Santa Cruz, Bolivia to Sucre, Bolivia (SLVR - SLSU)

Sucre

Wow!! I'm going to have to rave about this airport. The touch down onto the start of the runway is in the bottom of the valley with the terminal at the top. The approach meant that I had to skirt the top of the surrounding mountains, drop in the valley for the sloped runway. This goes down as my first landing on what can only be described as one of the worlds "most difficult and dangerous" Airports. This scenery by LatinVFR of Sucre is incredible, along with the slopping runway.

It's probably fair to say that this leg took more than a few "practice runs" and "go around" before nailing it. Definitely worth the detour!!

Asuncion Paraguay to Santa Cruz, Bolivia (SGAS - SLVR)

I have taken some liberties with this leg of the journey. At the time I was not able to identify any carrier between Paraguay and Bolivia that operated a Boeing 737-800 fleet. Instead I settled for operating a "Charter" on behalf of Amazonas who service both Asuncion and Viru Viru. 

Sucre, Bolivia to Le Paz, El Alto Bolivia (SLSU - SLLP)

Le Paz

I had been hoping for a landing in a westerly direction, up onto the plateau that La Paz sits on, but unfortunately not. For once the weather was perfect. . .  for an easterly landing.

Saniago Chile to Asuncion Paraguay (SCEL - SGAS)

Asuncion

Its taken some time but I've finally arrived. It was not the plan to stop over in Santiago for as long as I did but to make as much progress back up into the North Americas as quickly as possible. Unfortunately FSX on my computer decided to have a crisis and finally give up the ghost. After a long delay, a new graphics card and a new flight platform (yes. . .  I am now on P3D, which is far far far more stable!!) I hope to get this around the world trip back on the road.

It would seem that after such a long hiatus, I have completely forgotten how to fly a 737 (or rather to land). So I have had to have a few practice runs (read . .  crash landing, go back to the start). Getting to grips with the PMDG 737 on P3D has been enjoyable and worth the effort of reloading all the FSX software

Buenos Aires to Santiago,Chile (SAEZ - SCEL)

"sunrise"

Santiago.
What a beautiful leg to fly. Gorgeous sunrise pushing us across the continent towards the Pacific west coast and Chile. As soon as we crossed into Chilean airspace the ground terrain below changes rapidly and the Andes mountains rushed up to meet us. I had probably started my descend a bit to early as the snow covered caps of Mount Tupungao already sit at 21 555ft seemed a bit to close for comfort and gave some concern to the passengers.

Sau Paulo to Buenos Aires (SBGR-SAEZ)

"over Sau Paulo"

Buenos Aires.
Finaly made it to Argentina. It's been a busy time with me being grounded by admin duties and unable to get back into the cockpit.
Ministro Pistarini International Airport (Spanish: Aeropuerto Internacional de Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini) (IATA: EZE, ICAO: SAEZ) is located 22 km (14 mi) south-southwest of Buenos Aires or Capital Federal, the capital of Argentina. The airport covers an area of 3,475 ha (8,587 acres) and is operated by Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 S.A.

Rio De Janeiro to Sao Paulo (SBGL - SBGR)

São Paulo 
Aced the landing. . . well almost. The auto pilot lined everything up nicely till the last 100 feet. I left the AP on for as long as possible before flopping down onto the tarmac. It's a good thing that I was pointing straight down the white centre line and not forced to go around again as I was already sucking the last few drops of aviation fuel from the tanks. (I still have not got the hang of estimating fuel load yet). 

Brasilia to Rio De Janeiro (SBBR - SBGL)

Rio De Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro/RIOgaleão–Antonio Carlos Jobim International Airport, popularly known by its original name Galeão International Airport, is the main airport serving Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the country's second-busiest international airport.

Manaus to Brasilia (SBEG - SBBR)

Basic Brasilia 

I had opted for the standard FS scenery for Brasilia. Unfortunately I seemed to have caught a bug on this leg of the trip.

