s paved and everything.
The default Longitude is very, very benign, though…perhaps overly so…so plonking it down wasn’t hard.
The weather packed in not long after I landed and the rain and thunder started in earnest.
On a sunnier day, this is what the Norsup airport terminal looks like:
Norsup (NVSP) - Honiara (AGGH)
From Vanuatu, I headed to the Solomon Islands in the Northwest. My plan was to cruise at low level over the Vanuatuan island of Espiritu Santo for a bit of sightseeing, then climb up to do the rest of the 586 NM leg at altitude and descent to land at the Honiara airport on the island of Guadalcanal on the Solomon Islands.
The storm wasn’t going anywhere, so I wasn’t going to get much sightseeing done - but I figured I’d try anyway.
In hindsight, flying the low-level section in that weather was probably at best intrepid, at worst foolish…but it had some rather scenic moments!
I think I was lucky to get to the northern end of the island.
It was quite relaxing to be up above the clouds after that excitement. Such fun, though.
After a little while, we passed the San Cristobal island, after which it was time to drop down to our destination.
Turning in for final.
The weather was lovely here.
Something to the tune of 2,050 NM done to date. Really enjoying MSFS, even if the default planes are what they are detail-wise. She’s just so pretty. I’m looking forward to getting full-fidelity aircraft on it - but right now island-hopping in an easy little rocket ship is exactly what I wanted as a warm-up 
7 Likes
I decided to go with the Beechcraft King Air for the trip. And for good practice I want to visit some colleagues in Munich and Naples first, and a former customer in Alicante before going to Africa and South America. With a maximum range of 1800nm the King Air is just capable of crossing the Atlantic … hopefully.
But first things first, I try basically a practice trip from Ramstein to Munich. I’m still quite new to FS2020 and haven’t really mastered it yet.
Taking off heading east I cross my hometown of Kaiserslautern first. In the foreground you see the American settlement Vogelweh, east behind the area of Bännjerrück where I live.
Next over the rather large Pfälzer Wald, a continuous wooded area, one of the largest forests outside Bavaria in Germany.
Then crossing the river Rhine, south of Speyer.
Unfortunately no more screenshots - at Sinsheim I tried to take another screenshot for the Technik-Museum there, but critically damaged the aircraft overspeeding 
Guess I need to learn how to operate the autopilot properly to prevent such mishap!
Cheers,
TeTeT
9 Likes
Today I retried my training leg from Ramstein to Munich again. Yesterday evening I fought the AP as good as I could, resulting in quite a few inoperable aircraft …
Here the AP is engaged and I’m flying at 2500 feet. Heading and altitude finally worked and I didn’t spiral down to death, yeah. Though for the half it remained a mystery to me why the AP didn’t automatically climb to the requested 3000 feet. Took a while till I discovered the vertical speed dials and actually used them.
The plane is still empty - will pick up my colleagues K. and W. in Munich!
For safety reason I take a screenshot of Sinsheim from the cockpit - no more structural stress due to excessive descending! If you’re in the general area I can recommend the Technik Museum there, has a lot of material for airplane fans.
Now we enter the rugged hills of the Schwäbische Alp, a nice area in general.
Nice village on the path, though the big buildings look a bit unauthentic. Bummer, seems I forgot to disable the perf counters of the Nvidia panel.
Final approach München!
Still on the taxi way, but I declare my first leg as successful now!
Cheers,
TeTeT
10 Likes
Leg 7 - Cordoba to Los Tuxtlas Regional Airport
102.7 nm
Still flying the PC-6, this time we loaded up to almost MTOW, and it’s certainly a noticeable difference.
Weather is still a little gloomy today, but not near as bad as previous leg. It should clear off as we climb out.
Here you can see the 2000lbs of cargo packed in the back. The in cockpit tablet allows you to very the cargo load in real time, with a visual adjustment in cargo in the back. With a ton of cargo in the back, it’s a majorly different feel. The take off roll is long (and certainly not helped by MSFS squirrelly ground handling), and ground effect is your friend if you’re trying an short field takeoff. Climb performance is also dramatically different, as to be expected.
Finally made above the clouds at around 12,500’, time to throttle back and settle into cruising.
On final, needing quite a bit more throttle previous due to the weight.
