Tomorrow (in sim weather permitting) I plan to start an around the world flight in the G36 (with the improvement mod installed which makes the performance more realistic).
I’m going to follow the route of the 1924 Douglas World Cruiser flight, so the first leg will be KRNT to CYPR.
I expect weather might be a bit of a challenge starting this in the winter, we will see.
If I fly one leg per weekend it will probably take most of a year to get around the world anyway.
I’ll be flying in ‘all players’ MP mode, on the US West server, so if anyone wants to join for a bit and fly alongside it might be fun. Will post an update closer to takeoff. I might toss up a Twitch stream as well…all this newfangled technology…
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Planning spool up a stream around 1:30 and takeoff around 1:45-2:00PM PST
Leg 1 complete! Had a couple CTDs of the simulator near the departure point (seemed related to the VFR Map, I set the setting to open it automatically the 3rd time and no crash).
Nice IFR flight up the coast with some beautiful moments in the clouds. Thankfully no icing (the G36 doesn’t have a wing or windscreen deice system, and is not approved for flight into icing).
At CYPR, Prince Rupert Island, it was an IFR descent in total soup. Minimums at 300 feet baro and didn’t see the runway lights at all until 380 feet. I have to admit that I really messed this landing up, having never done an IFR descent all the way to minimums before. I ended up landing long at the far end of the runway…IRL I would have gone around for sure.
I’ll be flying Leg 2 (CYPR - Prince Rupert to PASI - Sitka) tomorrow, again planning to start streaming at 1:30 PST. As before I’ll be on US West with ‘All Players’ turned on.
For this leg I’ll be trying out a new Turbo Bonanza Mod which models a popular Turbonormalization STC for the Bonanza. This should allow me to cruise at ~185 KTAS at 8,000 ft, which will cut a bunch of time off the around-the-world flight in general. Let’s just assume I had some intrepid A&P at CYPR modify the aircraft.
Leg 2 is in the logbook! Weather in general seemed to match well with the real world METARs.
Ran into some icing conditions right after takeoff at CYPR, but with the fast climb rate of the G36 Turbo I was able to get above the layer to a point where accumulation stopped and then it later sublimated/melted off. With the G36 not being approved for flight in icing, this was a bit hair raising - however the real METAR for the area said light rain and Windly said the freezing level was at 4000ft, which is exactly where I saw the icing start - so this was probably actually very realistic weather behavior.
Loading the RNAV approach as assigned by ATC actually worked and I ended up flying a nice U-turn around a beautiful volcano before landing at PASI.
Next weekend will be Leg 3, Sitka (PASI) to Seward (PAEN is the closest airport in-sim - the airport in Seward is missing from the sim, likely due to Bing not having aerial map data in that area. I’m going to file a Zendesk ticket on that)
