Caribbean Island Hopping in a Cirrus SR22T
(collecting this thread here and going to cut back on posting it in the What I did Today thread. When its done, I will have a log of the whole tour in one continuous thread)
Started my Island-Hopping Tour of the Caribbean.
Departed from Oka-Locka, FL (after theoretically flying from Fort Meyers)
First stop, Bimini:
Racing some storm clouds coming into Grand Bahamas:
Took a break in Great Harbor Cay, but then continued through the Bahamas, Nassau, Eleuthera, to Cat Island
Arriving and Departing Nassau:
Stopped for today at New Bight, Cat Island (12 of 68):
Had some time to kill, so did a couple more hops on my Caribbean tour.
It was starting to get dark going into South Caicos.
Then it really got dark. It was only 20NM to Grand Turk, but I learned that being surrounded by nothing but darkness all around is too scary. I am never going to fly that far away from land at night in r/l!
Even just playing around in the sim, it was a real feeling of relief to have land and the runway in sight!
Inagua, Haiti, and into the Dominican Republic
Ambergris Cay International airport is a spit of land that juts out into the sea. Its kind of a large airport on such a small island.
Inagua is a larger island that I flew across its width.
Inagua is another edge of the water approach.
Haiti and Dominican Republic are a huge landmass. With mountains! Did not think I would have to be navigating around and over mountains on this tour. Flying into Cap Haitien International:
Flying in the valleys on the way to Port-Au-Prince.
In the mountains, I tried to kill myself with the autopilot. I tried to enter a change to the destination approach mid-flight and somehow it changed some legs to Direct-to the destination and tried to fly me through the mountains instead of around. Had to manually set the headings. You can see on the MFD on the right where it changed the leg I was on and was trying to take me South through the mountain directly to MTPP vs. I intended to fly West through the valley and around the coast (sketched in blue).
I have no idea what it did because it seemed to be treating my destination like a waypoint and would have flown that final leg in white in reverse.
Another valley flight over to Barahona and into the Dominican Republic side.
[ Then I had to stop for the day because in r/l, I had a flying lesson to go to. Logged my first r/l landing! ]
Dominican Republic
My first stop was supposed to be MDST Cibao International in Santiago, but clouds all the way to the ground were beyond my confidence to land in the mountainous terrain. I diverted and continued on to my next destination.
Clear weather descending down into Gregorio Luperon in Puerto Plata
Another runway right at the edge of the water there.
Interesting approach down the hill into El Higuero in Santo Domingo, plus trees to clear. [ PAPI lights in MSFS don’t seem to be calibrated to actual obstacles on some of these runways ].
Much flatter on Eastern side of Dominican Republic (Casa De Campo International in La Romana)
Last stop today is Punta Cana International. Cute little taxiway through the woods from runway 08.
(Note added the next day: I took off again from that runway and had to wait for a simmer in jetliner to land in front of me. They initially turned on that mid-runway taxiway, but then must have decided they would not fit through and instead went around to the end of the runway.)
Over for a couple of stops in Puerto Rico
Aguadilla, Puerto Rico
Along the North Coast of Puerto Rico into San Juan
Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport in San Juan
Its the Cruise Ship Terminal
Quick hop and approach back to the Main San Juan Airport Luis Munoz Marin International
I was too busy overshooting the base turn to get a good photo of the runway:
Rounding the NE point of Puerto Rico into Jose Aponte De La Torre in Ceiba
I should have looked at the terrain map more closely for the approach. My inexperience with terrain with actual elevation biting me again. MSFS’s simulated tower at TJRV instructed a Left Pattern, but turns out there is a bit of a hill directly in the way of that. I bet that runway is Right Pattern in r/l. Had to climb and go around the hill, then descend pretty quickly.
