A historical TransAmerica flight 

 

 

 

This was my around the world in a DC-3 (Manfred Jahn C-47).  The detour in Canada was to refly Buffalo Airways routes.

Hook

A comparable RTW flight with a Piper Malibu, but beware - there is no AVGAS in SCIP available. 😜

https://www.zahorsky.net/blog/

8 hours ago, MatthewS said:

I'd be flying from Bali to Darwin (not Port Headland), then south to Uluru (aka "Ayres Rock"), then north east to Cairns, then down the east coast of Australia (Great Barrier Reef), stopping at the Gold Coast, then onto Sydney, before heading east to NZ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin,_Northern_Territory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrier_Reef
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Coast,_Queensland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney

Awesome! I take it you're from Australia? 🙂 As I've never been there and don't know it that much, this comes really handy! Thank you 🙂

7 hours ago, Valzod300 said:

I have started several round the world trips but only completed one.  It was a group exercise sponsored by Aerosoft based on Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.  It started in London with mandatory stops in Suez (Cairo), Bombay, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York and back to London.  I made many more stops.  I did most of the trip in the Carenado Cessna 172 with a G1000 and syntheitic vision..  Except it did not have the range to do a Pacific crossing.  (And I was trying to go from Hokkaido to Kamchatka!)  So I switched to the Cessna 182 (with the G1000 and Synthetic Vision.)

The adventure was sponsored by Aerosoft and is described at https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/clubs/3-around-the-world-in-eighty-days/&do=overview  Most of the participants kept diaries, which should give you some ideas for a round the world adventure.  Those diaries are at that Aerosoft site.

A couple of thoughts:

Default airports in Prepar3d are boring.  You are lucky if there are any buildings at all.  Maybe is will be improved in MSFS 2020, but I would not hold my breath.  It looks like Microsoft will be including 40 airports which are more finished.  But I would not expect ORBX quality.  Unless you enjoy going from landing strip to landing strip with no buildings, you might want to cull the number of places you will be stopping.

That being said, most of the stops between Europe and Hong Kong ARE gravel landing strips with no lights, no ILS signals and no buildings.  The same is true for just about everything between Japan and the lower 48 states.  Under these circumstances, synthetic vision is a Godsend.

There are vast parts of the world in Flight Simulator which are very devoid of much; to see.  Arabia comes immediately to mind, but the same can be said for much of Asia.  

You have a gigantic Pacific crossing.  Most planes cannot make it.  In fact, most planes can't go from Hawaii to San Francisco.  Anything big enough to make it, probably will not do well at places like Courcheval.  (Don't even think of landing a 747 at Courcheval!)  Most flight simulators do not make provisions for extra fuel tanks or bladders.  You need to spend time trying to figure out the Pacific crossing and how much you want to cheat.

The trip was my most memorable experience in flight simulations.  The best parts were those which were off the beaten track, where I went where I have never been before.  Some highlights for me were"

1.  Flying by Mount St. Michel in Normandy.

2.  Landing in Bern Switzerland at night.

3.  Fiying between the Alps from Bern to Verona.

4.  Flying over and landing in Macedonia.

5.  Flying though the Gulf of Aquaba.

6.  A side journey between Kwait and Dubai, over Iran and between two ridges near the coast

7.Flying the "Hump" between India and China.

8.  Island hopping the Aleutian Chain.

9.  Alaska.

10.  New York to Burlington, VT to Quebec City.

11.  Landing at  Iqaluit

12.  Crossing the Greenland icecap from Nuuk to Kulusuk

 

There are Youtube the world trips.  (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS01LBtxRdw&list=PLKdBO8TXUFBgtlP5bbVDs-8YMX5TWREr1&index=1  You might get sime ideas from these.

Thanks for the information! I'm putting my hopes in the default airports in MFS 2020. I'd never do such a thing in P3D because it would be boooooooooring 🙂 If not the airports, then at least the world in general should look awesome, especially in different parts of world and weather. I'll definitely put your tips into consideration.

6 hours ago, Dermot McClusky said:

I'm 100% biased as it's my home state (and I'll be touring it first with the sim), but a quick detour into southern Utah wouldn't add much to your trip and there's some amazing places (Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument, Monument Valley (on the AZ-UT border), etc. 

Not sure what they'll look like in the sim, but definitely some amazing, scenic places in real life!

Either way, I think the route you have looks like a blast.

I'm from the Czech Republic but I've been to the USA 4 times (in real life) and I've seen the mentioned places (among others). It's definitely worth seeing it from above as well 😛 I definitely wanted to fly over Grand Canyone on my way from SFO to Sedona, but I'll try to do some fly arounds in Arizona / Utah 🙂 Also want to see the Yosemite, Sequoia, Mt. Whitney and Death Valley. Like in real life 🙂

5 hours ago, AflyingDoge said:

This is so awesome!! I'm planning a trip across the U.S and back to my hometown! It would be awesome to try around the world, though. You should try to make it into Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the United States (KJAC is the ICAO). It's absolutely stunning to fly into, and just a beautiful area with the Grand Teton mountains! Makes for a challenging approach in an airliner, but with the high mountains it will be a challenge regardless of aircraft!

