AVSIM Special Feature Bush Country Round Robin
By Steve 'Bearracing' Cartwright AVSIM Staff Reviewer
Now with our mesh, textures, bush airport locations, and aircraft installed, we're ready to try a little flying. I've listed here a fairly simple first flight that will give you the maximum in viewing pleasure, yet have the possibility of giving you a chance to challenge your basic VFR/Dead reckoning navigation skills. Having at your disposal a current sectional chart for the Juneau, AK area would be of immense use, as we need to know the altitude of the mountain peaks in this quite rugged area, plus the altitude of the mountain passes, where we will most likely need to slip through. I've used one of the add-on 3rd party bush locations as my starting/finishing points, plus I'm making use of a 3rd party (freeware) flight planner. In my case I've got FSNavigator 3.0 installed, but there are other excellent freeware flight planners available as well, in addition to the fairly good default FS2000 flight planner. This round robin flight is in the Southeastern section of Alaska, but you could just as easily plan a round robin flight in other areas of Alaska, the Great Northwest, or in the very beautiful and scenic British Columbia or Yukon Territories of Canada! Just have fun, enjoy the scenery, and enjoy the challenge of bush flying in North America! Fight Route: Port Alexander-Sitka-Juneau-Haines-Skagway-Atlin-Snettisham-Kake-Port Alexander (Click for larger flight plan image) The total distance with this round robin flight is 470 nm and should require about 3 hours and 40 minutes of time to complete. Port Alexander (our starting point) is a float plane only location that is a part of Dave Erickson's "Alaskan Commuter-3; The Outward Passage" scenery add-on! My choice of aircraft is the very excellent Fred Banting and Yannick Lavigne DeHavilland DHC-2 Beaver equipped with floats. Often times, you will hear that the DHC-2 Beaver referred to as the World's Greatest Bush Plane; well that's a subjective statement, but I do have a tendency to agree somewhat with that assessment. On your first few bush country flights, you may wish to keep the weather at a minimum, so as to enjoy the excellent scenery provided by the 3rd party ladies and gentlemen. Later though, to increase your level of challenge, I would suggest you dial in some stormy weather, low clouds and visibility, rain or snow, plus some high winds. For this first round robin, I chose a summertime period (August), with a late afternoon or evening start time (this was so that at some point of our flight we could watch an infamous midnight sunset occur). Our first leg will be from Port Alexander (located on the most southeastern tip of Baranof Island) northwest on a heading of 309º true up to Sitka. Sitka is 54nm from Port Alexander and this leg should take about 20-25 minutes at the Beaver's cruise speed of 135 to 145 kts. From Sitka we'll take up a more northerly heading (349º) which will get us to Juneau (the Capital of the State of Alaska) in about another 35 to 40 minutes of flight. This leg will have us crossing several islands and deeply gouged fjords along our way and if you have Dave Erickson's Alaskan Commutor No 2 & No 3 sceneries installed, so keep your eyes peeled for the occasional container ship or passenger cruise ship working their way among the islands of the inward or outward passages. It's interesting to note that Juneau is the only Capital City in the United States that's inaccessible by car or truck! Yeah, that's right, it's either a boat or an aircraft, which also means that all the small villages and towns north and east of Juneau are equally inaccessible by anything other than aircraft (bush or float plane). From Juneau it's a short trip right up the inward passage to Haines (60nm on a heading of 305º) and from there we'll turn (heading of 357º) up the fjord (bear right) for the very short flight to Skagway (15nm from Haines). (unlike Juneau, both Haines and Skagway are linked by ground roadways to Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territories). From Skagway, our next point is inland to Atlin, which is only 51nm northeast (hdg 53º), but we're going to be crossing some of the most dramatic and isolated areas imaginable—tall mountains of ice and rock, massive glaciers, and deep green valleys. Making an emergency or forced landing in this area would only be the beginning of the adventure! Atlin is positioned on the eastern shore of Lake Atlin, both located in British Columbia and but a stones throw from the Yukon Territories of Canada. Both Atlin and Lake Atlin are situated in a broad and expansive green valley and Atlin is the first city/town northeast of Juneau that is linked by roadway to the rest of North America. From here we head south (hdg of 154º) for 86nm where we will cross over Snettisham and then make a slight heading change to 158º for Kake (71nm south of Snettisham). These two legs cover an area of Canada and Alaska that is very beautiful and it appears as if the scenery came right off a tourist brochure for traveling here! Put the Beaver on autopilot, sit back, and just enjoy the views! Our final leg (from Kake back to our starting point of Port Alexander), will be mostly over water and is relatively short (51nm or about 25 minutes of flight time). Once we cross over the tip of Baranof Island and over the cliffs directly above the docks at Port Alexander, we'll head out to sea, make a 180º turn and then land in the bay. Finally we can hear again, after nearly 4 hours of listening to the heavy drone of this Beaver's massive radial engine; we simply taxi up to the dock, tie off the Beaver and then shutdown the engine. Home again...! Return to the Bush Flying main feature page.