Okay, another quick report. Petropavlovsk to Sapporo. Japan is even more beautiful than I remember:
And, a super soft landing. Like a butterfly with sore feet. Just a little left of center:
Now, to lay in a few cases of Sapporo for you gentlemen (assuming there’s anyone left at the bar when I get there). Best Japanese beer of them all!
Agreed! And congratulations!
Meanwhile in India:
I flew my penultimate leg, from Ludhiana (VILD) to Baghdogra Air Base (VEBD). Around 700 nm.
A nice day for a flight.
Vroooooom.
Supersonic at 35,000ft
The Himalaya looks great.
Suddenly the terrain quality deteriorated, just after crossing the border into Nepal.
Oh, that’s why. I had some Internet problems in the last few days.
The problem disappeared a minute later, and I could once more enjoy the awesome visual quality MSFS provides. It is also a bit strange to be at 35,000ft and have terrain not that much below me.
Pokhara.
Kathmandu is somewhere over there…
And on this side is Lukla, somewhere in one of those valleys.
Which means that Mt. Everest is somewhere in this shot. I am not sure which one it is though…
Leaving Nepal. As this flight was only 700nm I wasn’t too concerned about the fuel, but I was concerned about the weather. Mountains and bad weather isn’t usually considered good news.
Directly over my destination. The Airbase was closed for VFR but I said “pleeeeeeaaaase!” so they let me land anyway.
So down I went, into the souposphere.
It took a bit of an effort but I eventually spotted the runway. Without ILS or GPS I would have diverted.
I landed long and a bit fast. Chute to the rescue!
WTF why is there a bus on the runway!? Thankfully I was slow enough already.
Parked. Thanks for having me, Indian Air Force!
Such an awesome looking plane.
This short leg took me 48 minutes. The last one will be to Daocheng, China. Also around 700nm. I might fly it tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!
Sounds very much like your AARs last year 
Oh yeah! Bus guy followed me everywhere. 
where did we left off? we flew past Almaty and landed at the shores of Issyk-Kul.
interesting facts.
on this very day in 1911 an earthquake registering 7.7 Mw destroyed Almaty.
Issyk-Kul is third largest saline lake. Many historians believe that the lake was the point of origin for the Black Death that plagued Europe and Asia during the early and mid-14th century.
hopefully we wont contract anything this time.
its 30-Dec already and we departed Issyk-Kul. our planned destination is Desert Runway… yes thats the name of the runway 
its located in the middle of 塔克拉玛干沙漠 / Taklamakan desert
big body of water. Issyk-Kul means ‘warm lake’ as it doesnt freeze. but thats because of the saline water, not that its warm
lake is surrounded by the ridges of Tian Shan to the N and Kunlun Shan to the S. and why I am mentioning it? cause it was quite hard to find all the names. so I just had to share them with you.
China awaited us. Kunlun Shan is where we were heading, and it was fun ride
China Mach Loop anyone?
then mountains made way for the desert. it was very nice initially
but later, the quality of the scenery deteriorated and I had a problem to navigate to the runway in the middle of the desert. when I finally found the fix we were already very low on fuel, 100kg left.
plus it was late night local hour, we were too hot, way too high… so we lost even this frame in this failed attempt for landing…
its quite easy to make decent take off, fly a decent flight but landing at the end of long flight and at the end of the day is challenge in both irl and in sim.
there is only one solution… I need to up my game! there is only one leg left.
as I lost both frames ‘by strange’ circumstances 
and as I wanted to put some light on those circumstances I got in touch with good guys from one research agency and nicely asked them if they can borrow me some nice research device.
so my goal in this flight was to test if mornings are better suited for long distance flights than nights
morning 31-Dec and first mistake made 
forgot to set the weather to match the real-weather
soon enough discovered my mistake and corrected. fortunately real-weather was better than my initial preset.
བོད་ས་མཐོ། / Tibetan Plateau to the S quietly awaited my attempt
there was one more mistake I made, but couldnt remember now what it was, I guess some omission of some switches in the cockpit. but all sorted out before any additional emergency
she fits right there between those clouds in this livery
soon enough I was at FL500 and surrounded by all the mountain ranges
this is the first big one, Aqqikkol lake, saline lake again. many more lakes I overflew which helped with nav
after some zig-zagging between those smaller lakes, because of strong winds form W, it was time to look for some fix
this small basin to the left looked really suspicious
surly enough the big plateau spread to the S
it was great feeling that the weather and all cooperated nicely this time as I was already under time pressure
Visitoooors!
time was running out for me as it was almost evening irl and I had to focus on the most important part of this flight. hand on the drag chute
smooth as Silk Road, stone had fallen from my heart 
parked and ready for the New Year’s Eve bar! presents will be here soon enough 
thanks to all who participated whether in the virtual saddle or as a readers, it was great adventure again!