Willemstad Curacao - Manaus Brazil (TNCC - SBEG)

Flying the NightEye
Catching the late flight off this island to Brasil. Insel operate a two flights a week to the city of Manaus that sits along the Rio Amazonas (Amazon river?). The only direct flights are onMonday and Friday at 20:50 getting into Manaus just before midnight. Took off about 10minutes behind schedule into pitch blackness. Finding my way to the end of runway11 at Willemstad for take off was challenging when the aircrafts landing lights failed. This  (MD80) mad dog has been a real pain to fly and I will be more than happy to abandon her at the first gate I find at SBEG, The engineers can spend all the time they want trying to find lighting fault. So as not to delay any further I opted for pushback and clearance, there shouldn't be any need to tell the passengers? The take off became even more challenging when I battled with the auto pilot to get the nose up out of  the climb. The first time I had an oppertunity to look out of the window I was crossing the Orinoco river and  briefly skirting along the Venezuelan and Colombian borders. Airtraffic was very quiet at this time of night, not much traffic about. However I was joined by N22600 a B747 flying parallel that was a Global freight from Denver to Rio De Janeiro  (I thought I had disabled all FSX AI traffic??).

Reliesed needed more speed to catch up as I'm now scheduled to arrive after midnight

St Martin - Curacao (TNCM - TNCC)

Carefree Caribbean

Port Au Prince to St Maarten (MTPP-TNCM)

Carefree Caribbean
This leg has to be the one that I have been looking forward to for some time. The anticipation of clipping the tops of beach umbrellas before touching down on this iconic runway has been one of my main goals to be achieve on this around the world trip. In preparation for the flight I have taken up a position with Insel Air and was eager to operate their scheduled flights between Haiti and St Maarten, wearing the Insel Air colours. When finally given clearance to fly  the Saturday scheduled flight, I had to return to Port Au Prince 30minutes later, after a drastic loss in altitude when the autopilot disconnected. This meant another long delay in Haiti as new parts where shipped in for the failed unit. It would be another few weeks before I could make the flight again.

Miami to Port Au Prince (KMIA-MTPP)

Hello Haiti 

American Airlines are allowing me to captain a scheduled flight to Haiti. This is the last charter I will be doing for the Airline for some time and I think they will be happy to get me out of their hair. When I get to Haiti I'm going to look around for another charter company to take me further. The flight was reasonable (read: it took me two attempts) and I'm finally starting to get to grips with this MD80 (not really).

Orlando to Miami (KMCO - KMIA)

Muggy Miami 


Scheduled flight.

Atlanta to Orlando (KATL - KMCO)

Mickey Mouse 
 Pilot

American Airlines have handed me their MD80 to take down to Orlando.

Washington to Atlanta (KIAD - KATL)

Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, known locally as Atlanta Airport, Hartsfield, or Hartsfield–Jackson, is located seven miles south of the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States

New York to Washington (KJFK - KIAD)

Capital Run


Leaving JFK in a brand new Airbus A320IAE for Washington. This flight is a scheduled Jet Blue service. My confidence and ability in flying the Airbus has final started to show. I have taken the decision to start replicating existing scheduled flights between cities and stick as close to the scheduled time as possible.

Airport Scenery JFK and Washington DC Dullas (KIAD) are a Jet Blue Hub, with regular scheduled flights. The scenery was from imaginesim and is fairly reasonable. First released in 2008 it has a hint of being dated when compared with more recent designs. Something that is striking about this scenery is the odd shaped "mobile lounges" that lap the airports aprons at a frequency that is a bit unrealistic. One "mobile lounge" followed by a van , repeat, repeat, repeat. The Route My routing was  KJFK/ DECKR/HEROS/KTEB/ FALLZ/62NJ/ KLNS/DELRO/ MULRR/ KIAD. Probably one of the best approaches flown yet. Arriving from the north, the approach path had me complete a base leg to set me up for a perfect touch down with perfect visibility. Weather The weather over the states has been great the last few weeks. Heavy storms have caused some flooding but have not touched the east coast yet. AI Traffic UPS flights out Washigngton

Boston to New York (KBOS - KJFK)

The Big Apple, small plane

Big apple . .here we come. The screen shot above is  me departing JFK later that week, after switching airlines and upgrading to the Airbus A320. Good old G-EUPH had done well to bring me this far, but now it was time to upgrade. JFK is where I will be leaving the British Airways A319 and taking up captaincy with Jet Blue. I've been looking forward to arriving in the big apple for some time and had been slowly  collecting scenery to add to the flight. In my collection was New York City X, a monster of an addon with autogen around Manhattan island popping up everywhere. Unfortunately this would kill the frame rate on my computer at sometime.

