[Official] Community Fly-In Friday: Backcountry Bush Flying

[SeedyL3205]

*** NOTE START TIME CHANGE. DUE TO THE RECENT SWITCH TO DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IN SOME PARTS OF THE WORLD, COMMUNITY FLY-IN FRIDAY NOW BEGINS AT 1800Z. PLEASE CONFIRM THE PROPER START TIME IN YOUR LOCAL AREA. ***

We will be hosting an Official Fly-in alongside a group of community members (you!) on Twitch. This is an open event, free to all who would like to fly along with us and available to pilots of all skill levels. The goal is to have a great time, explore new locations of the world, and make new friends. This event is open to pilots on both sim versions (MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024) and both the PC and Xbox platforms.

Hosted by @SeedyL3205, ADKeSTOL, and ItzNorcallyJ
When: Friday, March 13 @ 1800Z for two hours.
2026-03-13T18:00:00Z
Where: The Official Twitch Channel of MSFS

There will also be a Discord event channel open for those who want to voice chat with other members of the community.

Please see below for details on the upcoming Fly-In Event:

FLIGHT DETAILS

We’ve off to the jungles of Indonesia this week for a flight over Indonesia ending at the epic dirt airstrip of Bugalaga, a long-time favorite of flight simmers due to its incredibly challenging approach and landing!

Joining us as guest co-hosts are ADKeSTOL and ItzNorcallyJ from National eSTOL to talk about their organization and competitive Short Takeoff and Landing competitions in Microsoft Flight Simulator!

MSFS (2020) and MSFS 2024 Pilots on PC can download the .pln file here:
2026-03-13 Backcountry Bush Flying.PLN (2.6 KB)

MSFS 2024 Pilots on PC, PS5, and Xbox can import the flight plan from the new Flight Planner tool at this link.

You can find instructions on how to load a flight plan from the Flight Planner website to your in-sim EFB on your PC or PS5/Xbox console on our forums here.

We will be starting at WAUW. Please load your aircraft 10 minutes prior to take off and taxi over to the runway in preparation for departure.

AIRCRAFT

Recommended aircraft: CubCrafters X or NX Cub, Cessna Grand Caravan, Patey Aviation Draco X, Zlin Aviation Savage Norden, or any other bush plane of your choice that can handle difficult landings on short dirt airstrips.

MULTIPLAYER SETTINGS

Please adhere to the following settings so you can see everyone / be seen by everyone.

Variable	Setting
Server	SE Asia
Multiplayer	All Players
Live traffic	As preferred
Weather	Few Clouds
Time of Day	Daytime

COMMUNICATION

To communicate with others, a voice channel on the "Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Discord” at https://discord.gg/msfs will be available to join.

LET’S FLY

This is meant to be a fun and informal flight. Everybody is welcome, no matter your platform, sim version, or level of experience.

[SparrowJLT]

But ..its Airwolf

[SparrowJLT]

[CriminalPilot]

Love me some bush flying! Thanks for the company through the mountains. I attempted about 10 landings to get some good reps in, and no crashes.. this time. I have some video that I’ll try to upload eventually as well!

[MPR1815]

Seems to be some sort of inconsistency here or am I missing something @SeedyL3205

[RayGausman]

Happy Flyday Friday

Nabire (WABI)

Bugalaga Airstrip (WX53)

[CriminalPilot]

Start time seems to correctly indicate 7:00 pm at both end of your arrows. What inconsistency are you showing? Sorry, I’m a bit confused what you are saying.
Your arrow points to the 9:00pm end time.

[IceManDBB]

seems correct to me, look at the start time not the finish time:

[MPR1815]

My bad then! I was under the impression the top one was a region conversion instead of start to end. It’s been a long day haha..

Thanks for the heads up!

[IceManDBB]

Was my kind of flying. Just the big wheels cub was too slow, so changed to the DoubleEnder after halftime.

Some landing practice and exploring the landingstrip with @Orbitbold after the stream already finished.

[Orbitbold]

Despite reading the reminder earlier, I missed the flight by an hour.

So I cobbled together a homebrew flightplan that skipped the first leg. I had originally planned to fly the Norden, and had actually spent some time setting up controllers and learning the plane. But I wanted to be able to catch up, and picked a somewhat more challenging plane for this occasion: the good old stoL-39.

Shenanigans unfolded, and I didn’t have time (and hands free) for a lot of screenshots. Also, @IceManDBB‘s avatar didn’t load for me today. Bummer.

As for Bugalaga and the L-39: not necessarily a good combination, but an interesting one for sure.

[UnwiredEddie]

Always fun to go bush. Thought I’d stuffed up when I heard Seedy say he was 40 miles from next touch’n’go while I was diving towards it. Luckily I wasn’t alone on appraoch so I guess we need to teach our fearless leader how to read a flight plan

[TheHunDude]

It was good to have some bush flying as it is not something I usually do in the sim. I remember the last time the Friday fly-in ended in Bugalaga, everyone was still on FS2020. Chose the “happy plane” for the occasion, fell behind the rest of the crew but it was a nice route with live weather.

The beautiful people of the 2020 crew:

Clouds settled in the valley.

Landed after the stream ended but still managed to make a quick screenshot with @Edorin5981 and @HeXtHeLeGeNd318 at Bugalaga.

[SparrowJLT]

Bush flying ..so short take off capability needed… so Airwolf.. because its Airwolf (Huey and XCub were alternatives but they cant keep up with a ….. dunno… Pelican?)

So this time we had @Edorin5981 @HeXtHeLeGeNd318 in their usual rides.. @Groversaurus in a Caravan Ori201,@TheHunDude and @JpFlyingHigh in XCubs, @PowerCreep in a 207 (wich i dont have the model)

@PowerCreep in a 207 on the starting line

@JpFlyingHigh Taildragger XCub

@TheHunDude tricycle

@Groversaurus Caravan

And the usual shenanigans

And final arrival