[Official] Community Fly-In Friday: Mount Everest

[SeedyL3205]

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, @Pieter2427, @FlightsWJoel, and @SimFlightPro
When: Friday, May 30 @ 1800Z for two hours.
2025-05-30T18:00:00Z
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

On May 29, 1953, Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary become the first two confirmed humans to reach the highest point on Earth, the summit of Mount Everest. To celebrate this triumph of humanity’s desire to explore our planet, the destination of our Fly-In event this week will be to Everest.

The flight plan also includes a departure and arrival at two of the world’s most iconic airports, Paro International Airport (VQPR) and Tenzing-Hillary Airport (VNLK), also known as Lukla Airport.

MSFS (2020) and MSFS 2024 Pilots on PC can download the .pln file here:
2025-05-30 Mount Everest.PLN (2.2 KB)

MSFS 2024 Pilots on both PC 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 Xbox console on our forums here.

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

AIRCRAFT

Recommended aircraft: Beechcraft Bonanza, Beechcraft Baron, Cessna C400 Corvalis TT, Cirrus SR22T, or any other plane of your choice with a cruise speed of 150+ knots. Please note that the summit of Everest is at ~29,000 feet AMSL, so keep the ceiling of your aircraft in mind when choosing what you fly this week.

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.

[RayGausman]

From Paro to Tumlingtar (full stop)

Departing from the handcrafted airport in Bhutan, Paro (VQPR)

My trusty King Air 350. How ever speed indication and some other details need some attention used it with simconnect for see my speeds and engine details.

Addicted to this airplane since the VIP NASA Shuttle mission in FSX.
Study every detail from the King Air professional pilot Tom Clements shared and made this knowledge my own. Looking forward the King Air has its fixes and is at least like it was in FS2020.

Landed just in time before bad weather takes over

From Tumlingtar to Lukla (full stop)

And there it is. Cruising at FL280

Landed at Lukla without a go around (using the official approach)

[DR0PB3AR63]

Communication is NEVER available to communicate on Discord. How can people talk if they’re blocked from all rooms that have multiplayer? I’m not the only person who wonders about this. There are messages about in the Multiplayer Discussion.

[RayGausman]

Wrong box? Not sure where you reacted on but it looks like a shot in the dark. Works fine.

[DR0PB3AR63]

Not the wrong box. It’s not a shot in the dark. I click on the Discord link, and every time multiple others and I are unable to get into the multiplayer rooms. Look in the Multiplayer Discussion. Very few rooms in Discord are available to even send messages

[RayGausman]

Did work for me even with the false birthday date 01-01-1837. Think you skipped some fields.

[ElkanDavid]

To reach the summit, my bet is on the Daher TBM

[DR0PB3AR63]

I enter normaly, using the link on the posts here, then get the invite. I go to the server, but cna’t talk to anyone.

[RayGausman]

If you ask me personal i would join the chat at Twitch and ignore Discord. Unless you can handle multiple windows (and flying a airplane) ^^

However i wish you all a good flight

[Nikrath]

Edorin and Nikrath on top of the Mount Everest.

[Newspawnz]

The avatar placement is just gold …
… first one without the aircraft, just the black character shape below the nameplate …

… second one in a pretty uncomfortable position …

[CriminalPilot]

Great flight all! Didn’t attempt everest this time around as I was a bit slow to keep up with the group, but I did make it up to about 24000 ft before making the approach to Lukla. Nice to see a few other aircraft hanging around on the apron when I got there

Climbing into some cloud at 20k+

[IceManDBB]

Well, I now know why I hate the Vision Jet. Too many automatics and security features!
It didn’t let me keep the speed on aproach just above stall, and the emergency auto thrust always kicked in. So was to fast and jumped over the edge into the wall at the end.
Great fun in a Motion Rig!
I never had the feeling of having full controll of the aircraft, it just wants to do and decide everything for you, where is the fun in that.
So started again and constantly deactivated autothrust until touchdown, keeping it just above stall and everything went fine.

Over the summit:

[IceManDBB]

@Newspawnz

… second one in a pretty uncomfortable position …

Well considering I darted it into the wall, that’s to be expected

[TheHunDude]

Great flight today! Decided to go with the P-40F, it had the service ceiling but unfortunately the altimeter stopped working at 20.000 feet so I had no idea how high I am when I approached Mount Everest. Also it couldn’t climb that fast so had to do a few circles around Everest to get a high enough altitude. I had to go around twice at Lukla as I was too high the first time, then too fast for the approach the second time. But after that I had probably my best landing ever in the P-40F. Although I didn’t know before landing that the airstrip is uphill.

[BlackCatsRIP]

[Orbitbold]

A great Friday evening once again, thanks to everyone involved.

I flew what is apparently becoming my favourite Fly-In aircraft, at least for flights that can’t be done with the Bell 407.

I fly with Live Weather whenever possible, and that’s what I initially selected today. I had to give that up rather soon, as it just wasn’t reasonable for the event.

Had a little meeting with the Overflights Aren’t Enough Society. This kind of stuff is SO much better than any AI- or Livetraffic could ever be.

The little pocket jet struggled at altitude, but what eventually prevented me from reaching the summit altitude was a CTD. I’m in the Beta, and the current build is known to be somewhat temperamental.

Back in the sim, I loaded straight into Lukla. I had never flown a jet into or out of Lukla, so I wanted to find out how this one would handle around this place. Slow speeds, thin air. My first attempt at a landing resulted in no such thing. Instead, my plane and I became one with the very planet that once gave life to us. The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away.

A second attempt wasn’t much better. The sim let me get away with it, because I had forgotten that the Dev Mode disables crash detection in it’s default configuration. But it was, again, not an actual landing, but a re-entry into the Earth’s lithosphere.

The third attempt was probably somewhat survivable, but still not pretty. But I took that as a success and was happy with this result for the day.

[ElkanDavid]

A fun community flight! The arrival at Lukla felt like a virtual reception with so many fellow sim pilots

[supertux76]