Real world
After dropping the cargo, a quick trip E to Laguna Catamaco to spend the afternoon on the water.
That looks like a suitable place to put down.
Touched down a bit further than I had wanted to, but with full reverse and brakes, still plenty of room.
Real world
Leg 8 - Los Tuxtals Regional to La Giralda
113.2 nm
And now for something completely different, the Savage Gravel. Available as a freeware mod of the stock Cub, it features quiet a few upgrades and reworked flight dynamics. Overall it’s a fun little back country flier. The major difference between it and everything else I’ve been flying, is the complete lack of any kind of nav instruments. I’ve got a whiskey compass, dead reckoning, and terrain association to work with. So in that spirt lets get flying. I loaded up to pretty much max weight to test her out, and off we go.
The route was pretty simple, fly 109 and spot the landmarks. Sierra de Santa Martha, is a pretty easy one to find.
I debated a landing attempt, but decided trying it later with less weight would be a better idea.
Here we have a pretty distinct wide spot in the Coatzacoalcos River, I need to be on the left side, so just a bit off course.
Minatitlan(MMMT) in sight, and on the correct side of the nose.
At this Y, I need to be right at the tip of the split, we’re right on course.
The oddly shaped Presa La Cangrejera is a pretty easy landmark to spot.
In the distance the Rio Tonala, where it meets a river that I can’t find the name of. Regardless its at least easy to spot from the air and follow.
The Laguna del Carmen another easy feature to navigate off of.
And the Rio Mezcalapa in sight finally.
So I ended doing a couple of circuits, and cheated by pulling up the GPS map to verify I was actually over the correct spot for the landing stip. Nothing to it in the Savage Carbon, throttle back, flaps down and turn in.
Everything went swimmingly until I over braked and tipped it on the nose… Overall a nice little flight with some good landmarks to navigate by. If I hadn’t set the weather to overcast I’d have climbed a bit higher to make it easier to terrain associate. Overall I quite like the Savage Carbon, I’ve messed around with in Alaska and it’s a very solid back country performer.
Real World
8 Likes
AGGH (Honiara) - AYPY (Port Moresby)
I actually failed get the autothrottle to disengage properly and did not safely finish the flight…but I’m going to accept that outcome as a learning experience and push on with the journey.
I had bad weather all throughout the descent and considering I don’t yet know how to use the FMC and couldn’t seem to get the AP to do my bidding, I was pretty pleased to even find my way to the final.
A slightly weird quirk about MSFS is that if you put active pause on, the speed appears to be affected by your throttle setting (even though you’re not moving) - I wasn’t doing 259 kts at the end of the runway but I actually got the clacker on as I took some screenshots with the active pause, as the aircraft kept “accelerating”.
7 Likes
Yeah I really hate that. It made me stop using that function.
4 Likes
Wow. My storytelling or the pictures will not do justice to the experience…but can I just say, if you’ve got MSFS, please go fly in Papua New Guinea. You will not regret it.
I took off from Port Moresby in the Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan and overflew the fire crews still hosing down the smouldering remains of my previous alter ego in his 747, at the end of the runway. Well, past the end of the runway, to be precise. And past the runway lights. Roughly at the inner marker, at a guess.
I took off into the wind and turned around to head inland, towards the mountains. My plan was to first fly to Ononge Airport - i.e. a tiny, mostly straight length of dirt hilltop - and then continue to Sopu Airport - another tiny, mostly straight, length of dirt hilltop.
There was a big crack of thunder just as I took off and the skies started to get more and more grey. A great sign.
I flew over the low-lying forests and looked slightly apprehensively towards the Central Cordillera, the long chain of mountain ranges that span the entire length of the island…which, by the way, is called New Guinea and is HUGE. It’s the second-largest island in the world, second only to Greenland. Yeah.
My plan is to cross the island NW to the Indonesian side, but this could take a little while.
As I got closer towards the spine of the island, it started to become clear just how close to the peaks the clouds were descending.
Quite soon I was flying in and out of clouds amongst the peaks and valleys.
Fortunately, the Ononge airport just happened to be basking in the sunlight as I emerged from the clouds. Thunder to the north and east and clouds all around…but I got to set down in perfect visbility.
