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