Where did you fly today ?

Took off from the Grand Canyon National Park Airport (KGCN) using live weather. Flew into the Grand Canyon presumably in violation of numerous laws and regulations. Discovered it is actually pretty easy even with a Cessna 172. Flew anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 feet below the rim, following the Colorado River.

 

Then a storm began approaching, and also I got a little bored, so I exited the Canyon and landed in gusty conditions at some air strip I didn't know existed right next to the GC edge. It's apparently the Grand Canyon Airport (KGRM), as opposed to the Grand Canyon National Park Airport.

 

I am unable to learn virtually anything from google about KGRM. Aviation sites list KGRM as another airport in Minnesota. Sky Vectors does not show it on the map. Very mysterious.

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I recall landing at this airport many years ago whilst in holiday. We took off from Vegas in 80 degrees and landed at Grand Canyon airport where there was snow on the ground and a roaring log fire going. Surreal.

 

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Wow. Well, now I'll just have to find the time to drive out there some day, somehow. Although I live part-time in northern Arizona, this is unfortunately on the North Rim of the Canyon. Google says it's over 3 hours to drive there just from Flagstaff (and I'm an hour south of Flagstaff).

I need more real-life pilot buddies.

Woke up early this morning and decided to fly in India with live weather, since the sun was about to set there. Flew from Jaipur to Khetri, two places in Rajasthan that I have family connections to.

The countryside scenery for India is pretty realistic, based on my driving those stretches in years past, and the overall lay-out of Jaipur (a huge city) is also impressive. But it is tragic that India's amazing and large palaces, forts and ancient temples can't be seen yet. Someone, somewhere needs to do an India scenery project.

In my early 30s I took a solo trip to Fiji for a couple of weeks. At my hotel in the capital, Suva, I ran into a crusty old Vietnam vet and a buddy of his who was from the country of Senegal. Unbelievably, the Senegalese man and I were both students at the University of Arizona at the same time and had met each other before, in Tucson. Anyone want to debate whether it's really a small world or not?

Anyway, the two of them persuaded me to go with them to a small resort they were trying to build up on a remote island. So off we flew to the Fijian island of Kadavu, from which we took a tiny motorboat to the smaller island of Ona. It was awesome.

This evening I noticed that it was raining hard in Fiji and the sun was going to set. So I set out to find out what the airport in Kadavu looked like. Ugh, such a disappointment, Microsoft. The airport is not there. Neither is the modest village, the boat docks, or any of the human life that exists on the real island. It was just a plain grass field. I did manage to land on it and then take off. I flew to another island at which there is also supposed to be a small airport, but again, nothing but flat grass.

Fiji in general is pretty screwed up in MSFS land. I'm guessing most of the Polynesian, isolated island countries are. That's too bad. Attached is the Kadavu airport on Google Maps. On Bing.com, it's not visible at all.

The storm and rain effects were absolutely spectacular, with the VR headset. The clouds are amazing to float through.

Logged a short 12min flight from Goroka to Chimbu Papua New Guinea (PNG) today. ICAO codes AYGA and AYCH. These are mountain top RWYs mostly set in the clouds. Lots of forest covered mountains. Villages where just generic building blocks. Flight inspiration I got from Missionary Bush Pilot on YouTube. Ron

Went down a major rabbithole regarding Amelia Earhart. I'm even halfway done watching the movie with Hillary Swank.

Research by TIGHAR seems to virtually confirm, in my opinion, that Amelia crash-landed at Nikumaroro Island in the Republic of Kiribati, which is precisely along the "157 337 line" she mentioned in her last radio transmission from the air. Nikumaroro is about 350 nm distance from Howland Island, her planned destination. The direction from one to the other? Very close to 337 degrees going north, or 157 degrees going south (actual angles: 330 degrees going north, or 150 degrees going south).

Both of these islands are among the most isolated land-based places on earth. I had a work project to tackle and several work phone calls. So I took off from Canton Airfield in Kiribati, which is the closest runway (though apparently unmanned) to Nikumaroro, and was mostly on autopilot while working away. Distance = 204 nm.

Nikumaroro in MSFS world is stunningly close to real life. Maybe on purpose, they got the exact dimensions and even the general vegetation of this barren strip of land correct. I landed on it, probably close to where she actually did, and shut off the engine for a few minutes. It was a pretty wild sensation, and I felt real sadness at the thought of her and Fred Noonan landing here, surviving for at least several days (confirmed by evidence of radio transmissions), but never being located. We don't actually know how she died, since she survived the landing and was able to build fires, and eat fish, turtles and birds for a while. Since Noonan was evidently seriously injured, he may have died quickly, leaving her alone. Awful.

