Heading to the East Coast

This will probably be my last flight for the next 5 months or so. I will be doing my mandatory military service near LTAJ (Gaziantep) during this period and hopefully will be back in January.
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I flew UPS 29 (fictional) from Denver to Pittsburgh. Block time for the 1140NM flight was 2 hours and 49 minutes. After putting in a few extra thousand pounds of fuel on what the PSS fuel planner gave me, together with the 170K ZFW my GW totaled to around 200K.

The winds were blowing from the East at Denver, 124/6 with 7 miles visibility and 16C. There were scattered clouds at 16000 feet.

After a short taxi from the cargo stand I lined up on 35L, took off and continued on the Plain4 departure and joined the J146 airway.

I made a mistake with my crosswind runway assignment, thus my tailwind take-off. I "tied" the runways in the wrong direction which resulted in 07-25 and 08-26 being the decisive runways. I'm not sure if xwind runways are a good idea at KDEN, I wonder how they use them in real life...?

Runway 35L, note the 07 and 08 landings on the ND


I forgot to turn on my weather radar which I noticed just after take-off. Never rush a flight...I was in a hurry to get in the air and have some breakfast.

Denver is a high altitude airport and you pass through 10000 feet in no time, especially in a 757.

Flying is better with clouds


I hit some mild turbulence in the clouds above giving the 757 a gentle bounce. The gentle bouncing continued all along the route. I also saw some storms over Chicago. Re-routing to avoid weather in real life must be a bitch, just like holding.

After the ACO VOR, I headed to cutta per the Cutta2 arrival and then proceeded to waypoint hadji. Just look at the name of that fix, really, how in the hell did they come up with that one...!?!

There were also other good ones like cofee, ideas and nasty near KPIT. From my experience, I can say that the US has a higher number of funny fix names when compared to other continents.

The PSS 757 VNAV has a step climb feature. My initial cruise altitude was 35000, after about 170NM I got the indication "S/C" on the ND and climbed to FL390.

ATIS indicated that the 28s were in use which meant a long downwind leg for me, arrgghh!! After some cursing at my luck I reset the CDU correctly and decided to descend in V/S mode for a change. Usually, I only use it below 10000 feet.

Surface winds were calm at KPIT with a ceiling of 15000 broken and 15C.

Downwind leg for 28R


According to the charts, major US airports are mostly "vectors to final" unless an RNAV or GPS approach is concerned. In Europe, however, a published STAR will usually take you all the way to the IAF which then is followed by the IAP. Those who are familiar with real world charts will understand what I mean. As FS ATC usually cannot provide accurate vectoring, I take the shortest route in HDG mode in these situations.

Short final 28R


I would have expected the Mach1 scenery to look better in the above shot. My rig is not top of the line as you can gather from my shots but the one above looks like it's from FS8. Don't get me wrong though, I'm a big fan of Mach1 airports and have enormous respect for their work.

The landing was not bad, I just touched down slightly right of the centerline. An AI was landing just behind me so I vacated the runway as soon as possible. I tend to be courtois to my AI even if the behaviour isn't always mutual.

After taxi, I parked and shut down on the North cargo ramp.

On the ramp at KPIT, cool aircraft the 757


Needless to say, I have no idea what and where my next flight will be, it won't be before 6 months at the best. I'll have a lot of time to think about it, as a matter of fact I'll probably have enough time to plan my FS schedule for the next 10 years!

Happy landings to all and thanks for viewing

Over The Rockies

My flight started with every simmer's worst nightmare, CTD! 5 minutes into it actually. I reloaded the flight for a second attempt and just as I was pushed back, bang! Another one. I opened the scenery folder of the addon scenery and removed a certain AF2 file related to a heliport or something. My third attempt was succesful. CTDs are extremely frustrating and if it happens mid-flight I get so pissed off I don't retry. Luckily this time it came on the ramp.

Anyway, I flew with the Fedex 737W for this review, an obviously fictional livery but one I love for its looks with the huge winglets. From what I gathered on flightaware, CYVR - KDEN seems to be flown usually by United A319s and B733s, I don't have any of these so I just picked the NG from my hanger.

