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It was for Christmas 1999 that my wife bought me FS2000 - the first computer sim I had flown in about 15 years! Almost a year later, November of 2000, I was honored to have my first article published on FlightSim.Com. To celebrate these momentous occasions I thought it would be appropriate to fly something, somewhere, and write about it.
My first article was an around the world tour and subsequent to that I have written a couple other features about flying or touring Around The Virtual World. More recently I've completed a year-long, 69-leg around the world tour using only Dash-8 variations (you can read about that at http://dash-8rtw.blogspot.com/)
One of the things that most excited me about getting a "modern" sim like FS2000 was the opportunity to fly "the big commercial jets." Well, that's all great but I have also discovered the wonderful world of turboprops! So, I set out to find a turboprop tour that would NOT involve using a Dash-8. Some options that floated around were Sydney to Tromso and Nome to Punta Arenas but nothing really seemed right. One quiet evening I was sitting on the bed staring at the wall-sized map we have when it hit me, "Twenty-Degrees East Longitude" I said out loud.
My wife was like, "WHAT?"
With that I was on the hunt for just the right aircraft, finally settling on ... the Do-328. I'd fly from Tromso to Cape Town roughly along the 20° east longitude line. This would take me from the arctic over northern Europe and the Alps, across my favorite area (the Mediterranean) and onto the deserts of northern Africa - If I survived that I'd be over some central African jungle, along the great Congo River (below, left) and then over the Kalahari before reaching the Indian Ocean. This should give us plenty to look at and talk about. So it was that in Mid-October I set out on this my next great sim adventure!
Day One, Pre-Dawn Departure From Tromso, Norway: At this point I wasn't sure how far I'd get but the book says I should be able to make about 1,500 to 1,800 miles - 'course I'd be setting my cruise to only 13,000 feet in hopes of seeing something below. Real-weather had me in the midst of a light snowstorm but winds weren't bad (above, right). I taxied out for a northbound departure behind a Caravan and an Airbus and then headed south.
We crossed over Kiruna (above, left) and Umea Sweden (above, center) before setting out across the Gulf of Bothnia. Our next waypoint was Mariehamn and to me the collection of islands looks like they were dropped and shattered in the middle of the Baltic (above, right). At this point I had flown 580 miles and used 48% of my gas - looks like I'll need to make a minor tweak of the config file to add a little more mileage. Seems like a long way to travel in such a small (30 passenger) plane but we were making good time at nearly 300 knots and only 67% power!
I was back over landfall at Kaliningrad (above, left) and landed up in Warsaw, Poland (above, right). Man! This thing really floats with the flaps down - I was riding along at about 8 feet for a LONG WAY (below, left). Guess I need to attend to the condition levers a bit better, and get slower on final! So we parked up after 1,059 miles and just about 4 hours - 5:30 AM to 9:20 AM; great, just in time for breakfast! I parked with 12% fuel remaining, that including reserves (below, right).
So ... having tweaked the config file slightly and gotten some breakfast I figured I could make up to two, four-hour flights per day. After a quick bus trip into Warsaw I found some lunch and then headed back out to the airport for my next flight. Despite my newly-improved fuel economy I wanted to spend extra time in Europe and the Mediterranean, so I had a shorter flight in store for this the first afternoon. I also knew that I'd be looking at some long and remote flights across Libya and Chad in the next couple of days and wanted to be well-ready for that! I climbed aboard the Sudtirol Air Alps livery and started my pre-flight and start-up checks.
I departed Warsaw about 1:30 in the afternoon (above, left) and headed ... you got it, south. Waypoints included Tatry, Belgrade (above, center) and Tirana before I finally started my descent into Kerkina, Greece runway 17 (above, right). This proved to be quite a scenic flight (below, left) although nothing like a trip from Warsaw to La Palma! I arrived in Corfu just after 4 PM (below, right), making the 748 miles with a ground speed just around 300!
Day Two, A Shorter, Single Leg From Greece To Libya: One flight today - just the blue Mediterranean below. I departed Greece after almost 24 hours, leaving at 15:45 in the afternoon (below, left). I made the 450-mile crossing in about 90 minutes but oh man - was it ever windy along the Libyan coast (below, left-center)! Descent and final was BUMPY (below, right-center) but we arrived safely just before dark (below, right).
Day Three, The Expansive North African Desert Crossing: The next morning (there is nothing like awakening to warm breezes, palm trees and sung prayers!) I headed back out to the Benghazi Airport (below, left) and (packing some supplies this time) started getting a north African livery ready to go (below, center). Airports and waypoints are few and far between over Libya and Chad (unless you are planning on flying a bunch of zig-zags) so I figured I should err on the side of caution and plan today's stops specifically - landing on a road in the middle of Chad could get a guy lost ... or dead (below, right)!
Part one: I'd cruise at 21,000 feet today to give me a little more lee-way. Part two: it's just under 1,300 miles to Am Timan in southern Chad, I should make that with about four emergency waypoints along the way (below, left). I looked up the following information:
"Am Timan is the capital of the region of Salamat, it has the area's secondary school and a clinic, and hosts large market day and holiday celebrations. The city's sand airport was upgraded by the French Foreign Legion in 1971 to allow military air transports to supply the anti-rebel effort. At the time, the only practical way in or out of the city was by air. The dry season lasts for about ten months of the year; water becomes a problem as the dry season progresses. Aquifers are accessed by digging deeper and deeper into the bed of the Bahr Salamat River which flows strong and dangerously with the onset of rain."
I arrived safely into Am Timan before 10 AM and spent two-plus hours at the market getting breakfast and a couple of keep-sakes. Then I switched into an Equitorial Express livery (above, left) (looks like the old Gabon Express) and continued on a shorter segment (700 miles) over the Central African Republic (above, center) to M'bandaka, Democratic Congo, along the mighty Congo River (above, right) - arriving at 16:30 local time.
Day Four, Equator To Northern Namibia: Continuing on the fourth day, I departed at noon for the flight over Southern Congo and Angola (below, left). As many have noted in the past, Microsoft has really done a poor job of reproducing this amazing and scenic continent - this was a fear I had in attempting this 1,113-mile leg. (For the lack of sim scenery, I've included some real-world photos from Google.)
Having left M'bandaka at noon (below, left) I arrived at 16:00 into the out-of-the-way place known as Rundu (Roon-Doo) (below, center) in far northern Namibia (below, right).
"In 1936 Rundu became seat of the local governor and replaced Nkurenkuru as capital of the Kavango district. Originally little more than a bus stop for the early colonialists, the town has since grown into a multilingual city which has about 203,000 residents, several schools including higher educational facilities and medical clinics." I easily found a decent room along the banks of the Okavango River (below, center) and spent a quiet, restful night (below, right).
Day Five, The Final Push: Up with the dawn I made my way back out to the airport and fired up a "Kudu" repaint for the final flight down to Cape Town (below, left), I was figuring about 975 miles (below, right).
It was not nearly so scenic as it should have been.
I came in over Cape Town from the north, staying to the east of the main AI traffic until I had a break big enough to duck into the queue. I could easily make out Robbin island to the right (below, left) and the Heidelburg district on my left (below, right).
Maybe someday I'll get to visit Cape Town again - in the real world I mean!
Winds were gusty and quartering but certainly nothing like I had experienced in Libya and by shortly after noon I was shut down and looking for a flight to Tokyo. (Why Tokyo? Watch for my next adventure to find out .....)
This feature covered 6,345 miles over five days. Thanks again to all my fellow flightsimmers for reading this "story".
Ron Blehm
cubflounder@gmail.com
www.toomuchfs.com
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