Panama

Alright, there has been a few visits from a couple of new countries on the blog the past week. One of them was Panama, a country which has never been in my FS log. I did one flight in Trinidad a few years ago and that's my only one in Central/South America so far.

So, here we go (again) in the B200 for a 200NM flight from Panama City to David. Isn't that a cool name for a city. Btw, I love the movie The Tailor of Panama in which you can see a great deal of the bustling capital of Panama.

If I'm going to fly over a country I never been to before in FS, I prefer to go "low and slow" to discover more, you can't see much from 35000 feet. Google map is also an excellent tool.

The total trip from MPMG to MPDA took 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Taxing to the active, 18


The weather was great at Panama City, a sunny 26C with few clouds at 2000 and calm winds blowing from the northeast.

Take-off and climb were smooth thanks to the nice weather.

I was surprised to see how good the default FS autogen was here, well, relatively speaking of course but still, I think Panama City looks good enough.

Panama City to the right


The climb phase is still too fast for me in the B200 and by the time I complete the climb checklist, I'm like at 4000 ft! I definitely need more practice.

I initially flew directly to the Taboga Island and then turned right to intercept radial 243 to the Santiago VOR, continuing on to the DAV VOR which is at the destination airport.

Over Santiago


The weather was slightly cloudy along the way but the visibility was still good enough to do some sight seeing from 7500 feet. The clouds cleared up as I approached David.

Cruising, just before starting my descent


I was cleared to a right downwind to the runway 04. No ATIS at MPDA, no problem, the Active Sky radar was announcing winds 100 at 12 with clear skies and 22C.

Approaching David, this must be roughly the Isla Sevilla


The intercept for the inbound course of the DAV VOR came at around 10NM and flew the final approach manually. No VASI or PAPI so I kept an eye on the altitude and the DME. The slight crosswind added to the challenge.

I have to add a note here, the other developpers should take some advice from Aeroworx on how to simulate trim. The trim characteristics on the B200 are great, the aircraft responds very nicely and steadily to trim inputs.

Final for the VORDME 04


Even though I crossed the threshold at 50', aiming for a greaser, I touched down a tad too late (again!) luckily the B200 doesn't need a great deal of runway to slow down.

Some simmers can't stand the default airports in flightsim. Ok, they are crappy but I won't discard a destination for that reason. Frankly you would be missing a huge part of FS if you'd only fly to add-on scenery airports. Besides, it's possible to enhance airports (and do other cool stuff) with the new ADE9 program, into which I have to look sometime.

Where can one get good ceviche in David?


There are 2 other new entries, Reunion and Denmark. I'm planning on doing another VFR flight in Reunion, probably in a Cessna and an airline flight to Kastrup (Copenhagen) from Vienna. I'm hoping to do both by next Sunday.

Just as one wise simmer once said, "So many places and so many aircraft to fly, yet not enough time!"

Muchas gracias for viewing! Los comentarios son bienvenidos!