Take-off weight for this 1000NM flight was roughly 120K lbs, with a 20K fuel load.

The flightaware route took me to the J52 airway continuing on an easterly heading to the OCS VOR then to CHR via J163 where I entered the STAR gate for the Tomsn4 arrival.

Total block time was 2 hours and 35 minutes. (thanks to a mild tailwind)

CYVR weather was winds 279/14, 15 miles visibility and 26C

After a very short taxi of a minute or two I lined up on 26R and departed straight away without stopping.

"V1, Rotate!" Rwy 26R


Not surprisingly, traffic was dense at Vancouver with a lot of arriving and departing. I heard a KLM MD-11 departing to Amsterdam just before me.

Once I climbed to around 3000 feet, in some mild turbulence, I turned left and headed to YVR to join J52. The turbulent conditions continued upto 10000 feet.

Spokane airport was on my route. FRF has a good freeware rendition of KGEG if you're interested. As a fan of smaller airports I like it very much. As a matter of fact, I might do a flight there for my future reviews.

Climbing towards the mountains, joining the J52 airway


I don't know how cruise flight went since I wasn't in front of my computer. I ate a sandwich (no, Al, not the tunafish sandwich, I was out of tuna!) while watching a couple of my favorite TV shows. All was well when I sat back in the cockpit after about 2 hours to start my descent planning.

I'm not sure but I think I flew over the Yellowstone National park or at least a portion of it.

Cruising at FL370, lovely sunset


I had initially planned a 16L arrival according to the preflight forecast for Denver. It appeared the weather hadn't changed and I was cleared to visual 16L. FS database does not have this runway so the ILS approach goes out of the window, not a problem if you fly with real world charts though.

Also, before the flight, I had put in crosswind runways at KDEN so there were arrivals for 25 and 26 as well.

As I mentioned in an earlier review, waypoint names can sometimes be very entertaining. The Tomsn4 arrival has a few like FROGS, HYGEN (must be a very clean lat/lon!) and SHAFT. I was also very amused to see the name of a good friend "ALLAN".

BTW, if you fly your PMDG in the US, be sure to use Dan Downs' sid/stars files as they are excellent, you don't get unwanted DISCOs or any other common flaws.

Winds at KDEN were 216/10 with a few clouds at 10000 feet and 17C. I was hoping for some crosswind for an exciting approach but it wasn't enough for serious crabbing. Still, I always love to handfly my final approaches.

Short final, rwy 16L


My landing was good and I slowed down easily on autobrakes 1 without reversers due to my light weight.

This is my first time in Denver, I found out it was quite large an airport. Taxing to the cargo ramp I looked around and saw plenty of Frontier and United aircraft. I have to say, airports and aircraft look much cooler at night.

Making way for company traffic


I want to do a domestic flight in Turkey but before I might do another one in the US, possibly departing from KDEN.

Thanks for viewing

Khartoum to Amman

This will be my last flight for this month of July. It seems I have managed a flight every 3 days. I could have done better, actually, considering that I'm currently unemployed and have a rather "calm" social life. Still, considering the number of flights, July apparently has been a good month between our 2 blogs with Al.

Before I get on with the details, I want to say that I discovered Vroute. Knowing my taste, Al suggested I give it a try and just like all the other stuff he occasionally recommends to me, Vroute proved to be an excellent tool for realistic planning. I especially loved the flight card feature as you can export it to pdf format, print it and fill in many details during the flight like departures, arrivals, runways, fuel at waypoints, etc...

The Vroute database, however, seems to be concentrated around Europe and didn't have a plan for this route so I submitted one myself. Again, cool feature on the possibility of submitting. Here it is:

MRW UA727 NUBAR A727 LXR A145 ASRAB R650 NWB W733 METSA R652 QTR

Total block time for UPS 702 on this 1050NM route was 2 hours and 39 minutes.

