Canaries Cruise

[CavalierDuck 106]

Canaries Cruise

 

This flight takes us on an aerial tour of the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa.  The islands are part of Spain and are a popular tourist destination for Europeans. We will start in Lanzarote and overfly the volcanic Timanfaya National Park before moving on to Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria and Tenerife.  Leaving Tenerife North airport we will climb to the summit of Mount Teide, a 12,198 ft high active volcano.  After a quick stop at Tenerife's South airport (Reina Sofia) we cross to the island of La Gomera before finishing at La Palma, having first visited the Roque de los Muchachos astronomical observatory at nearly 8,000 ft on the upper slopes of the volcano.

 

Flightplans

Plan-G format

FSX format

 

Recommended scenery

The default FSX scenery, even with FTX Global, doesn't do the islands much justice.  There is however an excellent freeware high resolution photoscenery package covering the whole island group by Alberto Sanchez.  The scenery files have been packaged with an installer (which seems to work well) and are hosted on the Rikoooo website, but download speeds there are very low indeed so I have re-uploaded the package temporarily to a Google drive which is much faster (I have checked the EULA's and can't find anything suggesting I shouldn't do this).  The total of the two parts of the package is around 2.6GB; download speeds will vary according to your internet connection but should now be ten minutes or less. Most of the airports are FSX default but have been modified to fit the scenery (runways and taxiways aligned with the photo).  An exception is La Palma airport, which has been remade in more detail.  The scenery also includes a high resolution mesh.

 

Canary Islands photoscenery Part 1 (1.6GB)

Canary Islands photoscenery Part 2 (970MB)

 

There is also a freeware scenery for Gran Canaria airport by SimGiants which is rather good and fits the photoscenery well.

Jeff seems to like the payware Aerosoft La Palma and apparently it fits well with the photoscenery, but is not a requirement for the flight.

 

Recommended aircraft

We're looking at 340nm so I would advise taking something fast, over 200kts.  We also have some climbs up the volcanoes (>12,000ft) so ideally a turbo- or super-charged piston aircraft or a turboprop would probably do best.  I'm thinking King Airs, Turbine Duke, PC-12, Socata TBM, Cessna F406 Caravan II, Civilian Mustang, or even a warbird.  There is only one short runway at 2600ft (La Berriel on Gran Canaria), the other airports accomodate jet airliners. 

 

Date and time: Saturday 14th November, 1900 UTC

 

Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel

 

Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com

Multiplayer: FSX Multiplayer (IP will be provided on Teamspeak)

 

Don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer speadsheet! (linked here)

 

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Really good looking scenery!  :smile:

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

BTW, the flight plan has two instances of a user waypoint OBSRV, but they are two different user waypoints with the same name.

 

I am calling mine OBSRV1 and OBSRV2 which works.

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

7 minutes for both. Not too dusty. My paint for G-TURF is coming along nicely so I'll be using that.

 

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

My plane for this flight

 

[CavalierDuck 106]

I'm looking forward to seeing that Phenom get in to (and out of!) the 2600ft runway at La Berriel..... it's got cliffs and water on three sides (including the ends)!

[StewartH 66]

We may have to fish Bert out of the water! 

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I'm looking forward to seeing that Phenom get in to (and out of!) the 2600ft runway at La Berriel..... it's got cliffs and water on three sides (including the ends)!

 

full_flaps_stall_speed  =      77               //Knots True (KTAS)

 

I'll have to manage speed and get the brakes serviced before (and after) the flight..

 

Just to make sure, I'll bring a change of underwear and a rubber ducky  :wink:

 

ps. at 20 degrees, and zero wind, I need 2624 feet takeoff distance, according to the performance tables..

[StewartH 66]

That's cuttin' it close, Bert.

[thecanarian 16]

I've been looking for decent scenery for the Canaries for years, having had an apartment there for 26 yrs (sold it a couple of years ago though), kinda explains my handle. And what an unlikely forum to find it !!! I've just spent a very nostalgic 1 1/2 hours flying around in the Duke V2 identifying many of the places I know. Wow. I'll make no excuses for being off topic. :smile: :smile: :smile: :smile:

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I've been looking for decent scenery for the Canaries for years, having had an apartment there for 26 yrs (sold it a couple of years ago though), kinda explains my handle. And what an unlikely forum to find it !!! I've just spent a very nostalgic 1 1/2 hours flying around in the Duke V2 identifying many of the places I know. Wow. I'll make no excuses for being off topic. :smile: :smile: :smile: :smile:

 

Join us on Saturday!  That makes it "on topic".

[MM 422]

Here is a modest improvement for La Gomera. It includes an airport scenery, with simple buildings and fences and vehicles, the nearby town, and such. The airport elevation is six inches off the default, so no real problems there. This is not really terrific, but an improvement over the barren default.

 

The actual scenery has static objects, a landclass, a mesh, and corrected coastlines. Not sure all that shows through the photoreal scenery that we are using. (The combination, though, is spectacular. Try flying up through the mountains and barrancos to get a sense of the rugged terrain. The roads twist and turn to get up and down the mountainsides. Just looking at the landscape, you quickly understand why the local natives invented a language of whistles—because they could not practically travel across the ravines.)

 

This 2010-built scenery is done by Fly Wonderful Islands. The freeware is available here.

[CavalierDuck 106]

I've been looking for decent scenery for the Canaries for years, having had an apartment there for 26 yrs (sold it a couple of years ago though), kinda explains my handle. And what an unlikely forum to find it !!! I've just spent a very nostalgic 1 1/2 hours flying around in the Duke V2 identifying many of the places I know. Wow. I'll make no excuses for being off topic. :smile: :smile: :smile: :smile:

Pleased to hear that you're enjoying this scenery too. After a few holidays in the Canary Islands I had often looked for good FSX scenery, as the default is so disappointing, without much success but then stumbled recently on this package which few seem to know about. I'm not usually a photoscenery fan but this is so good I've enjoyed flying around it. La Gomera is in even higher detail than the other islands, it's worth a look if you haven't already.

 

As Bert said, you're very welcome to join our flight on Saturday, 1900-2200 UTC. We're an informal group and welcome new fliers. Some local knowledge would be great!

 

 

However, I might have a slight problem for Saturday, I'm well and truly grounded right now as my PC won't even boot up. I think the power supply has gone, I should have a new one on Friday. If this is the problem it's easily fixed, but if it's something else like mobo or CPU then it might be new PC time, in which case I could be out for a few weeks. Fingers crossed it's just the PSU and I'll be with you on Saturday. I'll keep you posted.

 

Thanks for the La Gomera addition, Mike. Looking forward to trying it soon (I hope!).

[MM 422]

Gosh, good luck with your confabulator, Nick. Hope it is something as simple as the power supply.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Here is Bert, learning how to whistle on La Gomera (2014)

 

 

Quote:  "Just looking at the landscape, you quickly understand why the local natives invented a language of whistles—because they could not practically travel across the ravines."