It is 3 o'clock in the morning when we start our imaginary taxi for an early departure across the Atlantic expecting to make landfall at dawn over Brazil. Make that 3 o'clock virtual too.

Our mount, D-ALCM, flies regularly this Dakar - Campinhas leg for real under the Lufthansa Cargo livery. Dependable with 16 years under the wings, she earns her keep day in and day out no matter where - Hong Kong, Memphis, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Mexico, Novosibirsk, Buenos Aires, Chicago, whatever it takes.

A few figures to get some perspective, this exercise never fails to amaze me, no matter how much taken for granted the result may be in the end. Assume conservatively 15 daily hours flying to allow for turnarounds and a conservative 400 kt mean speed. Also assume 25 days a month to allow for scheduled maintenance spread throughout a year. This translates to a ballpark of 1,800,000 nm or 3,240,000 km depending on how about the mark my assumptions fall. Now, the mean Earth - Moon distance is about 385,000 km, then any given year our MD11 makes the equivalent of over four round trips to our natural satellite. This may sound naive or we have grown so used that it does not make a point, yet I never fail to be impressed. Getting to this is the result not only of technology matured over decades, but also of a business operation engineered in a way that makes this flying self sustaining and profitable, which is doubly remarkable in the end.

But we have the Atlantic to cross now, and it will take about 3000 km to reach South America. Which is almost exactly what Alcock and Brown had to fly in their modified Vickers Vimy WWI bomber on June 14-15, 1919. While we effortlessly cruise in shirtsleeves leaving to automation the task of flying, Alcock and Brown fought for 15 hours the whole gamut from snowstorm to freezing, to rain, to mechanical failures, only getting some help from coffee and reportedly some "volatile" additive smuggled in ... No matter the flight was cut short when what looked like a nice grassy filed to land on ended up being a swamp, they were the first to jump the pond in a single go, airwise.

/i

Talking about Atlantic crossings, several years ago I was particularly attached to that legendary workhorse, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules and was looking for a good photoreal, functional panel for FS98. What this has to do with the Atlantic you will see shortly. Not satisfied with what was available at least as freeware, I took to build my own C-130 panel. By then - early 1998 - I was developing some serious software for a customer in C and had acquired Microsoft C/C++ Visual Studio. This, and the publicly available FS98 SDK, made for a nice chance to experiment. Armed with a demo but functional version of Photofinish that shipped with a handheld scanner, some looking around and experimenting with actual cockpit shots plus lots of patience, I built my own version. For that I borrowed a hodgepodge of gauges more or less good looking no matter how close to the real thing, but what I could not find at least to satisfaction was the center stack of engine gauges, so those were the ones I designed and built from scratch, from dial templates to needles to dynamic library modules. That panel I uploaded to FlightSim.Com, in May 1998 (rac130p0.zip), making briefly into the top 10 downloads, got a little over 8000 by now, and had then some nice feedback from users all over the world.

Whatever, the idea was to have a reasonably functional panel for the Herk and go places with it which I did with enthusiasm. Crisscrossed America and went down to Antartica, found and installed a base in my scenery and built another in King George Island with the tools available for FS98 featured here in FlightSim.Com. King George Island is where the Uruguay Antartic Base is located adjacent to the Chilean base which operates the runaway. When the Uruguay base was first deployed in December 1984, supplies and personnel were flown in with a tired Fokker F27 specially fitted with internal auxiliary bladder tank to extend range. There were two F27s and two identical Farichilds in our Air Force, one of the Fairchilds fell in the Andes, you know the story of the rugby team of whom a score of survivors were eventually rescued after two young players walked their way out of the mountain to find help. It will be permanently etched in my retina the diamond formation of the four planes I once saw, well before that tragedy. None is flying any more now.

Back to the antarctic base resupply, the hop from Punta Arenas had to be decided on a brink when weather just looked good and hopefully acceptable for the return trip. Drill being basically cross fingers, be ready to turn around immediately less risk being stranded. In more than one occasion the resupply trip had to abort midway because of deteriorating weather or higher than forecast winds or whatever nature happened to throw at on those unwelcoming high latitudes. It was only later that the trusty Fokker was relieved by four newly acquired (second hand) C130's, taking supply duty in a much more relaxed manner with speed, endurance and altitude capabilities at their favor.

Then of course I had to make the Atlantic crossing which is why I digressed, only my idea was by the southerly, longer route which meant I needed a stepping stone, Ascension Island ideally located for the role. Problem was Ascension Island was nowhere to be found, neither in the FS98 scenery nor in any other scenery collection as far as I was able to check then. But what the heck! It is 1998 and Internet times and there are tools and information out there waiting to be recruited for the occasion, so go do some research and build it from scratch!

For the location and layout I found a good map in the Web, and Ascension being a small island, just traced the contour by hand. For the mountains - Ascension is a volcanic island tipping out from the mid Atlantic ridge - I found a scenery shapes tool for that purpose on FlightSim.Com; sorry I do not remember which one. With those tools and the elevation profiles included in said map, I assembled the scenery package complete with the Royal Air Force airstrip located true to reality which was the purpose of the whole exercise.

