Leg 17 to the Northern most airport Svalbard ENSB and on to Russia
DAY9_8.PLN (1.6 KB)
9-7 Andøya ENAN 9:00 PM
9-7 Svalbard ENSB 78.2455044,15.4391032 1:05 AM 4:05 1
9-8 Svalbard ENSB 78.2455044,15.4391032 7:36 AM
9-8 Rogachyovo UISA 12:38 PM 4:56 1
Flight time: 9:01 2 stops
Two long dangerous flights to an unlisted airport off-map. I couldn’t figure out how to navigate to GPS coordinates so I had to go complete VFR since the in game map stops working above 75 degrees latitude. Fun challenge and very tight on fuel.
I set out before dawn and it didn’t take long to get into icing conditions
I could not out climb the clouds, barely maintaining 7,000 ft.
Luckily the clouds decided to give me a break or rather a gap to fly in between
Spooky
Finally it cleared up some more when the sun started to come up
Melt that ice off my plane, thank you
Very peaceful now, starting to climb again, almost ice free.
Svalbard in sight, now the difficult task to locate the airport
The clouds make navigation more difficult, at least there are plenty gaps
Runway spotted down below!
Welcome to Svalbard 78.2 degrees North.
That was only half the challenge, now to get over to Nova Zembla, Russia. I started the game at the coordinates for the airport which spawns you in the air, thus I landed first, topped up the tanks to full and set off for real.
Leaving Svalbard behind
It looked to be a great flight so I decided to stay a bit further North to grab some more Nova Zembla land to fly over before getting to the airport.
Bad idea, trouble was brewing
I tried to climb higher yet the Bonanza doesn’t have the ability to go higher fast enough at 12K ft
I snagged a bit of cloud and instant trouble
That made me drop all the way down to 5K ft before she could hold level again, now sucking a lot more fuel.
The cloud spectacle made it worth it though
Unfortunately going slower meant it was already getting dark when reaching land
So much for sight seeing and now I’m in trouble fuel wise
Finally, a long glide saves the day and thanks to my slight detour I was on the right heading for a straight in landing. Look at that fuel display…
I barely had enough fuel left to taxi to a parking spot
One tank down to 3.00 gallons (empty as far as the game is concerned) the other 3.17 gallons left. Way way way too close!