After a longer pause we are ready to continue our flight around the Mediterranean Sea with our freshly serviced Citation. From Athens we fly first west, then head up north along the picturesque Greece and Albanian coast, before we finally turn west again in order to reach the southern portion of Italy. From Sicily we turn north-west for Sardinia, where we will stop this leg in Decimomannu, home of a NATO training facility.

 

 

Dead ahead is the Corinth Canal, which connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnese peninsula from the Greek mainland.

 

The canal was built in the late 19^th century through the Isthmus at sea level and has no locks. It is 6.4 km (4 mi) long and at its base 21.4 m (70 ft) wide, which makes it impassable for most modern cruise ships.

 

Flying west along the northern shore of the Peloponnese peninsula

 

We pass over Corfu or Kerkyrais, the second largest of the Greek Ionian islands. With its small satellite islands, it forms the northwestern-most part of Greece

 

Along the Albanian coast. If you look for a quiet spot without tourists in this otherwise popular portion of the Mediterranean Sea, this is the place to choose

 

Heading west towards the Italian coast, we make a low level pass over two merchant ships

 

We reach Italy near the town of Crotone, which was established by the Greek in 710 BC. Today it has some 65,000 inhabitants and is known for its 11^th century cathedral and 16^th century castle

 

After having crossed the southern Apennine Mountains we get closer to Sicily

 

But first we have to cross the Strait of Messina, a narrow strait between the eastern tip of Sicily (Punta del Faro) and the western tip of Calabria (Punta Pezzo) in the south of Italy. The 3.1 km (1.9 mi) wide strait has strong tidal currents, which can be treacherous for smaller ships

 

In the distance one can see Mount Etna

 

Mount Etna is Europe’s highest active volcano. Currently it is 3,329 m (10,922 ft) high, but this can vary with summit eruptions. It is also the highest peak in Italy south of the Alps

 

Mount Etna is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain. In June 2013, it was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites

 

North of Sicily, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, are the Aeolian Islands. Their shape is the result of volcanic activity over some 260,000 years

 

Heading further north-west, we finally reach Sardinia

 

The industrial outskirts of Cagliari, Sardinia’s capital, which is just a short hop south of Decimomannu, or simply called “Deci” by most NATO soldiers

 

Over Deci’s military airport. Last time I was there in uniform was in 1975 😏

 

 

Let’s have a beer

Excellent narrative and guided tour of the region! Thanks for posting!

BTW, you've probably mentioned earlier, but what scenery are you using here e.g. when flying the coastlines of Greece and Albania? Are the last several (Italy) shots MSE?

A very impressive and educational journey. Is it the Stromboli at #16?

On 11/2/2018 at 1:42 AM, P_7878 said:

Excellent narrative and guided tour of the region! Thanks for posting!

BTW, you've probably mentioned earlier, but what scenery are you using here e.g. when flying the coastlines of Greece and Albania? Are the last several (Italy) shots MSE?

Many thanks for your comment. Photoscenery for all of Europe can be found here:

http://italyphotoreal.weebly.com/index.html

It takes a bit of doing to download and install it (not to mention the amount of disk space needed 😏) and some of the Eastern European countries are not that well qualitywise, but that seems to be due to the poor source data for this part of Europe. It also comes with autogen, which needs to be downloaded and installed separately.

Another source for countries like Albanaia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Serbia (and even Lebanon) etc can be found here:

http://ftxdes.blogspot.com/

and here:

http://ftxdes.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2017-03-03T09:12:00-08:00&max-results=7&start=28&by-date=false

You have to scroll through the pages to find your desired country.

The best part is, all of the above is totally free and especially the quality of Western Europe countries is pretty good

 

16 hours ago, HaraldG said:

A very impressive and educational journey. Is it the Stromboli at #16?

Thanks a lot, Harald. Sorry that I didn’t mention it, but that's actually "Salina", the second largest island in the archipelago. The volcano you can see in the picture is “Monte Fossa delle Felci”, which is at 968 m (3,176 ft) the highest peak in the Aeolian islands.

Great screenshots!

John

7 hours ago, bernd1151 said:

Many thanks for your comment. Photoscenery for all of Europe can be found here:

http://italyphotoreal.weebly.com/index.html

It takes a bit of doing to download and install it (not to mention the amount of disk space needed 😏) and some of the Eastern European countries are not that well qualitywise, but that seems to be due to the poor source data for this part of Europe. It also comes with autogen, which needs to be downloaded and installed separately.

Another source for countries like Albanaia, Slovenia, Kosovo, Serbia (and even Lebanon) etc can be found here:

http://ftxdes.blogspot.com/

and here:

http://ftxdes.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2017-03-03T09:12:00-08:00&max-results=7&start=28&by-date=false

You have to scroll through the pages to find your desired country.

The best part is, all of the above is totally free and especially the quality of Western Europe countries is pretty good

 

 

Thanks for the details and the tips. This is great!

I recall in the early FS9/FSX days, there was not much FW/PW scenery to make meaningful (global) tours like this...unless one didn't mind passing over landscape looking like Sahara desert most of the time...🙂...How the times have changed! There is clearly a way now to carefully plan routes with entirely FW resources. Of course, a bit of looking-around and disk-storage concerns are understandable. After all (PW) MSE, which many here have, is also disk-space intensive...Best Regards.

On 11/3/2018 at 1:23 PM, bernd1151 said:

Thanks a lot, Harald. Sorry that I didn’t mention it, but that's actually "Salina", the second largest island in the archipelago. The volcano you can see in the picture is “Monte Fossa delle Felci”, which is at 968 m (3,176 ft) the highest peak in the Aeolian islands.

Thanks for this explanation Bernd. Sometimes I think that flightsimming should be part of geography lessons at school; the kids would be amazed by our earth as well as by flying then.

On 11/3/2018 at 5:34 PM, Cactus521 said:

Great screenshots!

John

Many thanks, John. I'm glad you like them