Hi Everyone:I wanted to share this nice Italian Flight with you. It's only about 90 minutes in a jetliner, and the scenery in and around Genoa and Polermo makes for a nice departure and arrival over mountainous terrrain and plenty of water! I flew this at a cruise altitude of FL 330. The route takes you south from Genoa,Sestri (LIMJ) over the Ligurian Sea then over the Islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and then finally West toward Sicily for an approach into Polermo, Punta Raisi (LICJ) via the RAISI 1H STAR (KAPIL intersection to RAISI VOR). I've done this flight twice recently, and both times I departed Genoa's Sestri in driving, and I mean DRIVING rain and low visibility using real weather via FS Meteo. That makes seeing the lovely countryside below a bit difficult, but more importantly, obscures the rather steep terrain immediately west of the departure end of runway 29! So a best-rate climbing left turn to the South is recommended if you depart on that runway. Leaving from runway 11 is not a problem, but watch the winds, they can be gusting to close to 30 knots so if you pick the wrong runway, look out! After that it's smooth sailing all the way to Polermo, and Marcello Lugari's nice Punta Raisi airport scenery provides a lovely welcome (available in the AVSIM library). E-mail me if you want me to send you the FS2002 flight plan file, otherwise, here's the route for you to program into your GPS's/FMC's. You can find lots of nice scenery and other useful information about flying in Italy at this site:http://216.239.37.120/translate_c?hl=en&u=...class%26hl%3DenEnjoy!!LIMJ (Genoa Sestri Airport) / CV (NDB)/ AJO / MADKA / SUKUN / QUENN / GERMO / TRP54 / KAPIL / PRS (VOR) / LICJ (Polermo Punta Raisi Airport via the RAISI 1H STARAlex CN562ZMinneapolis

Hi Alex,nice to have a fan for flying in our country...If I may, I'd like to share some info.- In Italy (as well France, Spain and Portugal) is in force a Northbound/Southbound rule for flight levels. That is - odd FLs southbound and even FLs northbound.- Moreover the Max FL allowed for your flight to Palermo should be 270, since "Operators of flights departing Italian airports with destination Italian airports are requested to plan their flights at FL280 MAX, except departures from LIMF/LIML/LIMC/LIME/LIRP to Sicily/Brindisi FIR airports at FL290 MAX."- You should plan a UNITA 6K SID from LIMJ.- You can download Genoa (and some other free italian airports) at http://www.isdproject.com/For those interested I can share real FPs from/to Italy and charts upon request...And if you want an approach thrill try to land at Reggio Calabria LICR...All the best, Dino GiannasiFirenze - Italy

Dino:Thanks for the infoon the altitudes. My Jeppesen SIMCharts / Europe only lists the following SIDS for LIMJ:Elba 5, Genoa 5K, Torina 5K, Voghera 5K, Ajaccio 5K, Albenga 5K......IS the Unita 6K SID a newly published departure?Alex CN562ZMinneapolis

>Dino: >>Thanks for the infoon the altitudes. My Jeppesen SIMCharts / >Europe only lists the following SIDS for LIMJ: >>Elba 5, Genoa 5K, Torina 5K, Voghera 5K, Ajaccio 5K, Albenga >5K...... >>IS the Unita 6K SID a newly published departure? >Affirmative Alex, it is. In June 2001 the procedures were revised and changed and a new VOR installed.This the bad side of the news, the good one is that I can give you the new charts in PDF format, if you're interested in. Anyway I enclose just this page.Let me know. All the best.Dino GiannasiFirenze - Italy