I’ve did a test flight with the C-17 mod from Ramstein to Frankfurt in VR yesterday. While it basically worked, the F-12 steam screenshots show the two lenses output. Anyway I can get decent shots, preferably via the Virpil HOTAS?
Yesterday evening flight from Dubrovnik (LDDU) in Croatia to Plovdiv (LBPD) in Bulgaria crossing few Balkan countries.
Since the last time I arrived after sunset and therefore did not see anything from the Dubrovnik old town 
, this time I timed my departure to early morning hours in order not only to have a nice view of the old town but also beautiful views en route since the weather was supposed to be pretty good 
Ready to go. Again, the FSLTL does a nice job in terms of injecting real world traffic including liveries.
Something for @Troll
As expected: Dubrovnik old town in its full glory. Mind that during the Balkan war, the town - including the old town - was shelled by the Serbs. When I was there, the damage was still visible.
Resuming my navigation and turning South - East.
MSFS depicts Croatia as beautiful as I remember it.
Here I am already in Albania, claimed by some to be a new Croatia in terms of undiscovered nature and sea resorts. Dunno. But the mountains, while not being Alps, sure looked inviting. Here I was close to Fierza Reservoir.
Town of Prizren in Kosovo. Nicely nested on the foothill of Oshlak Strict Nature Reserve.
Bulgaria welcomed me with some serious weather…
…which I bravely negotiated with closed eyes and autopilot on.
I am using a bunch of stuff from fs.to enhancing VFR experience so I am not sure which addon put the radar there… but it definitely looked impressive. And a little out of place.
Some dramatic shots from approaching Plovdiv.
Early in the ninetees few years after the fall of the Communist regime in my home country, my parents took us to Bulgaria to enjoy the sea. Out of the two week holiday, the first week we stayed in Plovdiv and did some trekking in the mountains. It was fun until we woke up one morning and were looking at masses of snow outside 
It was in late May and everyone was lightly equipped expecting a nice weather at the sea side later on I still have a picture of my father standing in swimming suit next to a snowman
Sure, back then we arrived with a different company
I am not sure which destination will be next. Perhaps north of Turkey before crossing Black Sea towards Crimea…
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Into Canada!
I departed KEAT for West Kootenay Regional, this time in the BAE 146. CYCG is a hand-crafted MSFS airport and does not disappoint.
Deplaning, I just did a quick turnaround and departed for the next flight. Next up, Bella Coola Airport CYBD.
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That scenery is Incredibly life like as I’m familiar with that area.
The last screen is absolutely great
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Time to get onto the trek! Equipped with the openXR toolkit and joytokey helper, I setup my HOTAS to take screenshots. I’ve read that some folks prefer to switch to 2D and then take the screen, and go back to VR. Maybe I’ll give this a try next.
Starting from Ramstein in the C-17 Globemaster we depart to the east. The mod was overhauled since the last Christmas flight, most noticeable is the working HUD to the left now.
After taking off we fly northwest towards Frankfurt, passing by Donnersberg (straight ahead, partially hidden by a strut). Here I goof around with the autopilot and nearly crash the plane. Time to re-learn some things, I guess!
For example, retracting the spoilers before taking off, ouch.
I eventually retract them, but the screen gets overlayed by a radio call 
I moved to FSLTL flight injector, and I guess FRA is a bit busy.
A few minutes after escaping my almost disastrous attempt with the autopilot, the rivers Rhein and Main are visible clearly. Here the Main enters the Rhein at the city of Mainz.
I kind of ignored the ATC go around order, as I’m now nicely aligned with the runway, for an hopefully flawless landing.
After a few meters I enter the taxiway and call it a day. Particularly as I have not fully figured out how to control the C-17 on the ground.
Barely stayed on the tarmac, albeit not exactly centered on the taxiway…
Room left for improvement.
Cheers,
TeTeT
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Haha, it looks like an exciting flight 
What was your destination?
And where did you learn how to fly this thing? I am thinking about taking it for a leg or two of my trip so would appreciate some tutorial or at least a good checklist.
Btw, how do you find the scale of the cockpit in VR? It seems a bit overscaled to my eyes. I know it is probably a big cockpit of a big airplane but still… just look at the stick in front or compare it with the default 747 cockpit. Dunno…
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It was a short hop over the Rhine to Frankfurt. More of a repeated test flight to see how it works in VR for me.
I played the mod last year for the Christmas Trek, and kind of got used to it. I’m not using it in a sim-heavy way: engine, spoilers, parking brake coded to the HOTAS and off I go. Not a very scientific approach to flying and last year I made a lot of use of the V map in FS2020.
I rarely ever fly fs2020, I probably had 1-2 hours in the game since last years Christmas flight. So I cannot really compare the C-17 mod to much - I never tried the 747. The C-17 mod likes to eat your frames though, somehow it’s not optimized well I fear. The cockpit looks probably large as I cropped the VR screens excessively.