That’s the runway!? Where’s the rest of it??
On final.
Touchdown!
I have a feeling that my PNG crossing is not going to be a quick one…this is so much fun.
11 Likes
great pics and text. looks definitely like fun. keep em comin’
yesterday I tried short hop this time on my aging laptop as I am traveling and it definitely looked bad and wasnt that fun
2 Likes
had a little bit of time so gave it another try, but this time I downloaded Carenado Baron also on my laptop. it was much more pleasant flight this time. the difference in default and add-on aircrafts is really noticeable in xplane, its old sim by now
LZPP → LZIB - 37NM ( by Xmas '22 I will be there 
)
‘definitely much better’ I heard also from the back
7 Likes
Thanks for posting progress reports! I am living the adventure along with you guys. Hopefully I can start soon
4 Likes
Ononge Airport (ONB) - Sopu Airport (AYQO)
I was keen to get another flight done in the afternoon, however the weather wasn’t really playing ball. Still, the adventure waits for no one, so I took off into the rain - surely it was just a local shower and a solitary cloud above the field.
My route was to fly north along a long valley, up to a hanging valley, past some hills and on to Sopu.
Visibility along the valley was okay, but it looked pretty dark ahead from there.
At the hanging valley - the valley floor was at 6,000 ft or so. There was another bush strip on the valley floor, so if the weather ahead turned out to be too gnarly, I could turn back and hopefully set down there.
It did turn out to be quite gnarly - I couldn’t see a thing while cresting the peaks past the hanging valley.
Just as I was about to turn back, it looked like there might be a little bit of clear air ahead, perhaps enough to get to the valley underneath, past the peaks.
Maybe not…
Hold on! Is that a hole?
I dove in with gay abandon. The airstrip was supposedly very close ahead on a hilltop.
And so it was! I flew over the strip, gave myself a little bit of space whilst trying to stay out of the dark clouds ahead so as to not lose my bearings and turned back around to land.
On final - this is actually a pretty nice air strip with a bit of space on each side. I can’t believe I said that.
13 Likes
Leg 9 - La Giralda to Comitan
133.7 nm or so
Another leg in the Savage Gravel, as this was going to be a strictly IFR (I Follow Rivers) flight. No need for navigation instruments (though I wont lie even an NBD would have been really helpful at a certain point).
Take off and follow the river S, easy enough.
The first major check point, the Presa Nezahualcoyotl reservoir. From here we are going to drop down to NOE, and follow the river for a while. It was really gorgeous scenery, and honestly some of the prettiest sight seeing flying I’ve eve done in a sim.
Aww heck, this is going to get interesting
The town of Chicoasen appears out of the haze.
The texturing gets a little odd once you get into the really deep canyon areas, and the river seems to have some odd surface tension effects…
And just behind me is the Miradores del Cañón del Sumidero, which has a 4.8/5 rating on Google maps for a photo spot.
Once clear of the river, I set a course of roughly 130, and headed over land for the next major check point La Angostura. Directly ahead of me is the village of 20 de Noviembre.
The Presa Belisario Dominguez which contains 8 hyrdo electric turbines, and has one of the largest reservoirs in Mexico.
That doesn’t look good, good thing I’m not heading North…yet
While that’s a great sight, the problem is I need to fly further N into the absolute down pour that is ahead of me in an aircraft completely unequipped for IFR flight.
So doing what any self respecting pilot would do, I landed in a field, to get directions and wait for the weather to move along.
My runway is out here somewhere…
Found it
Real world:
9 Likes
It is about the time to pack up and head South-West so let’s go!
The first leg takes me from Luxembourg (ELLX) to San Sebastian (LESO) across France. This 500nm long trip serves as a refresher flight with the Citation Longitude which was sitting in the hangar for some time now (DCS and NeoFly is to blame ).
Getting ready & departure towards new challenges and adventure!
Breaking through the clouds and continue climbing
Cruising at FL450. The ATC actually asked me to climb to FL460 but the autopilot refused to go past FL450 so we settled on that cruise level. I was making my way through some 45kts headwind.
Starting my descend towards San Sebastian
Already the last Christmas Flight I was pleasantly surprised by the depiction of the weather. And already the last Christmas Flight I thought that flying through the weather could do with more turbulence. Hopefully by the next Christmas Flight?