Airport Scenery New York Airports X by Drzewiecki Design was the scenery I used for this New York visit. The Canarsie STAR approach using 13L is well depicted with the airport runway lights starting along the freeway and on top of the roof of the nearby hotel.  JFK is big  with well marked taxiways, unfortunately I still got lost and battled to find my gate The Route My routing was   KBOS/BRUWN/ACK/SEY/ PARCH/ CCC/ ROBER/ KFK. An uneventful trip down with the highlight definetly being the Canarsie approach. Watch this Youtube clip to see how the pro's fly the approach. Charts www.uk.flightaware.com  (KJFK) has started to become the first place I look for Charts AI Traffic Air Canada Jazz blocking the taxiway. Am I on the wrong taxiway or him? Once again some marvolous AI. However I should have spend more time loading a few more airlines as I could have had the airport a bit busier.

Quebec to Boston (CYQB - KBOS)

Boston Bound

After a short detour up into Canada it was time to head southwards back over the border towards Boston. Doing some research I found a few YouTube clips showing  an impressive approach into Boston, lining up on 04L with an impressive city landscape off the left wing. This clip shows a great approach over the top of the harbour. http://youtu.be/tuNXAFBmO90. I really had my heart set on an easterly wind for my arrival and having this approach lined up for me. Sadly not.

Airport Scenery General Edward Lawerance Logan International Airport (KBOS). This add on is from the Fly Tampa stable but distributed by Aerosoft . I ordered a box copy for delivery and after a week it arrived. Instillation was pretty straight forward and its difficult to go wrong. Surprisingly good layout of the area surrounding the airport.
The Route I departed Quebec on 06 before making a right hand turn towards PESVI. The SIDS where pretty basic. My routing was  CYQB / PESVI / KELBO/ YSC/ MPV/ LEB/ SEETS/ KBOS. It was a left turn at SEETS and then a step down approach into Boston using the QUABN three arrival STAR, This is a handy arrivals chart to fly by as the step down in altitude and speeds are clearly marked , only that I do need to work on slowing everything down during this phase. Charts I was disappointed that the Boston Mega Airport box set does not come with any charts and that I had to go online to find anything. Charts from www.uk.flightaware.com  (KBOS) The Flight The weather has been nice and clear, but I'm starting to get a few gremlins creeping into the system. The ASN keeps loosing connection with FSX. AI Traffic AI traffic made life a bit difficult. Thanks to a departing Delta taking his time on the treshold I had to go around. Pretty sure if this was real life I would be the one being called into the office to explain . . left it a bit late.

Halifax - Quebec (CYHZ - CYQB)

Le De'tour Quebec

This leg is a detour off the original path. A detour purely so that I can have a look at some of the Canadian countryside and to stop in at the Jean Lesage International Airport before crossing the border into the states. I want to get some milage out of the UTX Canada terrain I've purchased. I had originally downloaded CYQB as an alternate to Halifax should I have needed to divert on the previous leg. The airport look so good, that I thought it would be a shame not to visit.

Airport Scenery Quebec/ Jean Lesage International (CYQB) is a great little gem on the Flightsim.com site. This airport has only had over 2000 free downloads since 2012 which was a surprise for such a nice addon. One of the little touches I liked was the nearby arial mast with flashing beacons. The interior of the airport is well designed with departure halls and display screens. For a free addon, you must get this airport if you are passing by. Well done Gilles Boily!! The Route A short flight with very little to mention along the route. (As a side note:, I'm beginning to wonder if I've even loaded the UTX Canadian scenery? . . can't see any major change from the default FSX scenery?) . My routing was  CYHZ/ ARDEE/ YSJ/ MOWN/ HUL/ VLV/ROGSA/CYQB. Approach was from the south of the airport for 06L. The weather has started to clear up and no more angry clouds abouts.. Charts Charts from www.IVAO.ca  (CYQB) The Flight The weather has been great. It was a clear approach down into CYQB. AI Traffic I have been downloading a few regional Canadian airlines with the hope of seeing them enroute. Airlines like Porter Air, Sun Wing. Unfortunately when I landed in Quebec none of them where scheduled. I had a TUI charter by CanJet and a few Air Canada Jazz aircraft for company at the gates.