I took off and flew to Howland Island in similar conditions. It's a US-owned island and is also realistically depicted, and easy to land on. In real life though, it would be extremely difficult to find from the air, using visibility only (no GPS). Really what killed Amelia was simply the choice to target, as her final destination of her world tour, the most difficult destination of her world tour in the middle of the ocean.

Toldya it was a rabbithole.

If you're really a fan of TIGHAR's so-called "proofs"? Let me tell you about the Bigfoot I've been chasing in my local forest preserve. It's been a struggle for sure.

They ran out of fuel over the open ocean, hit the water and sank. Not as great a tale, but IMHO reality doesn't always make for a captivating tale.

:rolleyes:

If you're really a fan of TIGHAR's so-called "proofs"? Let me tell you about the Bigfoot I've been chasing in my local forest preserve. It's been a struggle for sure.

 

They ran out of fuel over the open ocean, hit the water and sank. Not as great a tale, but IMHO reality doesn't always make for a captivating tale.

 

:rolleyes:

There's probably an old thread somewhere where we should continue this if it keeps on :D ... but, yeah TIGHAR's research is pretty impressive. Amazing coincidences that skeptics have not been able to explain away:

* Physical artifacts at Niku including an American skin cream product used only by white women.

* Bones on the island analyzed by British doctors in 1940 who concluded they belonged to a European-origin male. Except they were wrong. It was a female.

* Confirmed radio transmissions by the U.S. Coast Guard and professional radio operators of Earhart's distress signals, for days after she was lost.

* Lockheed Corporation confirming that it is not possible to transmit distress signals if their plane was in the water. It had to be on the ground somewhere.

There's much more. I'm persuaded.

I flew to the location of the glacier collapse at Joshimath India. I started out at the airport Neilends mentioned last week, which MSFS calls Rudraprayag India, but which is actually in a town called Gauchar (30°17'6.29"N 79° 9'34.84"E). There is something secretive and mysterious about the airport at Gauchar, it is listed as being fully functional, but "not open to domestic flights". Joshimath is about 27 miles NE of the Gaucher airport on a heading of about 52°.

I have not found the location stated anywhere for where that exact canyon is; once you get to the Joshimath area you encounter several candidates. But you can't explore those canyons very easily in an airplane because they are so narrow; so once I got to the area around Joshimath I deployed the drone, which opened up a whole new world. With the drone you can get down low and operate in those narrow canyons and the landscape detail blossoms. Also, if you bump into a canyon wall with the drone it's no big deal, with a plane you'd be back to the main menu.

I think I found the power plant that was washed away, but I can't be sure. It's easy to imagine the awesome power from that wall of rock and water roaring down the narrow canyon.

I flew to the location of the glacier collapse at Joshimath India. I started out at the airport Neilends mentioned last week, which MSFS calls Rudraprayag India, but which is actually in a town called Gauchar (30°17'6.29"N 79° 9'34.84"E). There is something secretive and mysterious about the airport at Gauchar, it is listed as being fully functional, but "not open to domestic flights". Joshimath is about 27 miles NE of the Gaucher airport on a heading of about 52°.

 

I have not found the location stated anywhere for where that exact canyon is; once you get to the Joshimath area you encounter several candidates. But you can't explore those canyons very easily in an airplane because they are so narrow; so once I got to the area around Joshimath I deployed the drone, which opened up a whole new world. With the drone you can get down low and operate in those narrow canyons and the landscape detail blossoms. Also, if you bump into a canyon wall with the drone it's no big deal, with a plane you'd be back to the main menu.

 

I think I found the power plant that was washed away, but I can't be sure. It's easy to imagine the awesome power from that wall of rock and water roaring down the narrow canyon.

Very cool. I intend to revisit that area in FS some time. As I mentioned earlier, I've been to the area in person but I was pretty young, so I asked my mom for details and she took out the ol' photo album. We actually drove from our home base of Jaipur (Rajasthan, flat desert) all the way to nearby Manali, which is a horrendously long journey in Indian conditions. We then hired a driver who took us up those canyons in an old jeep, to what is called the Rautang Pass. That I remember clearly because there were moments when I looked down from the jeep and there were only inches to go on the road. It was terrifying. Not sure if a plane would be any less scary given those canyon walls.

Google Earth knows where Rohtang Pass is:

32°22'14.22"N 77°14'47.36"E

Pretty curvy road there!