The winds at Khartoum airport were 260/13 with CAVOK conditions so runway 18 was in use. This suited me fine since I was parked really close to it. My take-off weight was 197K lbs, 32K of it consisting of fuel. Once airborne I flew the ALP2 SID to the north to join the UA727 airway at the MRW VOR.

"Rotate!" Take-off rwy 18

Take-off is a real pleasure in the 757 as it's very powerful and reaches the rotation speed easily. Too bad the PSS doesn't have callouts as I have to do them myself...

As I was relatively light I went for derated thrust (TO1).

Climbing over Khartoum


No turbulence here, no returns on the wx radar either. The mild tailwind which appeared at around 20000 feet stayed with me all the way to Amman.

I flew along the Nile upto Egypt, over the holiday resorts of Hurgada and Sharm El Sheikh, crossed the northern tip of the Red Sea and entered Jordan.

Cruising at FL380


Nothing to report for cruise flight, I heard no AI on the net as I don't have any which belong to this region. Traffic and ATC chatter increased once I reached Egypt with lots of EgyptAir and Jordanian.

The Vroute flight card, has spaces (among others for different purposes) where you can note down the fuel at each waypoint. Some might think this is pointless but I personally loved it. It adds to the feel of "playing pilot"

The good old FS ATC started my descent just a couple of miles before my vertical profile and continued correctly with the futher descent instructions.

Weather forecast for OJAI made me plan for a landing on 26L via the OTR2W arrival. FS agreed and cleared me to the ILS approach for 26L around 60 miles out.

On the QTR2W STAR, note the published approach for the ILS 26L on the ND


I wanted to test the HOLD caracteristics of the PSS but never had the opportunity because holds are boring in FS as in real life. I got to try it out here for the ILS 26L approach, though. The aircraft had no problem intercepting and flying it, another plus for this add-on.

I exited the hold and intercepted the localizer for a long 15NM or so final. Luckily, no AI near me. 2 Jordanian flights landed about 10 minutes before me.

Winds at OJAI were 253/13 with visibility 5NM and 32C.

Final approach 26L


You can see in the above shot thay my thrust mode is set to G/A. This time I set it manually by pressing the TOGA thrust mode button just above the flap indicator.

My landing was perfect, a real greaser without any floating, thanks mostly to a steady headwind. After a short taxi I shut down at cargo stand 2.

Offloading at cargo stand 2


I doubt UPS flies this route or even in this region for that matter. In my perfect world of Flight Sim every company and type can fly anywhere regardless of slots, politics, conflicts, load factors, etc...

I like to fly real routes but I would find it to be extremely restraining if I had to stick only to them.

Also, both sceneries here are default and may look somewhat bland. As my interests are mainly centered around the aircraft and SID/STAR procedures, I don't mind it. Hopefully, the new ADE9 program will contribute to the improving of stock airports.

I have no idea where I'll be flying next...

Thanks for viewing

Mediterranean Cruise

The title can be misleading. If you are expecting to read about a trip on a fancy cruise liner, you will be disappointed.

I'm off to Reus, Spain for this one. My last flight ended with an arrival at LIRN, I love this scenery so much I'm going to start this one there too.

I made a silly mistake on my last flight and forgot to install 2 flatten bgls. Therefore, some buildings and vehiculs along with a part of the apron was sunken into the ground. No problems this time though.

Flight NO7253 was bound to LERS. I flew the 630NM over the Mediterranean at 41000 feet, an altitude I rarely ascend to. I usually fly at around 35K. The FMC calculated it as the optimal flight level so I though I might give it a shot, see how the NG performs.

Block time was 2 hours and 3 minutes.

I kept the load factor low on this fligh , my GW was around 128K.

Weather at LIRN was winds 269/10 with clear skies and 30C which called for an Iskia6A departure from runway 24.

[Stand 15, AZ 7910 is pushing back. Alitalia, eat your heart out, the Neos livery looks much cooler]

Traffic was light at Naples, only a couple of evening company flights. The Maddog in the above shot was bound to Linate and got pushed back just as I finished my preflight. Alitalia operates a lot of MDs as does SAS.

