Canaima. Angel Falls and the Tepuis of Venezuela

Today we return to visit one of the more exotic places on earth. We shall fly over the Gran Sabana and the Tepuis of Venezuela's Canaima National Park, a region so remote and inaccessible that it was largely unexplored until the last century. Three years ago, we flew over the land in C-47s. Today, we shall fly a shorter route in light General Aviation aircraft and look at the area more closely. (This will be made more interesting with the release of newer and more accurate landclass and mesh. See below.)

First, a note of sympathy for Venezuela. Since we last flew here the country has entered a deep and disturbing constitutional crisis. The overall economy has collapsed, health care has become more difficult, crime more widespread, and food less easily available. We wish to send our sympathies to all Venezuelans, and especially to our flight-simulation colleagues. We profoundly hope that all this will work out well.



Our destination is a remote place. Visitors typically fly into either Ciudad Bolivar or Ciudad Guayana and then charter a flight to Canaima Village.

We shall start at Canaima Village [SVCN]. Here tourists see Canaima's own lagoon and set of four distinctively beautiful falls before then taking a canoe trip to see Angel Falls. After enjoying the local scene, we take off, climb to 5,000ft, and fly south into Devil's Canyon [DEVIL] and observe the spectacular Angel Falls [ANGEL], the world's tallest waterfall. (A bucket list sort of thing.) This is named after Jimmie Angel, the American aviator and adventurer who "discovered it" in 1933.

After the view, we climb up out of the canyon and circle back over Auyán-tepui (the largest but not tallest of all tepuis). To honor Jimmie Angel's courage and determination, we find a suitable spot to do a landing just as Jimmie Angel did in 1937 in his search for lost gold. Angel spent some time circling low and looking for an appropriate spot on the rough and heavily-forested plateau and finally did choose one. For us an acceptable bare spot, near Jimmie Angel's landing ground, is marked by the approach point [JA_FAF] and the lowest [JA_A] and highest [JA_B] points. This is a short uphill patch that is hard to pick out. It is possible to land here but not a sure thing. And the density altitude will hamper takeoff. A touch-and-go or very low pass is probably the wiser choice. (Of course, adventurous pilots may wish to make a landing – after disabling crash detection and damage models.)

Then we pass over the remainder of Auyán-tepui, descend to the savanna below, and land on the gravel strip at the luxury tourist camp Kavak Lodge [SVKV]. If you like, you can buzz the other local tourist camp at the nearby village Uruyén [SVUY] – the lodge is at the northeast end of the runway.

We take off for the Chimatá Massif, a fragmented complex of 11 tepuis. We first pass over the impressive lone-standing Aprada Tepui [APRADA] and then head over the Massif whose remote, inaccessible, and rugged surface remained largely unexplored until the 1950s. Then we descend and turn at the southeastern corner to see Acopan Tepui [ACOPAN] which has become a world-recognized challenge for serious rock climbers. And quickly we pass Upuigma-tepui [UPUIGMA] whose sheer faces were not scaled until 2007. We land at the large and modernizing Pemon village Uon Quen (or Wonken) [SVUO].

Then we depart east for 54nm to land on an unimproved open field near the Rio Kukenán. This off-airport landing presents a bit of adventure and requires some care. The 1.8 mile-long approach is marked [RK_FAF] as are the beginning [RK_A] and end points [RK_B] of the "strip." This is a fairly smooth uphill field of about 2,400 feet in length and about 3,500 feet in altitude. This should constitute a reasonable proposition. (Those with Orbx South America Landclass will see a quite visible dirt trail "airstrip". Those with default landclass will see a smooth shale-like surface. It is recommended that pilots reconnoiter the site before the event. Your particular mesh-landclass may suggest another landing spot or maybe a simple fly-by.) Once you land, a quick glance up at Kukenán and Roraima will make the airmanship challenge worthwhile.

Then take off and climb to an altitude of 9,000 ft to circle and enjoy a full view of Kukenán and Roraima. Kukenán is one of the least accessible tepuis and especially forbidding – and was thought to be the "House of the Dead" by ancestors of the local indigenous people. Roraima is the tallest, the most easily climbed, and surely the most famous of all the tepuis.

