I usually fly either the Bonanza G36 or C172 on low VFR scenic flights. And I love it! I have done some ILS approaches just to see what it is like but I have never done the full meal deal low level IFR flight terminating in a RNAV/LNAV approach… until just now. Flew the G36 from Brussels to Frankfurt (EBBR - EDDF). The only quirk on the flight was that ATC bumped me up from my flight plan 9,000ft to 14,000ft late in the flight. Not late enough to cause issues with the descent but still…
Some images:
Before the approach:
On final approach
And would you believe it: the marshal even had BOTH batons!! A very good sign!
Low scenic VFR flights are still my preferred option but I had to at least try this. Good fun and it worked out quite OK except for some trivial operator ignorance glitches. Most happy with this: the aircraft, the G1000 NXi and the sim generally behaved perfectly. As always got generally between 45 and 50FPS on my 32" 4K monitor at mostly Ultra settings. Pity that the forum these days downsizes images to 1920 x 1080 as I think this much reduces the visual value of the screenshots.
4 Likes
Did you use oxygen after 30 min between 10.000 and 13.000 ft and full duration above? 
But of course! Doesn’t EVERYBODY carry a virtual portable oxygen system for this eventuality? 
But it did remind me of a flight I did in 1983 from Windhoek in Namibia to Cape Town in South Africa. At that time I owned a T210. There was a heavy tail wind higher up so, being young and strictly following the FAA rules at the time (O2 OVER 12,500ft…) I flew at11,500. And averaged a hair over 200kts from takeoff to touchdown! Engine start to engine stop was 4 hours 12 minutes.
In retrospect probably not the wisest of things to do: the aircraft had a permanent oxygen system but I never had it certified and filled. But in my defense: at the time I was doing a tremendous amount of snorkeling and could easily hold my breath in excess of 3 minutes. That plus playing rugby and lots of running gave me the sense I should be fine: the impetuosity of youth…
2 Likes
Still doesn’t mean you won’t suffer from hypoxia at such a prolonged flight above 10.000 ft. And when flying alone you probably won’t notice anything either until its too late. But yeah, been there, done that, got the t-shirt 
.
