It’s taken me more than 3 days (maybe 10+ hours of real flying time) and I enjoyed every minute of it. That trip was awesome! Beautiful scenery, challenging flight, and educational for my flying skills. In the end, when I was about to land at Mariposa Airport, I got the old familiar feeling I get at the end of long trips. A little sad like saying goodbye to an old friend. It felt real enough.
A few tips for those haven’t tried or completed it. Move the Nav Log and VFR map windows outside of the main window, to a second monitor. Also, open up Bing Maps app on the other monitor too. You can use Google Maps, but just keep in mind that the FS sceneries were made with Bing Maps. Read through the steps in each leg before takeoff, and plot each segment in the map. I use Bing map, and put pins for each step’s end point. I also use the distance measuring tool to confirm that the right spot. 1 nautical mile = 1.17 mile. That really helped a lot, especially when the trip got more complicated starting at around Black Rock City. The instructions got noticeably more vague and directions are not always easy to follow.
Also note that there are some errors in the instructions, mostly in the 2nd half of the trip (coming down south from Northern California). At one spot, the instructions mention meeting highway 447 which runs northeast but should be northwest. There was another leg (around Truckee, I think) that step 2 and 3 were reversed. That’s why it’s helpful to read through the steps first and plot them out on the map, before takeoff. But in the end, it all worked out.
Whew, that was a long a beautiful trip (Yosemite being the grand finale was perfect). They did a great job planning and writing this. Enjoy!
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I’m glad it’s not just me that noticed those errors.
I’ve just completed leg 19 on the Mariposa trip, and got completely confused trying to follow the directions which were in completely the wrong order (arriving at a town before I was supposed to, then flying a further 10 minutes where the instructions told me to find it!)- I ended up travelling south east as per the directions when the VFR instructions said south west.
Following the VFR on my third attempt worked perfectly, but the accompanying text was awful - and i’ve found that in a few cases.
Given the attention to detail in the rest of the game, I’m disappointed that it’s been so poor in some of these missions, but overall, i can’t complain - I’m enjoying it and learning a lot!
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I just finished this and forgetting about the navigational issues I hit the first lake dropped power and enjoyed the amazing next 15-20 minutes of canyon flying 500 ft off the ground. I loved it.
However, the ponderosa pines are Deciduous trees I will report it as a bug.
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Thanks for your feedback!! At this time, I was not sure to have the required time to begin one of these bush trips - if I well understand, we need to land on one of the steps to save the progression, or simply quitting (if time is short…) is suffisant, even airborne?
Congrats on completing it.
I am heading to Truckee for my next leg. Likewise, It’s been awesome and challenging so far. I’m an old mountaineer/sailor so the dead reckoning has been fun.
I got a little lost north or Sparks(seems like every little house had its own airstrip!) Eventually found the right airstrip. Lol.
Thanks for the heads up about the route errors. Luckily I have driven, camped, and hiked in many of the areas over the years - so I have the advantage of local knowledge.
I am looking forward to the other bush flight challenges!
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Saving happens when you land at the end of each leg. It’s done automatically when your plane comes to a complete stop at the correct airport. Usually, each leg would take less than 30 minutes from takeoff to landing, so you can easily break it up over multiple days. That was what I did. I was doing perhaps 3 or 4 legs a day. You can’t save while in flight. All in all, it was a very nice journey worth doing. At any point, you can restart that leg if you become hopelessly lost. Bind a button to do “refuel and repair”. The fuel gauges are above and slightly behind you on either side.
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I just bound them refuel increment by 25%. Seemed a little more realistic
Having done back-country trips like this in real life, I was pleasantly surprised how accurate (and fun!) this was. It was a challenge doing real pilotage after decades of relying on INS and GPS. I was amazed how my brain extrapolated the simulated experience towards reality! It was certainly a lot cheaper (and safer and less bumpy) than doing it for real, too! 4K on a 58" TV added to the experience.
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These bush flights are amazing! They are taking the whole sim to a new level! Beautiful scenery, places which I will never ever go to in my real life (I guess, who knows?) and also a bit challenging to find my way between cities and following roads and creeks. Asobo, you must add a lot more bush flights to this sim! Is it possible to create your own bush flights? I have to download that SDK but first I have to finish the existing ones, I’ll probably spend the following weeks with it! 