Cheers,
TeTeT
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I am sure I would sleep better today if I hit the bed with this AAR posted so here we go…
For the leg from Plovdiv (LBPD) in Bulgaria to Sinop (LTCM) in Turkey, I needed something with longer legs. As my 3rd party hangar is filled with beauties usually sporting even numbers of radial engines, I had to look into the default hangar where I settled on a CJ4 which apparently went through a number of avionics updates.
It is a nice aircraft… but the cockpit looks a bit unfamiliar 
You know this feeling of being behind the aircraft already from the moment when the door opens?
Few checklists and YT videos later I am ready for a pushback. I am no expert in how this job is done though I hope she will not scratch the paint
Довиждане Bulgaria! We are heading East.
Istanbul. I spent few days there some time back. We had a shabby hotel in Sultanahmet and this location was its best quality. The city was hot. And humid. And very very different to our “standard” European cities, of course. We had no experience in negotiating so our visit to the Bazaar was a disaster and I thought I would faint when taking a real-deal Turkish hammam. Oh yeah… we had great time!
In Asia now and descending towards my destination for today - Sinop.
Sinop is situated on the northernmost edge of the Turkish side of the Black Sea coast and it is also the birthplace of the famous Greek philosopher Diogenes.
While the aircraft is now capable of VNAV advisory, I flew well past my TOD and waited patiently for the ATC to instruct me to descend. What a naive idea! Yes, eventually I got a descent clearance which made me, of course, arrive hot and high. Well, I immediately felt like home because that was the way I usually arrived during the last Christmas flights
Safely down after an usually long landing…
…without a landing clearance.
Not my fault, though I am sure. I think the controller just forgot
Anyway. Time to relax. Next stop will be Crimea.
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After a quick turnaround, I was off to Bella Coola Airport CYBD. With no published approaches and only 4,200ft of runway, I’d need VFR conditions and for me to be on my game for landing.
Additionally, mountain peaks upwards of 8,500 feet and an expected overcast layer meant that I would need to plan my arrival a bit.
My plan will be to descend down into the river valley until I can maintain VMC and follow the river straight to the airport.
Lined up for departure.
Next stop, Ketchikan, Alaska.
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It is usually these flights one thinks would be uneventful and a bit boring when things happen…
We talk about a relatively short hop from Sinop (LTCM) in Turkey to Kerch Airport (UKFK) in Ukraine. As pretty much the entire flight was about crossing the Black Sea, I planned to take off, hit A/P button, accelerate time and take it over in due time for landing. Sounds easy? Yeah, so let’s take off late afternoon to have nice screens
With the flight plan punched in and clearance from the tower, it is time to start rolling. Love the late afternoon light in the cockpit.
Uh oh… it looks like I need to take screens from the left side only And not only that, when zoomed a bit out, the whole interior of the CJ4 turns pink.
Anyway… T/O thrust and hoşçakal.
Leaving Turkey behind and getting ready for many shades of blue.
When looking out of the window during my climb and enjoying this rather featureless flight, I realized that I haven’t heard from the controller for a while. I was heading towards Gelendzhik on a direct route.
Few calls later, I got a new heading though now some 15 degrees to the west from my direct heading towards the destination. Weird. Perhaps a good vector for the approach?
Approach… I mean there is no approach to Kerch Airport. The field has no published arrivals and approaches. So yeah, this is surely a vector to position me right for the landing.
By this time I realized the Sun would most likely be well below horizon during my arrival. No instrument approaches you say? Challenge accepted!
Kerch. The airport is somewhere there. It should be. I hope.
Here I had a feeling that the controllers were probably drinking too much Vodka and, again, forgotten about me.
Few calls later I got a new vector which seemed about right. Turning towards the airport.
Looking out for the field. I SHOULD see it by now.
Well… I did not. At least I grabbed a nice screen.
And then I saw it. No lights. Cool. So no instrument approaches and no rwy lights you say? Challenge accepted!
And with that I cancelled IFR.
I mean… the controllers were pretty useless until now so I would probably not do much worse without them. Check for yourself. Seriously?
Now some crisis management:
- sip of Vodka
- activate direct-to to UKFK, rwy 25
- disconnect A/P
- hope for the best.
I positioned myself to what I thought was downwind for rwy 25 and when I took a screen of the Kerch Bridge (downloaded from fs.to; the comment section was half censored out…) I turned towards the waypoint introduced by FMS some 5 nm out from rwy 25 threshold. Nice.
Only the last leg - the final - did not activate when passing over that FMS-made waypoint So I steered the CJ4 roughly towards the field and, still hand flying, activated the final leg in FMS.
You can sort of make it from the PFD and MFD - I got lateral and VERTICAL guidance on the finals to the airport!
