Talinn to Trieste

Ending my last flight in Talinn, I decided to fly out of there and head South, to the seaport city of Trieste, Italy.

DHL flight 72, obviously fictitious, took the following route for this evening trip at a cruise altitude of FL380:

LONSA UQ11 ODVIN UP31 BALIT G805 KUNER UP31 VIBUG UM736 LAKOL UL603 CHIEM UP995 ARNOS UP125 TIBRO

The 1000NM or so flight took me over the Baltic Sea, Poland, East Germany and Austria after which I entered Italian airspace. Block time was 2 hours 32 minutes, not bad for this route thanks to the tailwinds.

Take-off weight was a hair under 200K lbs with a fuel load of 28.5K lbs. Some might ask why I'm using pounds instead of tonnes which is more common in Europe. Well, this is always how I calculated my weights in FS ever since the begining and being used to the figures now, I like to keep it that way.

Weather at Talinn was just like it was during my arrival a few days ago, it was lightly snowing with winds 165 at 10, visibility 4 miles, clouds 1200 scattered, ceiling 3700 overcast. The temperature was a chilly 0C degrees.

After doing the usual stuff, punching in the necessary data in the FMC and going through the start-up process, I taxied to the active behind a TNT 733. I missed its destination though, somewhere in Belgium perhaps...? Traffic was pretty calm this evening at EETN.

Like I probably mentioned many times before, I prefer night flights because of the atmosphere created by the cockpit and runway lights. It makes you miss on the scenic bit of FS though, no doubt.

Getting ready to go, runway 08


Although the clouds were pretty dense, my initial climbout was smooth and I broke out of the clouds at around 8000 feet.

I didn't bother to fly an instrument departure for this one and directly headed to my initial fix and joined the UP31 airway.

Cruising over Poland


Cruise flight was uneventful and while the PSS flew impeccably on autopilot, I went over my route on my high altitude Jepp charts (thanks, Al!). Using real world material with FS really makes this hobby more authentic, if you see what I mean.

LIPQ seems to favor runway 09 arrivals so I preplanned a TIBRO1B STAR to the ILS 09. LIPQ weather was winds 360 at 2, clouds 3000 scattered and ceiling 7000 broken and 2 miles visibility. Perfect!

TIBRO 1B Arrival


AI traffic was sparse and there was no turbulence during approach, everthing was nice and smooth.

Downwind for runway 09


The runway lights came into view at 3 and half miles so I disengaged the A/P and hand flew the glideslope from there.

Either the localizer is slightly offset at this airport or there was an error in the af2 file because I was lined up slightly to the left. You can notice this on the PFD in the below shot. I should give this a look.

Fortunately, this time I was able to engage GA thrust at glideslope capture.

Very short final for the ILS 09


My landing wasn't bad but I touched down a tad late due to gusts at 200 feet which took me by suprise.

I slowed down easily with autobrakes 2 and reversers.

Runway vacated, heading to our stand


This freeware LIPQ 2009 scenery with custom ground textures looks really neat despite the darkness, I'll set my departure from here next time so I can get a better look.

Thanks for viewing