And then back southwest to land at the "frontier" border town Santa Elena de Uairén [SVSE]. Finally, time permitting, we push further southwest to "Venezuela's Wild South" and finish at the dirt strip serving the gold rush town of Icabarú [SVIC].

Documentation
The flightplan along with a Pilots' Guide and more, can be found here.

Aircraft
The route is 290nm. Any aircraft capable of about 140kts cruise will do nicely. We are operating in an underdeveloped region and several of the airports are short dirt or gravel strips. And we shall be doing one non-airport landing on relatively smooth uphill terrain. (An optional rough field landing will be more difficult.) This year the emphasis is on General Aviation aircraft. You might pick something appropriate: a Beech Bonanza, Cessna 182, Cessna 185, Cessna 206, Commander C114, Mooney M20, Mooney Bravo/Acclaim, Piper Cherokee, Piper Comanche, Quest Kodiak, or Ryan Navion. As always, fly whatever you like. I shall be piloting the A2A Cessna 182 in the Brazilian PT-KMQ livery.

Scenery
More than normal, you want to augment your default setup to make the trip worthwhile. (Here the default airports and mesh will completely let you down.) Of course, you want the payware Orbx Global textures. If you have it, you want Orbx Global Vector to get the rivers and roads mostly right. This time, in addition, you will want some airport sceneries and also a mesh and landclass enhancement.

Required Scenery: You will need to install 3 freeware scenery packages by David Maldonado at AVSIM (SVCN & SVKV, SVIC & SVUQ, SVSE ) that will give us five airports that we use. Optionally, you might like two small airports SVPU & SVUY by Jose Vincente Andretta in a Venezuela scenery pack at FlightSim here – but these two are not necessary. You can download all these separately or get the all-in-one package that I have assembled for your convenience. A tip of our caps to David Maldonado and Jose Vincente Andretta for their splendid work. Please remember to put the altitude adjustments into the proper location of your simulator. (Look in your email inbox for an "all-in-one" installation.)

And you will surely need a good mesh package to see the spectacular terrain that brings us to this region. The default mesh is useless here. You want FreeMeshX or a payware equivalent for this part of South America. (The specific FMX file is N00W070.bgl from their Central-South America section.) Any low-resolution mesh will miss the grandeur of the tepuis, representing them as rolling hills. An intermediate mesh (such as Orbx South America, 76m LOD9 I think) will give good but not great results. FreeMeshX is freeware and its 38m LOD10 resolution gives the best results. (Look in your email inbox for easy access to the particular FreeMeshX file that you need.)

Orbx South America Landclass will help a lot. It has more appropriate, more varied, and better-placed textures. Discovering farms and villages on the top of the tepuis is less than realistic. But this payware enhancement is not necessary.

If you have Global Vector, be sure to run the AEC "auto-configuration" facility after installing the new airports. And if you use Little Navmap, you should reload your P3D scenery library to get it to show the proper location of the new addon airports. And as ever, GTN users should consult the PLN flightplan in their flight planner to see the labels given to the many marked waypoints.

Time and Weather
We should fly real weather if possible. This is the rainy season so we might encounter showers. But if we do not have low overcast skies, we should be ok. Otherwise, use August 20, 2019 at 1900 UTC. For takeoff, set the simulator at 3:00pm local. Here in the tropics, sunset will be fast ... at just about 6:00pm. The last airport is an unlighted dirt strip.

Particulars
Date and time: August 24, 2019, 1800 UTC
Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel
Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com
Cross-Platform Multiplayer: JoinFS. Latest version is here. (FSX, FSX-SE, and P3D)

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!

Mike....
What a great flight! Thanks so very much for putting this all together. 👍
Took some photos, hopefully capturing the grandeur  - available here.



 

hi mike,

thanks for the flight with some truly epic scenery as depicted in Romans screenshots. ( what a well planned route ).

regards.