With all that in the can, how could one mess it up? 
OK, what a flight 
A night VFR to a field with no lights let alone some approach guidance like papi. Fortunately the terrain was flat and the avionics in CJ4 saved the day.
Next leg will happen in Il-2. I think I need to refresh a bit how to fly the Tante Ju in Il-2 and learn how to fly a C-47 as I have never done that in this sim.
Stay tuned.
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I kicked off my journey last night with a short 260nm hop from Austin Executive Airport, Texas (KEDC) to Midland, Texas (KMAF). For now, I am going to fly the newly released Black Square TBM850. It’s fairly fast, cruising at a TAS of almost 300 Knots, has decent range for some longer legs, nicely detailed systems, a mostly analogue panel and well, it’s just so shiny.
The route:
Parked under the Henriksen Jet Center canopy at Austin Executive Airport. This is a freeware scenery available at Flightsim.to . It is very well done, although the newest hangar is not present. The Black Square TBM850 has a very nice external model, including the intricately modeled PT6. Unfortunately, there is no option for chocks and covers.
Taking Runway 13 for departure.
And so the journey begins….
The TBM looks fast and purposeful.
Downtown Austin off our left wing.
The intersection of State Route’s 183 and 45 with its impressive flyover on/off ramps. A feature of my commute to and from the airport.
Edit - I flew over this spot today:
This is Lake Buchanan, just west of Burnet, TX. After the hot dry summer, the real lake has a much lower waterline at the moment.
Edit - Lake Buchanan today…
One very recognizable feature of west Texas are the many oil wells…. hundreds of them.
Turning onto a right base to pick up the ILS for runway 10 at KMAF…
Configured and on a long final.
Hmmm… looks like the crosswind is more than the METAR was reporting earlier…
Not a big problem though. Down safely, although points lost for not being exactly on the centerline.
I will probably head to Aspen Colorado next, but that will have to wait a few days.
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@PaulRix How are you liking the TBM? It’s definitely on my watch list.
The Asobo/WT version has definitely come a long way but does still leave some to desire from the Hot Start TBM.
Speaking of…
TBM CYBD to PAKT!
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I will have to spend some more time with it before I can make a fully informed opinion on it. Systems wise it looks great. The 3D model is excellent. The flight model seems ok, although it is evidently getting an update in the near future to iron out a few issues. I haven’t flown the HotStart TBM in quite awhile but I suspect that it comes out on top because of the platform it was written for (plus HotStart are in a league of their own IMHO).
I caught the Rona this week and may have purchased it to give me something to do.
I agree with everything you said. I also suspected (and now verified) that they re-used a lot of the sounds from the Asobo TBM. Additionally, to me, the overall flight model seems very similar to the Asobo - especially the float down the runway.
I also didn’t realize the GTN 750 required a third-party addon to function. A little more research on my part could have helped with that, I suppose. It does seem like the free version below has plenty of features, I don’t see a need to get the paid version.
Overall I’ve been happy with it and the price is pretty fair.
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One thing from my previous leg: It always amazes me how little action Alaska gets on VATSIM, both on the controller and pilot side.
Obviously the weather and terrain make things a bit challenging at times, and quality of the terrain can vary based on simulator, ortho, etc, but I think it’s well worth the time to venture up into.
Departing Ketchican in the Fenix A320 (pretending it’s a 321):
The approach into Juneau is definitely a favorite. Unforunately I didn’t get any more screens further along on the arrival.
For the next leg, I’ll be flying the ASA 737 up to Anchorage.
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Back in the Boeing, it was time to head to the northern-most point on the route.
What started out as fairly decent VFR conditions gradually deteriorated as I progressed northbound, culminating with a foggy approach into Anchorage.
The next few legs will take me southwest through the Aleutians in the TBM 850 followed by making the jump from Alaska to Japan.
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My next leg had me in the newly acquired TBM 850 (I blame @PaulRix). My plan was to hit a couple scenic stops along the way to Adak, where I would transition back to an airliner to make the trek to Asia. The combination of short runways and one gravel strip (more on that later) meant that I would be using the TBM until I got to Adak.
Not depicted, but I swear I always choose a route into the wind.
Shoutout to Asobo on the changing weather. By the time our esteemed pilot figured out how to start and prep the aircraft for taxi, some weather had moved into Anchorage. #dynamicwx
I still hadn’t figured out the GTN 750 piece by this point.
Giving way to the professionals.
This…doesn’t seem right. It’s not.
So much for gravel. Oh well. Wind was calm, shot the approach for runway 6, circle to land 24 to avoid the long taxi.
Safe on deck, ready for the next leg. The next couple would add a significant bit of challenge due to surface winds and visibility.
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You’re going the same way I’m planning. Except I’m going to try to put it down on Shemya, with Attu as an alternate.