Sunday, April 11, 2010

Fly Balaton with Royal Air Maroc

There are many liveries that come with the PSS 757 and of course many more that you can find on various simming sites. Looking back, I realize that rarely I've flown the passenger version of this add-on. I thought I'd get into one of the airlines I haven't flown with before for this review.

I don't suppose Royal Air Marco uses 757s anymore, I don't seem to remember coming across them on spotter sites. Maybe they operated them in the past. However, I find that the national Moroccan livey looks cool on the 757. Also, if you're curious about the title, Fly Balaton is the name of the airport at Sarmellek, Hungary.

Flight AT477, not a real life flight obviously, was from GMMN to LHSM. The 3 and a half hour journey took me over Spain, Palma de Mallorca, Sardinia, Italy and Croatia over which I entered Hungarian airspace.

I can't say I really enjoyed the view during the flight as I didn't sit in front of the screen, I caught a few glimpses of nice coastal views as I occasionnally came to check that everthing was OK.

Lining up on 17L


Traffic was moderate at Casablanca this Sunday afternoon, mainly company aircraft coming from various cities of Europe with the occasionnal foreign carrier such as Air France and Alitalia.

Weather at GMMN was a cloudy 17C with winds blowing from the southwest and a cloud ceiling of 1600. As you clearly see from the shot above I took off in a towards the south.

I followed the AGL2D departure and joinded the G5 airway at waypoint Agdal.

AGL2D SID


Nothing to note about the climb, maybe just the initial turn towards the north at 1500 feet which produced a nice view of the Casablancan countryside for the folks sitting on left side of the aircraft. Seats A,B and C that is.

For me the most interesting part was the Strait of Gibraltar, which came into view on my right side a few minutes into the flight.

The Strait of Gibraltar


Cruising over the Mediterranean, note the step climb indicator on the ND


Not much to note about the cruise flight, either. Oh, yes, I'll mention the S/C to FL400 from FL360. The PSS 757 simulates this feature quite well. The winds aloft were in my favor, too.

The T/D computed by the FMS came earlier than ATC instructions so I descended in VNAV. Around FL200 ATC cleared me to runway 34 and told me to descend to 11000 feet. I continued with the FS altitude instructions as they seemed reasonable. As opposed to the real world, FMS' get the priority in FS, ATC comes second for me but I do like to use it if it's accurate.

Inbound on the ZAG VOR


Runway 34 has no ILS, just an NDB approach which was interesting and fun as I usually do ILS approaches. There was also an RNAV approach but I chose the NDB anyway.

I actually didn't fly the whole approach with the circle to land to save time, let's say the conditions being VMC and with ATC vectors I only flew the base leg.

Tracking the runway course while keeping and eye on the ADF, the clouds are lovely in the sunset


Weather at Sarmellek was winds 060 at 5, 10C with few clouds at 4000 and broken 6000.

No nasty FS surprises so the visilibity was good for this NDB approach. My manual approach was quite good. 2 reds, 2 whites all the way.

Short final for the "NDB 34"


Another good landing this time, the sun was just setting as I came in which made for a beautiful atmosphere during my final approach.

LHSM is a small airport served by Lufthansa and Hamburg Int (I think) in real life. I don't know if 757s actually land here.

This freeware scenery by Hungarian flightsim developpers very well done. I loved the custom taxiway and runway textures.

Shot by one of the regular spotters at Balaton


Again, no plans for the next one. We'll see...

Thanks for viewing

2 comments:

  1. I love the spotters shot!! The line up shot looks great too with the clouds hanging over the flight path.

    And I agree that livery does look great on the 757.

    Hey I took a shot of the Strait of Gibraltar going the other way in July of last year (LFPG-GMMN)!

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  2. Thanks

    Yeah, I got the picture from the spotter in exchange for a cockpit visit, hehe

    So many liveries to choose from...

    There is also an Ethopian livery which I might use next.

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