After a short taxi to runway 24, I lined up and took off after another AZ MD landed and vacated the active. Among the limitations of FS ATC is one that won't let you line up until the landing aircraft vacates the runway, even if there is no other arrival.

[Cleared to go, rwy 24]

No turbulence this time, the 737 being lightly loaded and TO thrust not derated, climbed out powerfully over the city of Napoli where plenty of tourists were munching on their pizzas as it was dinner time.

LIRN departures include an initial climb procedure which takes you to the SOR VOR. The SIDs start from there. You can find initial climb procedures at most airports in Italy and France. This makes it easier when rewriting the departures.

[Climbing over the city of "Napoli"]



Reaching FL410 took some time, around 30 or so minutes, I had a mild headwind on the way. Nothing much to report, the cruise flight was smooth and uneventful (as most of them are!).

The humble yet firm FS ATC instructed me to descend at the same time as my FMC which was around 120NM from LERS. I got clearance for the ILS approach for runway 25, just as I had initially planned and proceeded with the BCN2Q STAR which takes you over Barcelona airport. Needless to say, the ATC didn't stop over LEBL, plenty of traffic coming and going.

Clouds formed up over LEBL and passing through them I had some mild turbulence.

[Approaching Reus, 10000 feet, spoilers deployed, slowing down]



There is no ATIS frequency at LERS, I could have added one with the AF2 program but realism prevailed and I kept it that way. The metar for LERS on my approach phase showed calm winds with clear skies and 23C. This corresponded perfectly to what I could gather from my instruments on final approach and on the ramp after landing.

On a side note, the SID/STAR file by Manuel Pina and Manuel Perez for LERS was perfect and didn't require any editing.

[Intercepting the localizer 25]



No traffic inbound for LERS, all the better... I don't think Reus gets a lot of traffic in real life anyway.

My approach being stabilized and conditions obviously VMC, I went manual at 1500 feet.

[Very short final, last corrections]



The landing was a bit too hard, you know, one that bounces you back up a little. I could have done better. It's not an excuse, I know, but flaring with flaps 40 is not like flaps 30, the aircraft tends to float more.

I just love these smaller airports with their short taxi distances and simple layouts. Reus kind of reminds me of LCEN and LTFJ where you get off the aircraft and walk to the terminal. This also gives you the opportunity to snap off a couple of close photos of the aircraft.

[Parked at stand 1]



I may head to Africa and the Middle-East for my next flight which will probably be a cargo run with the 757.

Thanks for viewing

Gdansk to Naples

This flight is from Gdansk, Poland to Naples, Italy. I came up with this route because I love the 2 airport sceneries involved, they are among the best freewares and both are must-haves if you use FS 2004.

The 980NM flight took me over central Europe and the Balkans into Italy from the East. I flew with the very cool Neos 738W. I don't know if Neos operates this route in real life but I love this livery so I decided to take it out of the hanger for this review.

Block time for NO4435 was 2 hours and 20 minutes.

My ZFW was 121K lbs with a fuel load of 25K lbs.

EPGD weather wasn't very pleasant. Winds were 298/15, visibility 6 miles with few clouds at 1300 and 4500. Temperature was 17C. I could hear the thunder on the ramp doing my preflight.

Parked at stand C8, ready for push and start

The Gdansk scenery features service vehiculs which you can activate by selecting certain NAV frequencies.

As I was pushed back, an LH CRJ was heading for Germany and departed just before me. Knowing I had to backtrack the runway, I waited for the CRJ after pushback while taking the opportunity to contemplate this beautiful scenery.

De-icing? No thank you, maybe in a few months...


After the backtrack on runway 29, I took off and headed directly to my initial fix which was the KRT VOR. There are no SIDs for this airport.

I love the runway and taxiway textures here, payware quality yet free.

Rwy 29, ready to go


Strong turbulence hit me as soon as I took off and continued upto 20000 feet. The aircraft had a hard time maintaining climb speed.

Even at higher altitudes the clouds were still pretty dense and contributed generously to the bouncing and shaking of my 737.

Climbing out of Gdansk, plenty of clouds


Cruise flight was uneventful, lots of European callsigns on the net, a couple of Asian heavies too.