(what a pretty sim we have!)
Runway in sight!
Short finals (of course I came hot and high so this is the only screenshot that I am not feeling ashamed showing here )
On the apron in Donostia. Time to get some tapas y cerveza. The normal maps of the apron tiles look inverted to me, btw.
The next leg will take me across Spain to Gib.
7 Likes
Descending is one of the hardest parts of flying that plane. It just wants to fly (and climb) and be fast.
I learned to make good use of both the airbrakes and thrust reversers, since quite often I descend too late and too steeply, and thus come in quite hot.
4 Likes
A second leg from San Sebastian in Spain (LESO) to Gibraltar, UK (LXGB) was with 460nm a bit shorter than the first one. Just for the nice atmosphere I opted for an early morning flight.
Departing San Sebastian and climbing to my cruise altitude of FL360.
Weather is getting better.
Los Pirineos in the distance
Castilla y Leon
Sierra Nevada mountain range. One can ski in the morning and bath in the sea in the afternoon. And of course Granada is a beautiful city to visit.
The Rock, my destination for today, is right below the low clouds
African coast. A little flashback from the last year Christmas Flight
The Rock. A little high? Yes. I let the ATC to guide me through the arrival and approach and while it made me nicely arrive over the IAF at the right altitude (FL090), it failed to let me descend on time to the FAF (1500ft msl). So yeah, I was slowing down using all means I had.
Short finals
One of the oddities in Gib is that the runway is crossed by a road. So you better keep right!
The next trip brings me to Madeira. Can’t wait!
7 Likes
Sopu (AYQO) - Sim (AYXI)
One thing I’ve rapidly learned about flying in PNG is, an early departure is a smart plan. The innocent looking little puffs of cloud turn to towering cumulonimbus in the afternoon and sock you in in no time. Of course I was impatient to go, though…
It was half past one local time, the rain was coming down at Sopu and the OAT at the field elevation of 6,580 ft was 16C.
I taxied to the top of the hill before making my pre-takeoff checks to make use of all the runway I had at my disposal.
I’m glad I did - I ended up needing all of the runway available and then some…I took off and tried to get over the trees ahead but ended up having to veer to the left to utilise the downhill slope to avoid stalling. I barely cleared the trees with the stall horn blaring and set up for a slow agonising climb with very little visibility, relying on the GPS synthetic vision to navigate the length of the valley SE until I cleared the terrain. I then turned around to capture my planned route SW. The lack of acceleration on the take off roll at this altitude was scary…I expected it but it still almost got me.
I thought I’d look for a hole on the west side of the air strip so I could hopefully descend down along the river valley, rather than across it.
I was lucky - there was a hole, right where I hoped it would be:
I knew going down that chute was a highly risky plan, but what the heck. Chrismas flight only comes once a year. I chased the snaking river downstream, hoping that there would be a little bit of visibility around the air strip. My get-out card was going to be climbing out along the river valley if the field was completely obscured.
My thoughts were that coming back around after overflying the airstrip might be tricky, as the valley wasn’t very wide, so I overflew the GPS location of the strip low and slow and hoped to be able to come straight in.
It worked, of sorts. I wasn’t lined up, but the hilltop was fairly bare and the 208 doesn’t need much space - so I set down firmly with a blare of the stall horn at the flare and slammed on the brakes and reverse thrust.
Sim (AYXI) - Andacombe (ADC)
After spending a night in a sleeping bag in the back of the Caravan, I woke up to a lovely morning. The rain and cloud had cleared off and I rated the chances of my survival today much better. Still, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to weave my path via a couple of air strips along the way, in case of any trouble.
I climbed to 12,000 ft and enjoyed the ride.
The weather was fine at Andacombe and I only had to worry about hills I could actually see as I flew a gentle left hand pattern around the field before setting down.
Andacombe (ADC) - Gimi (AYGD)
In he afternoon, the weather deteriorated, as is custom. The rain had already made the grass soggy as I trundled down the bumpy clearing for another takeoff.
The showers on my route were mostly only local, though. I did a little dogleg to the east before my descent to stay in clear air and avoid the rain cloud sitting on top of the valley next to my destination.
10 Likes