ATTENTION Aussie Flight Group Participants …
Group Flight: Group Flight: 2020-11-27T09:00:00Z
Departure: Telluride Airport (KTEX)
Arrival: Lake County Airport/Leadville (KLXV)
Duration: 167 NM, approximately 1.5 hours in DA62 @ 160 kts
Challenging Take-offs and Landings, Mountain Flying including high altitude short field landing (RWY 2981’/1219m) at 8980’/2737m MSL
This will be Part Three of a three-part series (with an optional Part 4) introducing challenging and educational flights in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado USA to be conducted over the next 6 months. Completion of all three parts (honor system) will earn you a mountain flying endorsement including special endorsements for Leadville Airport (Part Three) which is the highest GA airport in North American and Telluride Airport which is the highest Commercial airport in North America.
Colorado has 53 of the 67 fourteeners ((14,000 + feet MSL) in the lower 48 states. Second in North America is Alaska with 29.
PLEASE DO NOT SPAWN ON THE RUNWAY. ENSURE YOU SELECT THE STARTING POSITION ON THE RAMP.
Route:
Charts will be provided to assist locating VFR waypoints and recognizing surrounding features.
- Take off from Telluride Reginal Runway 27
- Will require taxi (taxiway) uphill to end of runway
- Highest Commercial Aviation Airport in North America
- Rated 10th Most Challenging Airport in North America
- Track 43 deg to Gunnison-Crested Bute Airport (58 nm)
- Full stop landing
- Take off from Gunnison-Crested Bute Airport
- Track 351 deg to Buckhorn Ranch (19.2 nm)
- Full stop landing
- Take off from Buckhorn Ranch Airport
- Track 84 deg to Central Colorado Reginal (KAEJ) (38 nm)
- Full stop landing
- Take off from Central Colorado Reginal Airport
- Track 330 deg to VFR Approach to Lake County Airport (KLXV) (26 nm)
- Full Stop (9,400’ MSL min)
- Highest General Aviation Airport in North America
Altitude: The route can be flown at 14,500’ but you can vary the altitude to suite the terrain.
Airport details:
Telluride Airport (KTEX)
Elevation: 9052’ MSL
RWY: 09/27 (7111 x 100 feet/2167 x 30 meters)
Gunnison-Crested Bute Airport (KGUC)
Elevation: 7679’ MSL
RWY: 06/24 (9400 x 150 feet/2865 x 46 meters)
RWY: 17/35 – Turf-Gravel (2981 x 150 feet/909 x 46 meters)
Crested Butte Airpark/Buckhorn Ranch Airport (0CO2)
Elevation: 8980’ MSL
RWY: 11/29 (4000 x 40 feet/1219 x 12 meters)
Central Colorado Reginal (KAEJ)
Elevation: 7950’ MSL
RWY: 15/33 (8303 x 75 feet/2531 x 23 meters)
Lake County (KLXV)
Elevation: 9933’ MSL
RWY: 16/34 (6400 x 75 feet/1951 x 23 meters)
Aircraft: As the route is around 14,500’ in altitude at most places the following is a guide for maximum flight altitude (See Graphic of Flight Plan):
Any aircraft capable of obtaining an altitude of 14,500’ for extended periods of time and a VS of 500 fps, preferably 1000 fps if you want to explore the area as the route does not allow you to turn around at low altitudes.
Seeing Aircraft Correctly: You need to do two things to ensure you can see the other pilots in the event and see them in the aircraft they selected.
Select the same server: To do this, proceed as follows:
- From the Welcome Screen, click on your Username (top right)
- From the list of servers, under Servers, select WEST USA
Turn off Generic Planes: To do this, proceed as follows:
- From the Welcome Screen, click on OPTIONS
- Click on GENERAL
- With GRAPHICS selected, scroll down to the last option and set USE GENERIC PLANE MODELS to OFF
Voice Room: Discord for Official MSFS Community: Event #1 or Event #2 are the voice rooms available to us. I need to see which is available on the day and reserve it. I will be in the room and get it authorized for our use. Just look for my USERID: VHFIB to determine which room to enter.
Note: if you are new to the Discord Server for MS FS, you will need to “react” to get access to the voice rooms.
To “react”, once in the Discord for Official MS FS , click on the Important - Info option and at the very bottom, click on the button (last item at the bottom of the screen) to react and provide access. Note: clicking on the button accepts the conditions etc., which you can read via the available links.
Weather/Time: We will set the time 12hrs prior, i.e., 8 am. This will allow us to fly in daylight and choose Clear Weather, so you will not get icing during the flight:
- From the World Map view, click on Flight Conditions (upper right of screen)
- Click on All Players, Live Traffic, Custom
- Under Weather and Time, select Clear Weather (except if you want to see snowcapped mountains set the ground snow depth to 30-40 cm after loading flight) and move the time slide bar to show 8:00am or say 7:45am if you arrive at 7:45pm (12hrs prior to current time).
- Click Close and Fly from the World Map view.
We can start departing from 8pm. There will be no need for official radio calls. Let’s just have some fun taking in the scenery and the social aspects of the event.
Multiplayer Map: Currently, the VFR map will not show Live players, so if you get lost, it’s difficult to find where the other flyers are. The free multiplayer map will show the other players (that are using the map) and allow you to see their heading, speed, altitude and callsign. But it will only show those using the map. The below map tool is excellent but only as good as the volume of people using it.
Not mandatory but if you would like to use this map, see the below for details:
Link to moving map: https://events.flighttracker.tech/ 12 7
Once viewing the map, click on Join to download the client that connects MSFS for tracking your flights. Note the .NET Core Windows Runtime requirement that needs installing also.
Let me know if there is anything else that I have missed that you need to know.
Regards, Paul