Great AAR, thanks for posting!
Thanks Nevo.
Congratulations on arriving and I have really enjoyed your AAR’s. The last leg in the Hawk reminded me to focus more on the journey and history of where I am flying and less on the destination when I do this next year
Congratulation @NEVO!
You may be the first Mudspiker ever to finish TWO Christmas flights in ONE year 
Kudos for having spirit strong enough not to drop one or the other
thx @Aginor , it definitely deserves some clarification
I actually flew the last leg in two parts despite reported it as single one. due to irl commitments I had to terminate the flight above the Aqqikkol lake. that picture above with the lake was the last one of the first part.
thought about pausing the sim only, but as the time of continuation of the flight wasnt certain I made printscreen of the cockpit a turned the laptop off.
when I got back to the laptop, it was already evening. so set the parameters like time of day, fuel state etc. according to the taken pic from morning and placed my plane at the same position (lake), same alt and at the same speed. with XP ingame map feature this was easy business. fortunately real-weather was similar as in the morning.
this way I started in the morning circa 09:00 and finished the flight in the evening circa 18:00
btw regarding the journey and history @Harry_Bumcrack . I usually similarly skip it as it is for me function of the time available for that particular leg. and usually I dedicate only limited time to it.
e.g. few things I passed without checking only in Kazakhstan:
Baikonur Cosmodrome
Piqiang Fault in the Taklamakan Desert
and this concludes this years XMas flight together with the last year’s flight, thanks for reminder @apollon01 
saved Baijiu ? thats generous @Deacon211 , I guess I can put it to good use as I may need some speed. thinking about getting back to the Bendix Trophy race 
Well, it definitely counts as high octane!
The Bendix flight was fun. You should totally finish her off.
Hey y’all!
I flew my last leg today, which means that I technically made it before Christmas (if you count the Orthodox one tomorrow).
Baghdogra AFB (VABD), India to Daocheng, China (ZUDC), 640 nautical miles. A short hop if you fly supersonic. Real weather, but not real time.
Early morning in India, just after sunrise.
Zooooooooom!
Saying goodby to India (for now), and hello to Bhutan.
My cruise altitude was 35,000ft today.
A nice plane.
And nice environment as well. This is somewhere east of Paro.
Leaving Bhutan already, I am fairly certain that this is the Gori Chen, 6542m.
This is India again, the eastern part. I missed the border to Bangladesh by just 18 miles.
This is the place where the mighty Brahmaputra river forms, out of a huge number of smaller rivers that all meet in this valley.
And with that I am into China.
Shortly after that my tanks were empty so I dropped them and flew the last 200nm in style. At Mach 2.
A steady tailwind helped me a bit, so I achieved the highest speed of this whole flight on the last leg, a ground speed of 1256 knots at 40,000ft.
That should almost be it. I can see the plateau already.
Yep, there it is. Daocheng.
They told me that I could land, but I had the fuel so I went around. I was too fast for an approach anyway, at Mach 1.2 or so. I hope that my supersonic break turn didn’t shatter any windows. I think I was high enough.
When I turned to the east I encountered this little valley, so I did a bit of low level flying, just for fun.
Almost felt like the Mach loop.
I overshot the base leg when I popped up out of the valley, but I finally dirtied up the plane and prepared for landing.
The thin air and crosswind made this a challenging landing, but I made it down fine.
I didn’t really need the chute, but it looks cool.
Parked at the gate. Even with all my shenanigans in the end that was a flight of just 44 minutes.
And with that I finished the 2023 Christmas Flight!
All in all I flew around 4575 nautical miles. The total flight time was a bit less than six hours I think, which is a nice average speed of 800 knots or so.
And now I need a drink. Thanks for reading!
Congratulations @Aginor!
That was an epic journey. I’m pretty sure @NEVO saved some(most) of the Baijiu for you!
I hope @NEVO saved some Baijiu? If not ask the bartender, I did say free drinks for all Mudspikers
Thanks, guys!
I am glad that y’all motivated me to do it. It was a nice flight.
