Leg 23 - Paris (LFPB) - Amsterdam (EHAM) via Brussels (EBBR)
Now it feels like this trip is starting to pick up steam. A pleasant morning departure from La Bourget climbing to a leisurely 1,500 for the journey up the coast. Ending with the butteriest of buttered landings (-1.82 fpm) in the history of aviation. (Shhhh, floating half way down a 10,000 ft runway really helps!)
A quick stop in Brussels prior to an immediate departure for Amsterdam.
Low clouds at the beginning of the trip hampered any sightseeing, but the weather cleared as the leg progressed.
Felt really small as I descended into EHAM, hoping I won’t have to many delays departing tomorrow.
Leg Stats:
Block Time 1 h 56 min
Flight Time: 1 hr 33 min
Total Distance Flown: 251 NM
Have to live dangerously sometimes. It was a lot of fun!
Being an aircraft mechanic in the real world, I always love seeing small aircraft like a cirrus stuck between two 787s waiting for departure here in PHL.
Did you have a place you wanted me to stop? I seem to recall somebody posting a local stop they wanted me to make, but I can’t find the reply in the thread.
Leg 24 - Amsterdam (EHAM) to Bern (LSZB) via Luxembourg (ELLX) and Vaduz, Lichtenstein.
So this leg brought me a bit of an issue to think about. How do you visit a country that has no airports? The solution I settled on is I will overfly the capital in those rare instances and call it good. As such was able to knock off three capitals today!
After a short stop in Luxembourg, I overflew Vaduz and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was nestled in a valley between two sets of mountains.
This is the first leg in a long time that I did not see the ocean, it was a nice change of pace and scenery to break things up after much time on the coastal areas.
Weather was marginal throughout, especially getting into the Swiss Alps, due to this I flew at increased altitude for added safety margin All turned out well though as visibility improved just outside of Bern.
Time for some raclette and a rest after this one.
Leg Stats:
Block Time 3 h 25 min
Flight Time: 3 hr 11 min
Total Distance Flown: 525 NM
Very True, I planned to use that ability in bush areas where I can have a reasonable degree of confidence that the Sim isn’t going to force a crash with its jank. I never know where clip distances are with the auto gen buildings, it makes me nervous. These legs are long and the idea of starting them over isn’t very pleasant
I use a mixture honestly. I use the flightsim.to scenery map found here https://map.flightsim.to/ to look for airport and area scenery along my route. But generally will only pick stuff up for the airports I am going to visit, and occasionally the city as well.
I create folder for each country as I visit them and put any addons for said country into it for that leg. After two legs, I deactivate the country folder and put it into my archive folder in case I need it again. Thus I only have the addons I am currently using active and nothing else clogging up the install.
Pretty sure you had the freeware Belfast PG installed for that city?
Yea right, always a risk. Even a perfect runway is no guarantee in this game though
I’m sure you could always find a field big enough and far enough away from buildings for the Kodi though! Do a recon flyover first as you would have to IRL. Mega-immersion!
Guilty as charged! You have an eye for good scenery!
Very true. One other niggle is I would want a good photo of it, I would have to be a very selective so I don’t get in to a situation of “Hey here is a picture of really bad default grass”.
Luckily there are very few instances of this, and all of them are very soon. There are only 5 countries without an airport. Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, The Vatican, and Andorra.
Hmm yeah that one could be tricky!
I reckon you’d get the 103 Solo down at the swimming pool section around the marina (it’s pretty wide and flat) or maybe Kodiak on one of the hills behind (I got the Kitfox down there no prob).
Make sure you get one of the PG for Monaco. Really makes a difference to that place than seeing the autogen. There are a few to choose from at different resolutions. The HD’est of them is bit of a system killer but the one by Thaxilte is a good performer considering the detail.
I want to get deeper into the navigation aspect of the game.
Can someone tell me how to set up a route, all the waypoints and all… And then how to track them while flying so that you get to the intended destination according to “the plan”?
@SpeedDemon996 I don’t have time to type out a detailed explainer today. But to get you started I highly recommend to download Little Nav Map and start reading the manual.
I do all my flight planning for this trip in LNM, if I am doing IFR flight planning I use SimBrief. But really LNM will have all the flight planning functionality that just about anybody will ever need!
Woke up extra early today to prepare for a transit of the Swiss, French and Italian Alps.
The flying was much rougher than I anticipated, with mountain wave turbulence buffeting the aircraft out of autopilot on a number of occasions. I cruised much of this leg at 14,000 to just barely clear the peaks along my flight path.
It was worth it though, the Alps are magnificent and it was beautiful to be greeted by the Mediterranean Sea at the end of it all.
Monaco has no airport so I set down in Nice, on 12 km away.
Time to it the scene in Monte Carlo. If you don’t see me for a couple of days you will know what happened!
Leg Stats:
Block Time 2 h 26 min
Flight Time: 2 hr 11 min
Total Distance Flown: 455 NM
I did consider Cannes, but when looking at the airport diagram for Nice, I was surprised to see such a huge GA parking area. Shouldn’t have been though since the rich folks land their BizJets there then catch a limo or whatever to Monaco.
So I happily set down in Nice. Hoping on departure that PSXT populates it better with traffic so I can get a better screenshot. Most of that is my fault though. I set sim time to daylight and so if I am flying in the evening here it is the middle of the night in Europe so not much real world traffic to see. Although, It is really cool to watch the skies come alive with the early morning departures as I cross midnight local time here.
Leg 26 - Nice (EFNM) - Rome (LIRA) via Vatican City
A beautiful day of flying along the Italian coast passing over Genoa and Pisa before proceeding on to Rome.
Did a little sightseeing in the Pipistrel afterwards which might have once again gotten out of hand. (Mea Culpa: Didn’t realize I had a graphical setting turned off that robbed me of most of the POI, and once I turned it on, it blew me away. Sorry for the unknowingly ■■■■■■ screen shots so far. Not going to restart the trip but not going to turn it off again!)
All that said it was a fun flight, and look forward to continuing onward tomorrow!
Leg Stats:
Block Time 2 h 07 min
Flight Time: 2 hr 03 min
Total Distance Flown: 336 NM
Must have kept the ATC busy too ! …
(nope, wasn’t me !)