Thankfully, I had a nice tailwind which decreased the flight time.

As runway 24 at LIRN was closer to my arrival route, I initially planned my arrival for that one. At 90 or so miles out, FS ATC cleared me to runway 06. No problem, I did the necessary changes in the FMC and tried to set my descent correctly despite the wind direction changes. Another downside was the long downwind leg.

I hesitated between the ILS approach and the VOR one. I decided on the ILS because I wanted to test the offset localizer.
Before my flight I rewrote the procedure file for Naples as I wasn't satisfied with my current one. I flew the SOR 2D arrival for an ILS runway 06 approach.

I think the reason for the slight offset is a hill which sits on the runway course. You fly very close to it on final approach.

Final for 06, note the offset localizer, the hill is on the left side of the aircraft


At 1000 feet, I went manual and flew the glide slope by hand. I will try the VOR approach next time.

LIRN was clear skies, winds 099/7 and 30C, a beautiful summer day in Naples.

Very short final, this scenery is lovely


I touched down a bit late, though smoothly, and vacated the runway at the far end. Flaring with flaps 40 is defintely trickier than with flaps 30.

I'm planning on departing from Capodichino to another secondary European airport on my next flight.

Thank you for viewing

Karachi to Delhi

My last flight with the DHL 752F was from Muscat to Karachi. For this review, I decided to pick it up from OPKC and head east to Delhi, India. FRF Studios released their VIDP version a few months ago. I like FRF airports, they are good quality, manual installation freeware sceneries and are easy on frames, hence the name Frame Rate Friendly.

The only thing I didn't like about this one is that the airport layout is apparently done with AFX instead of Lee Swordy's Afcad2. I would have prefered the latter since I like to play around with my AF2 files as do many other simmers. You can open AFX bgls with Afcad2 but editing them may cause problems, that's what the readme file says anyway.

OPKC - VIDP is a 650NM flight which took 1hour and 51 minutes stand to stand.

The route created by Routefinder for DHL 38 (fictional) was:

OPKC BADIL B466 NH J112 RK R471 TIGER G452 AVGON VIDP

"Tiger" is one cool waypoint name, I must say! There are many funny ones around the world and they always make me chuckle when I come across one. There are country specific ones too, like names. The guys who assign them obviously have a sense of humour!

The CDU computed an optimal cruise altitude of 36000 feet for the trip. ZFW was 174K lbs with 25K lbs of fuel.

Weather was a stormy 30C at Karachi with winds 270/10, visibility 2 in light rain, few clouds 2500 and ceiling 9000 broken. A beautiful night to fly!

All set, taxi to runway 25R via Echo and then Golf

Karachi airport was busy at the time of my flight (around 1900 Zulu), especially with a lot of incoming traffic, Air China, Emirates and of course plenty of Pakistan.

Cleared for take-off 25R, I love this angle with the lights

I flew the Badil2A departure. Recently, I rewrote the procedures for OPKC to use with PMDG aircraft because couldn't find any good ones. The PSS one also has a few mistakes which I corrected manually on the CDU. Not being in .txt format, I wonder if there is an easy way to rewrite them...?

Heavy turbulence was on the menu from initial climb upto about 15000 feet, so heavy actually that the aircraft was wildly bouncing around. I hadn't had this since a while in the sim. Very fun in FS, maybe not so much in real life.

Climbing out of Karachi

The weather gradually eased off as I climbed higher. The storm stayed with me, however, all along the way with yellow and magenta returns on the radar. Cruise flight was calm.

It was nice to hear Asian callsigns on the net for a change, Singapore, Air India, Pakistani...

I started my descent around 120NM out of VIDP. FS ATC agreed with my CDU and told me to descend at the exact same spot.

My arrival into Delhi was Avgon2A for a landing on runway 10, just as I had planned before the flight.

ATIS read winds 100 at 12, 2 miles visibility with few clouds at 3900, scattered 9900 and 28C. The approach lights came into view at around the 500 feet callout, pretty exciting. After that I did a manual landing.