After several successful ragged, landing-pattern landings in a Cessna 172 at our local muni airport in Watsonville (Santa Cruz County), I set a flight plan from Watsonville to King City, in the heart of the Salinas Valley. (For Steinbeck fans, King City and environs were home to the Trask Ranch in East of Eden.) I worked in King City, and my family and I lived in Greenfield, about 12 miles north in the early '70s (and later in Salinas), so the Salinas Valley is familiar territory for me. Taking off from R20 at Watsonville in the 172, I headed south toward Salinas and followed Highway 101 down the valley toward King City at about 2,500 feet. I chose live weather for the flight, which was no problem, as the skies were clear here anyway, and crosswinds were only about 2 kts. In the real world, temperatures were in the high 60s. (Californiaaaaah!)

There are three towns between Salinas and King City--in N to S order, Gonzalez, Soledad (home of the prison), and Greenfield. I meant to note each one as I flew down Highway 101. I spotted Gonzales, then confused Soledad with Greenfield (Soledad has grown a bunch since I lived down that way), and then mistook Greenfield for King City, and to make matters worse, mistook a dirt airstrip on the Valley's eastern flank (best suited for crop dusters) for King City's airport. I missed an approach, climbed, and turned back to the downwind leg when I saw in the distance one of those cheat-signs in the sky for the King City airport.

Embarrassed--because I shoulda known better, having flown out of the King City airport as a passenger in a twin-engine Beechcraft once (as a passenger)--I continued south to King City and its Mesa Del Rey airfield (which is sorta on a mesa in that it's at a higher elevation than the town). I missed a couple of approaches initially. (I tend to turn onto final too high.) But the third time was the charm, or or less, as I was able to get the plane down and stall it a few feet off the runway, pretty well lined up with the centerline. Chalked up another 46 minutes of flight time, and got more comfortable with flying a Skyhawk.

In Fiji, where I have visited, the main international airport is actually located on the opposite end of the island from Fiji's largest city and capital (Suva). Since I actually hung out in Suva, I decided to take off from the airport there--Nausori International--though I didn't land there IRL. I used live weather, and the raw strength of this amazing software really muscled its way through my experience.

When leaving Suva the weather was sunny and nice. As I got closer to my next destination of Koro Island though, a storm blew in. First, in sunny conditions, I saw clouds and then amazingly I saw lightning strikes, horizontal ones, as I approached the storm like a suicidal idiot. Graphics for this: incredible. Then of course I entered the storm, and visibility dropped completely to zero. I could not find Koro Airport at all, no chance in hell, so I decided to quasi-pretend I was IRL and move on to another airport.

At Savusavu (NFNS), the clouds parted just slightly enough for me to get my bearings and spot the airport. It was just barely enough to properly land. I did one more stretch to Labasa (NFNL), which I barely survived, before stopping. Oh, did I mention that there were rainbows too? See below.

These experiences from a mere computer simulation and game/program are memorable, and mind-blowing. The game is simply amazing.

I was flying in Mexico when I got a work call I needed to handle. I didn't know the world of aviation was so demanding. All I did was handle the call for a good 20 minutes or so. When I got back to my screen, I was greeted by this confusing vision. Looks like grass blades?

Going to external view solved the mystery, but what really cracked me up was that the plane was literally sliding down this mountain it had crashed into, slowly. I guess I had turned off crash detection:

Over the last few days, I've been flying gradually from the Fijian capital of Suva, over to the French territorial islands of Wallis & Futuna, landing in the country of Samoa--not to be mistaken with American Samoa, the U.S. territory.

Upon arriving in Pago Pago, Samoa, I decided to do a bit of short island-hopping using the VR headset. It continues to blow me away, even though there is obvious room for improvement. By the time I landed at Ofu Island, some 40 nm from Pago Pago, the sun had just barely set. I landed with a beautiful sunset. Then, still in VR mode, I pulled up to the gas facility, turned off the engine, and turned off all the batteries and power.

My "flashlight" automatically turned on. Sitting on this dark and isolated, quiet island, I could turn my head and actually see the entire fuel contraption outside, see the grass blades on the ground, the interior of the plane, all as if I was wearing a headlamp. The movement is very crisp and real.

Still a work in progress though. As the stars popped out in the sky, they were much too big to look real. Nighttime VR graphics are better, but the in-between period right after the sun sets was pretty fake-feeling because of the stars. The sunset colors were pretty cool.

Enjoying the level of detail/description being shared about adventures!

Had an enjoyable flight from 2O3 Angwin to KRBG Roseburg. Both are areas I used to frequent with fond memories. Angwin is almost 2000 ft up on a hill in Norcal's wine country. I highly recommend looking it up at dusk or dawn.