Then after some test flying around, I set to make the crossing in my C130 with GPS as only tool to navigate up there. In order to complete the intended objectives of both crossing the Atlantic and making into Africa, a natural place for the Hercules to serve duty. The Hercules remains today an iconic workhorse for rough and difficult missions particularly in humanitarian and disaster relief duty after a very long career. A very long career like that of the Boeing 727 which can be found still now performing cargo duty, will be with this airliner shortly.

And after hours of mesmerizing cruise suspended high over the ocean, warm and cozy in the darkness, as if hurtling at more than 800 km/h inside an alumininum tube 10 km high in the stratosphere were a rather unsubstantial piece of information than something with a real meaning, we make to Brazil. Recife is a frequent stopover for Lufthansa cargo only less so than Campinhas which is the cargo hub for Sao Paulo, Brazil's commercial and industrial center of gravity.

Not surprisingly, Recife was one of the first settlements the Portuguese established in South America, being right in the easternmost corner of the continent. In its origins, fishing and later sugar cane trade were the main economic activites from its foundation in 1537 onwards. Trade, technology, health services and tourism are now powerful levers for a regional economy which affords one of the best places to live in Brazil in terms of quality of life.

Down the road among the stream of coastal waypoints before digging inland is Salvador. Salvador de Bahia is one of those places one cannot afford to miss given the slightest chance as is also the case for Rio, only be prepared to face some security issues, nothing that cannot be coped with basic commonsense. It was the first capital of Brazil until the role passed to Rio de Janeiro in 1763. Like Recife, Salvador's main export during the colonial period was sugar, being for some time the largest exporter worldwide.

One of the most widely known attractions in Salvador is the historical center which became known as "pelourinho", a reference to the central court where mostly slaves were punished. Recall the widespread sugar cane plantations were insatiable consumers of slave labor and Brazil inherits today a strong presence of descendants from those shadowy times.

Whatever, the historical center has been subject to careful restoration under the designation of cultural heritage by UNESCO. Of course Brazil's thousands of miles of Atlantic coastline are represented here by year round balmy wheather, sun, sand and blue and white surf to enjoy from all corners of the world through world class facilities and services.

Talking about sun, sand and surf, in Uruguay we used to boast not only of Punta del Este, but of our Atlantic coastline notwithstanding it being less than 200 km, good for just about four months in the year if you are looking for summertime. Yet it is surprising how much Brazilians flock to our tiny beaches considering their own gorgeous Atlantic coastlines. One frequently told reason is Uruguay features that kind of tranquility not often found in Brazil where security or just harrasement from street merchants play against otherwise paradisiacal locations as much as is the case for renowned international sun and sea resorts elsewhere.

I was flying (virtually) around here last year in the FSX Maule. How come? It was late 2015 and I was looking for something different after having completed three round the world trips with the Level-D 767 along different routes. Just for a change I selected the Maule and placed it in a random little field in Alaska. Shame I did not take notes, do not remember precisely which one, could not find it later. Whatever, after some frolicking around, decided to head south to some other airfield within less than 100 nm, and then another. Then I just let myself drift south, cross the coastal ranges near Valdez, kept jumping airport to airport never more than a couple of hundred miles away. After over a year flying low and slow I completed the trip to Montevideo, bad I did not keep a log, could have made for a good story, I remember well Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Guadalajara, Mexico DF, Oaxaca, Panama, Maracaibo, Isla Margarita, Paramaribo, Macapa and so on. No matter, I will sprinkle anecdotes as I can recall from that adventure in upcoming features.

So that's it, landed in Campinhas, made a quick turnover and launched again for Montevideo at last!

This leg is only 850 miles long and takes us down from the Brazilian planalto to the state of Rio Grande and finally to my home Uruguay. The flight path goes over Curitiba which not by chance is also a regular stopover for our MD11. Curitiba is a major economic hub for Brazil, and home for one of the most innovative public transportation systems integrating a network of buses of different capacities and speeds which served as inspiration for similar systems elewhere. While comparatively close to the coast, Curitiba sits on the Altiplano Paranaense, mean altitude about 3000 ft. so winter temperatures are lower than expected at this latitude while the ocean proximity damps otherwise expected large temperature excursions. While he was born in Rio, not Curitiba, there is a museum dedicated to Oscar Niemeyer, the long-lived architect responsible for the design from scratch of Brazil's capital, Brasilia, iconic in its urbanistic boldness.

Miles slip by underneath and we fly into Rio Grande do Sul, leave Porto Alegre abeam and finally cross into Uruguay airspace. Will leave for another occasion a more thorough introduction and rather race to a quick arrival, it's been a long trip from Dakar and the risk of being boring creeps up dangerously, so enough for the time being.

Here we are at last! In front is the new terminal opened to public December 2009, the older terminal which lays out of sight to the right being repurposed for cargo.

Sometimes I fear of running out of ideas for writing this series, but then start to remember this or that experience, or things learned, which seem to be never-ending. That I have been around for some time by now no doubt helps in this department, so if you can bear me along, we'll be sharing more in future installments. To meet exotic far away places, talk about many airplanes that left a mark in history, talk - why not - about inmersive experiences with fighter flight simulators, but then about great inspiring aviation writers like late Gordon Baxter or Len Morgan and much more.

Rodolfo Astrada