Feature: River Cruises - The Nile Part 2
Published on 04-30-2009 09:00 AM
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title></title>
<style type="text/css">
div.c1 {text-align: center}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="c1">
<h1>River Cruises - The Nile Part 2</h1>
<h3>By Derek Swanson (30 April 2009)</h3>
</div>
<h3>The White Nile</h3>
<p><span class="dropcap">T</span>he Nile is 4,132 miles long and
has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The
previous flight covered the route from Luxor to Khartoum. This
flight traces the White Nile from Khartoum to its source at Lake
Victoria in Uganda.</p>
<p>Since the default FS2004 scenery in this area is rather bland, I
strongly recommend the installation of three freeware files -
<a href=
"/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fname=upregyp2.zip">
Egypt scenery</a>, <a href=
"/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fname=hsss.zip">
Khartoum Airport</a> and <a href=
"/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&match=egypt+mesh+fs2004">
Egypt mesh</a>. I also used <a href=
"http://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=102&products_id=1999"
target="_blank">FScene Europe</a>, and an FS2002 river width
enhancement <a href=
"/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fname=newriver.zip">
NEWRIVER.ZIP</a>.</p>
<div class="c1"><a href=
"/images/features/river2/image001.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river2/t/image001.jpg" width="250" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a> <a href=
"/images/features/river3/image003.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image003.jpg" width="250" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a> <a href=
"/images/features/river3/image005.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image005.jpg" width="250" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a></div>
<p>Leaving Khartoum (HSSS), the river is easy to follow with its
many midstream islands. The surrounding terrain continues to be
sandy and barren for the first few miles and although it does
become greener as you move south, it remains flat and rather
featureless. Renk (HSRN) is the first airport on our route, over
200 miles south of Khartoum and has a grass strip of just over
1000m, so choose your plane carefully if you intend to land here.
The river continues to be broad with midstream islands for most of
the trip to Renk and given the rather uninteresting terrain you may
choose to set the autopilot and advance the sim rate.</p>
<p>The next airport is Malakal (HSSM) which is near a small town of
the same name and is a little more civilized than Renk, having an
asphalt runway of around 1800m. After Malakal the Nile starts a
westerly deviation. This stretch of river includes a series of
interconnecting lakes and significant areas of green vegetation,
with tributaries arising from these areas on both sides of the
river. As the Nile bends south again, the green terrain fades back
to a more arid nature. After the section with the lakes, the Nile
is rendered by FS2004 as a thin ribbon which at times is broken,
although its path can still be traced through the broad plain in
which it sits. A little further on the river seems to disappear
altogether but if you keep flying south with the GPS map open you
can follow the valley bed until the river re-emerges after a second
lake complex.</p>
<p>From here to the next airport - Bor (HSBR) - the river sits in a
very wide bed flanked by luscious green terrain. Once again the
river bed is filled with a series of lakelets, perhaps representing
the river in a dry season. Bor is rendered in FS2004 as a short
dirt strip so for a better landing place you must wait until you
reach Juba (HSSJ) 80nm miles further south. Note that if you are
landing at Bor it has a 1300m dirt runway with a telegraph pole and
a street light directly in line with the south runway which you
need to clear on take-off !!</p>
<div class="c1"><a href=
"/images/features/river3/image007.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image007.jpg" width="250" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a> <a href=
"/images/features/river3/image009.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image009.jpg" width="250" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a> <a href=
"/images/features/river3/image011.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image011.jpg" width="250" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a></div>
<p>About 50nm north of Juba there is a large island in the middle
of the river - a good navigation marker. 13nm north of Juba there
is a solitary hill - the first seen on this flight - and portends
the higher ground we'll encounter later. FS2004 depicts Juba
sitting in a box-shaped depression so care is needed on approach to
avoid overshooting the runway on landing and avoiding the "hump"
after takeoff. Beyond Juba the White Nile narrows again and in the
distance the hills appear that mark the border with Uganda. There
are a few more dirt airstrips on your route if you wish to take
advantage of them but real destination is Entebbe (HUEN), on the
shore of Lake Victoria - the source of the White Nile.</p>
<p>Just before the Ugandan border, the Nile once again reverts to a
ribbon which is joined by tributaries from the higher ground. Just
past the first peak the river takes a south-westerly curve around
the high ground, so at the first "fork", take the stream to the
right - going south, even though this appears to be the smaller of
the two. There are several other "forks" to navigate over the next
few miles and each time the southerly and westerly route should be
taken. A lake soon appears on the horizon and this is the bearing
to take. If you follow the river closely it bends a number of times
but eventually leads to the lake. The GPS map can be of assistance
in navigating this area. From here you follow the valley, passing a
few more small lakes until the very large Lake Albert is reached.
Once again, using the GPS map at an appropriate zoom level can help
with navigation down this valley. At the point where the wide
outflow from Lake Albert appears, the elevation mesh makes it look
as though the river we've been following feeds into the lake rather
than flows out from it, but such is FS2004!</p>
<div class="c1"><a href=
"/images/features/river3/image013.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image013.jpg" width="350" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a> <a href=
"/images/features/river3/image015.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image015.jpg" width="350" height="200"
border="0" alt=""></a></div>
<p>A little while after the two bridges (which sadly, are too low
to fly under), the lake proper is reached and although the White
Nile does flow out of Lake Albert, this is not the true source.
There is a ribbon river which joins Lake Albert from the left at
the narrow point of the junction of Lake Albert and the Nile
outflow. This is the next bit of river to follow as it originates
from Lake Victoria a few miles to the east. The ribbon soon becomes
a much wider river which is easy to follow.</p>
<a href="/images/features/river3/image017.jpg"><img src=
"/images/features/river3/t/image017.jpg" align="right" width="350"
height="200" border="0" alt=""></a>
<p>With real weather enabled I encountered some unexpected low
cloud with thunder and lightning at this point. I also encountered
another bridge and happily, this one was flyable.</p>
<p>When the next set of lakes is reached, you must keep to the
right to find the outflow (actually the inflow) at the far end,
then follow the narrow channel between the oddly shaped island and
the right bank. The GPS map is a good help navigating this bit and
there are another couple of ribbon-river sections before you reach
the vast expanse of Lake Victoria. Entebbe is a few miles west of
our entry point to the lake and the airport sits on one of the many
peninsulas that protrude into the lake. Although classed as an
"International" airport this is not suggested by FS2004's
rendition, although runway 17 does have an ILS (<a href=
"/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&match=entebbe+scenery">better
scenery</a> is available). Landing here is very satisfying, knowing
that you're at the end of a very long journey. Our Nile odyssey is
not yet, however, complete. We've yet to fly the final section,
Luxor to the Mediterranean Sea...</p>
<p>Happy Flying.</p>
<p class="signature">Derek Swanson<br>
<a href=
"mailto:derek.swanson10@virgin.net">
derek.swanson10@virgin.net</a><br>
<br>
<a href="/vbfs/content.php?1916">Read The Nile - Part 1</a><br>
<a href="/vbfs/content.php?12250">Read The Nile - Part
3</a><br></p>
</body>
</html>
Tag Cloud