Short final, runway 10. Runway 09 on the left

The landing was smooth, a greaser, actually. Autobrakes 2 and reversers slowed me soon and I taxied to the cargo ramp via Lima, Lima1 and Romeo.

American 293 was departing for Chicago as I was taxing to my stand, 15 hours! Ugghhh!

Unloading

I think I'll be returning to Europe or maybe I'll head to Northern America for my next flight.

Thanks for viewing

Domestic Flight

I usually don't do a lot of flying in my own country, Turkey. I used to in the past, replicating Turkish Airlines' domestic flights but since a while now I like to fly elsewhere. Actually, if you like scenic approaches with mountainous areas close to the airport, Turkey is a good spot. You could try the challenging VOR 19 approach at Dalaman (LTBS), one of my favorites or the VOR 03 with the 12 DME arc at Van (LTCI) which is very exciting in low visibility.

I was inspired by the real world flight, XQ9435, that my mother took on Monday with SunExpress, a Turkish-German low cost operator.

The route was typical of Izmir - Istanbul (Gokcen) flights:

LTBJ BERGO G80 BIG N604 BKZ DCT SBH

I didn't fly the last segment from the BKZ VOR since runway 06 was in use and after BIG I flew directly to intercept the localizler trying to stay away from LTBA's heavy incoming traffic. This is more or less how they do it in real life.

Cruise altitude was 28000 feet for this short 258NM trip.

Flights between these 2 major Turkish cities are usually very crowded, I made no exception and filled up my 737-800 with a lot of passengers and baggage.

ZFW was around 130K lbs with a fuel load of 12K lbs.

Izmir was typically clear skies, hot with northerly winds at 11 which called for a runway 34R take-off followed by a Bergo1G SID which is pretty much straight out considering the other twisty LTBJ departures. No need to throw the loaded NG into tight turns resulting in the use of barf bags.

Parked at LTBJ, preflight complete

FS online weather can only retrieve hourly updates at Turkish airports so just before I finished my preflight the weather went back to default scheme and since there was no incoming aircraft ATC switched the active runway. I seriously should get AS6...

I ignored the change and took off from 34R anyway.

Ready to go runway 34R


Initial climb was very bumpy with wind direction changes, not anything violent though.

I joined the G80 airway at Bergo and continued my climb while enjoying the beautiful Aegean coast view.

The city of Izmir


Cruise was very short and mildly turbulent. I only had time to wolf down my breakfast (a sandwich) in front of the computer. Top of descent was just over the Biga VOR. I don't know what FS ATC would have been thinking because I was flying VFR.

Initially I planned on flying the full route and flying the whole published circling approach over the SBH VOR. While descending I wanted to simulate the real thing and changed my mind, took a short cut heading directly to intercept the localizer for runway 06. This resulted in a steep descent with the spoilers deployed all the way down to 3000 feet.

Passing over Biga


There were plenty of AI coming and going out of LTBA which is a hive of activity especially in the summer.

Luckily no traffic on my course.

Winds were 149/7 at Sabiha Gokcen with scattered clouds at 3300 and a warm 24C

On final for runway 06


I hand flew the glide slope below 100o feet, no crosswinds, still very fun in the this aircraft.

Just before touchdown


Traffic was sparse at LTFJ in FS as in real life. As I was waiting for my mom at the parking lot doing some spotting I only saw 2 landings and 3 take-offs all in about an hour and a half....I was quite lucky to see a departing 747 though, which is rare for Istanbul. You can't see the runway from the parking lot but I knew it was a heavy from the way it sounded on it's take-off roll.

Taxing to the stand


The scenery is freeware and is quite good in my opinion. Nothing fancy but then the real LTFJ isn't fancy either.

Block time was 1 hour and 4 minutes.

"Thank you, bye bye..."


Thanks for viewing

Helsinki - Paris with SAS

It's quite hard to pick a route for simming, so many options. This one however was a bit easier. I was browsing the AVSIM screen shot forum and I came across Niclas Andersson's latest photoreal SAS livery for the PMDG 737NG. If you aren't already aware, he has the best repaints you can get for this add-on. You can find them in the AVSIM library once it is back online.

