Inspired by DabullAir’s tour of the handcrafted airports, I decided to do something similar and create a round-the-world trip that took in all 40 of them (standard+premium+premium deluxe), with as few legs as possible.
Plotting them all up in LittleNavMap, a route started to form and this is what I came up with (Great Circle Mapper link):
When I started looking at the leg distances and runway lengths at some of the airports though, it became obvious I’d need to add a few additional stops (I didn’t fancy going direct from Queenstown/NZQN to Bugalaga and trying to land an A320neo on a 1,500ft gravel airstrip for instance…).
After including these, I ended up with the following 53 leg tour:
Following this with interest, thanks for posting it up.
I’m still learning a lot about flying with instruments and only really flying smaller aircraft at the moment , but hopefully one day I’ll follow your fp
Thanks! I’m learning a lot as I go…I used to fly airliners (737, A320) in FSX, so have some experience with IFR, but the TBM is a different beast all together.
I flew Leg 2 (EGLL-EHAM) this morning and had to deal with some of the MSFS autopilot ‘quirks’ on approach, but still made it down it one piece - will try and get some pics up soon (unfortunately I ran into an issue with the Live Weather, so it was clear skies all the way and not quite as dramatic as the sunset I got last night!).
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of exiting back to the main menu in order to select the correct parking gate for my departure…which bugged out the Live Weather - giving me clear skies and the dreaded 225/3 winds for the entire journey
I also had some issues with the approach into Amsterdam - the autopilot wanting to take me back to a previous waypoint - so I ended up having to fly it manually
Despite being a handcrafted airport, a number of the LFPG approaches are missing from the nav database in MSFS currently, and unfortunately that included the one I was assigned…so I ended up flying it manually using charts from Navigraph
This was my first flight using Pilot2ATC as an alternative to the built-in ATC and it went well, with sensible climb/descent clearances
The arrival into Innsbruck via the RNAV RWY08 approach was spectacular, although a little steeper than I think the passengers would have liked; I forgot that VNAV is pretty broken at the moment and missed the TOD…as Chuck Yeager used to say though, “If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.”
Slight disclaimer…the airport scenery at Innsbruck is actually Orbx LOWI and not the default MSFS handcrafted airport
After my “outstanding” landing at Innsbruck, I’ll be taking the Airbus on a short hop across to Turin tomorrow, ready for a day trip into the Alps to visit Courchevel in the SR22.
I programmed the BREN2J departure into the MCDU, but the autopilot decided to skip the OEJ waypoint and turned me direct to INN shortly after take-of…fortunately my climb rate was sufficient to clear the nearby terrain to south!
Next up is a short hop across the Alps in the Cirrus SR22 to Alpes–Isère (LFLS), stopping for lunch in Courchevel (LFLJ) to experience it’s famous visual approach (weather permitting)!
I’ve not made any changes to the light mask…wasn’t aware you could, so if you have any suggestions for making things look more realistic I’d love to hear!
@CountedFan57061 Interesting, thanks for sharing that. I’d been really impressed with the night lighting in the areas I’ve flown so far, so hadn’t made any changes or tweaks from the default. Reading some of that thread it seems like it might be location dependent though, so maybe I’ve just been lucky so far; I’ll definitely keep an eye out for issues as I continue my trip round the world.
I ended up making two attempts at VFR into LFLJ: on the first attempt, I was thwarted by low clouds on entering the Alps and had to turn back; on the second attempt, I chose a slightly longer route that ran through the valleys and was able to keep below the 7-8,000ft cloud base and make it to LFLJ (although my landing wasn’t the best!)
Below is a copy of the chart I used for the visual approach into LFLJ (found at the following link)
Thanks to a descending cloud base, I ended up having to spend the night in Courchevel and delay my onward journey until the following morning.
There were still a few clouds in the sky as I departed, but thankfully they were well above the surrounding peaks and Alpine valleys, giving me a clear route out of the Alps, over Grenoble and into Alpes–Isère (LFLS).
Departed: 13:15z (RWY 4) Arrived: 14:45z (RWY 9) Weather: Overcast on departure; Heavy cloud up to FL330, with strong 90kt+ headwind; few clouds on arrival Aircraft: Airbus A320neo
I had an issue with airway waypoints not being added correctly to the flight plan; instead the route was programmed to fly direct from the entry waypoint to the exit, so I had to manually add the intermediate waypoints.
The weather over France was pretty nasty as I departed for Madrid, with a 90kt+ headwind and thick cloud right up to cruising altitude; after checking the live weather charts, this appears to have been a pretty accurate represenation (see below)!
Pilot2ATC assigned the VILA2D arrival and the ILS-V 32L approach via the ASBIN transition; unfortunately, I had some issues with the TOD (for some reason the destination airport was in the flight plan twice, which seems to have messed things up), so I ended up entering the holding pattern at ASBIN in order to lose sufficient altitude to fly the approach.
I also made the mistake of attempting to do a full autoland (in order to get an drone cam video of the landing), but fell foul of a severe autopilot pitch down about 50ft above the runway… I’m sure all the passengers on board appreciated ‘bouncing’ down the runway!
Pilot2ATC assigned a straight out departure from RWY 18R at LEMD and assigned the LIDR5A arrival with vectors to RNAV-Z 05 FAF
Unfortunately, the autopilot went haywire with its descent path and I ended up in the ocean on my first landing attempt (I was too busy taking screenshots to notice what it was doing…). I decided I wasn’t going to fly the whole route again, so loaded up the flight in Madrid and used the ‘Travel to’ feature to jump to the start of the RNAV approach (which actually worked surprisingly well!). On the second attempt, the autopilot was again playing up and tried to climb unexpectedly, so I took manual control and landed without issue.
I had to attempt flight twice, as I once again encounterd an autopilot bug on approach that caused me to descend into the sea. The first flight was a nighttime approach (which certaintly didn’t help with situational awareness when the autopilot went crazy), so I made sure to start earlier on my second attempt to ensure it’d still be light for the arrival into Gibraltar.
Pilot2ATC assigned the DEGU3N departure from LPMA and vectors to the RNAV 09 approach into LXGB.
Its finally time to leave Europe, and start making some real progress, as I head to Cairo (HECA) for the next leg (the first of a series of 4hr+ flights)!
Autopilot misbehaved a few times (turning me off course, requiring gentle joystick input to correct), but in general a good flight (no crashes in over 5hrs!)
Pilot2ATC assigned the ILS 23L approach (CVO1) transition, but didn’t give me descent clearance early enough…I ended up about 10,000ft too high over CVO and had to take a detour outbound from the ILS to lose altitude; landing was offcentre and the glideslope appeared to be configured for a runway at a slightly higher altitude? Airport appeared slightly sunken into the ground…
I managed to miss the pyramids on approach to Cairo International, so I decided to do a little sightseeing in the Beechcraft Baron 58 the following morning. I combined this with an FS Economy job to transport some passengers across the Red Sea to Wejh (OEWJ) in Saudia Arabia, so made to make a little profit at the same time!