Anyway, seeing the ultra-cool SAS 737-800 in those shots, I decided to fly mine, moreover, I hadn't flown with it since a while so I was really looking forward to it.

SK8360 was from Helsinki, Vantaa (EFHK) to Paris, Charles-De-Gaulle (LFPG). Flight time from start-up to shut down was 3 hours and 7 minutes. I consider this a long flight since I normally fly 1 or 2 hours maximum. This is the route I took at a cruise altitude of 38000 feet:

EFHK ELMUT UT6 PEVEN UL990 MARIP UN850 MIC UZ707 LNO UM170 RAPOR DCT RENSA LFPG

With the arrivals and departures included, it totaled to approximately 1060NM (Luckily no wide upwind turns or long downwind legs)

Stand 133, "boarding complete", ready for engine start

Prior to preflight, I tuned into the ATIS frequency and got the weather which was winds 167/7, visibility 6, no clouds below 20000 and a mild 20C. It was also a bit hazy.

I went for an Elmut1A departure with a take-off on 22R.

A check for the winds enroute revealed mostly headwinds on the way, strong ones actually so I kept the fuel load a bit high just in case, 22.5K lbs. ZFW was 120K lbs.

After a pleasant taxi looking around at this excellent freeware EFHK with numerous Finnair flights coming and going, I took off from 22R.

Ready to go, 22R

A small note here, I recently started playing around with the Sid/Stars files of the NG. You can find very good and up to date ones on the Navdata website. However, some might have minor mistakes or discrepancies with your own Airac database and unless they are corrected you won't get any ARR/DEP info in the FMC. Once you understand the logic it's fairly easy to edit them. I had to make one from scratch for OPKC as I couldn't find any. All you need are the charts for the airport and Terry Yingling's magnificent tutorial.

Back to the flight. There was strong turbulence on climbout up to 15000, above things calmed down but the ride was quite bumpy (and fun) until then.

Climbing out of Vantaa


In case you haven't noticed, I forgot to turn on the TCAS. I knew something wasn't looking right but I couldn't figure it out until around 15000 feet. No matter how much you fly on the same type, it's always best to use the checklists.

As I was heading west, I was chasing the sunset and the view was beautiful, especially with the clouds. The route took me over Sweden, Denmark and over Munster I entered France.

Cruising at 38000 feet


I flew in occasionnal turbulence zones at cruise altitude, the headwind as you can see in the shot was strong. I hate headwinds! Luckily, it eased off a little over Germany.

I normally set my cruise altitude myself depending on the distance. For longer distances over 600NM I let the FMC decide and go with the computed optimal altitude. FS ATC accepts cruise altitude changes anyway.

The humble FS ATC was too late on the descent this time so I had to ask for it myself, however, it was spot on with the Veler transition to my initially planned ILS 27R approach with the Rensa4P arrival.

At the IAF Veler, approaching Roissy


LFPG is a busy airport and there were a few AI inbound, fortunately they were all spaced and I fell in behind LH 4236 keeping a distance of 5-6 miles. Another AI was inbound for the other landing runway, 26L.

Final approach, 27R, AI on final for 26L


Weather at LFPG was winds 254/7, visibility 6 with clear skies and 23C.

Very short final for 27R, luckily the AI vacated the runway so no go-arounds, I would have landed anyway


One thing I don't like about large airports in FS as in real life (especially if a connecting flight is due shortly!) is the taxi distance after landing. It takes a lifetime to get to the gate. I've been to LFPG a lot of times in real life and as far as airports go, it's not my favorite. It's badly organized and you can't see crap from the terminals, ramp wise.

This is LH 4236 that landed just before me


Large hubs have an advantage here though, you can at least do AI spotting and listen to the departing aircraft on the ground net, if you consider this fun, which I do.

Gate B16, "remain seated please, the aircraft hasn't stopped yet!"


I'm thinking of heading to Jerez, Spain from here, that is unless of course I'm tempted by some other route...

Thanks for viewing