Great tip, thanks 🙂 It's not exactly on the way, but i'll try to squeeze this one in 😄 looks nice according to Google!

3 hours ago, GCBraun said:

That is great! I have never done something like that, but now that we have satellite image from around the world, why the hell not.

I will probably just make some changes to include more premium airports (need to get some value out of that 120 Euros, right).

I've tried to include as many as possible, but I'm not gonna be flying 2 000 nm just to include it 😄 Gonna have to do multiple trips I guess!

3 hours ago, LHookins said:

 

It might be easier to fly up through Japan and across the Aleutian Islands.  This is how I typically do the Pacific crossing.

Hook

I know but then I'd miss Oceania, Australia, NZ and the islands in Pacific 😞 All such beautiful places.

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Excellent idea to rekindle the embers of this topic. I bring my share of two long legs of a world tour that I've already reconstructed

Asia to Europe along the Silk Road  

From China : Xi'an > Langzhou>Zhange> Duanhuang> Kashgar ( by the North or the South of the desert)>

To Uzbekistan : Samarkand>Bukhara>

To Iran : Meshhed> Teheran>Ekbatana>

To Irak : Bagdad>

To Syria  : Palmyra> Antioch>

To Turkey  : Istanbul>

To Greece  : Athens>

To Italy  :   Venice !

 Europe to Africa (with the 1st TransAfrica flight of van Ryneveld and Brand)

 England to Southern Italy  and crossing the Med (by night !) then Derna (Lybia) - Sollum  - Cairo (Egypt) -  Abu Simbel  (approximation of the the city of Kurusku north of Wadi Halfa where they crashed) - Khartoum (Sudan) - Nimule (South Sudan) - Kisumu (Kenya) - Mbala (aka Abercorn - Zambia) - Ndola -  Kabwe (aka Broken Hill) - Livingstone  (Victoria Falls !) - Balawayo (Zimbabwe) -  Cape Town.

What aircraft ? It needs to fly visual below 10K feet to see the terrain. A Cub might be nice but a little slow ?  A Caravan ?

 

Great tips, thanks 🙂 For me, I prefer a small aircraft that is capable to fly around 300 knots, IFR equipment and is able to land at rather smalled airports (let's say 2500 ft runway). 🙂

2 hours ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

Did it in a DA-42 some time ago. Some of the legs had me glancing nervously at the fuel gauges but on the whole it was straightforward.

Bear in mind my trip wasn't a circumnavigation as I didn't cross the equator.

Maybe I'll sound dumb now, but what is circumnavigation and is it different if you cross the equator? 🙂

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

This was my around the world in a DC-3 (Manfred Jahn C-47).  The detour in Canada was to refly Buffalo Airways routes.

Hook

Nice one! 🙂

1 hour ago, ArchStanton said:

A comparable RTW flight with a Piper Malibu, but beware - there is no AVGAS in SCIP available. 😜

https://www.zahorsky.net/blog/

I'll check it out, thanks! 🙂 

14 minutes ago, Thomasso said:

I'd miss Oceania, Australia, NZ and the islands in Pacific 😞 All such beautiful places.

I only have one aircraft with the range to do that, the A2A Constellation.  And yes, I've flown that route. 🙂   

Japan and the Aleutians have their own charm.  Eventually, do both routes!

Hook

1 hour ago, LHookins said:

This was my around the world in a DC-3 (Manfred Jahn C-47).  The detour in Canada was to refly Buffalo Airways routes.

Hook

Nice route Hook. And a very nice aircraft to do it in. I see you went via the Azores - I didn't have quite the endurance to do that in the Twin Star.

29 minutes ago, Thomasso said:

 

Maybe I'll sound dumb now, but what is circumnavigation and is it different if you cross the equator? 🙂

For a Round The World trip to be considered a true circumnavigation - whether by aeroplane, boat,  it's necessary to pass through at least two points that are antipodal to each other. e.g; Wellington, New Zealand - Alaejos, Spain.

This would involve crossing the equator at least once.

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumnavigation

Edited July 16, 20205 yr by Will Fly For Cheese

14 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Japan and the Aleutians have their own charm.  Eventually, do both routes!

Hook

You're right there. When I came through the Aleutians I had 100kts tailwinds blowing me all the way to Anchorage. Much fun.

28 minutes ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

Nice route Hook. And a very nice aircraft to do it in. I see you went via the Azores - I didn't have quite the endurance to do that in the Twin Star.

Thanks.  Now consider that I did it all without time compression, no GPS, real world weather, and no use of autopilot (hand flying the entire way).  Navigation was both VOR and dead reckoning.  All flight planning and navigation was with skyvector.com . 

The Azores route was one Buffalo flew when they delivered a pair of water bombers to Turkey.  It does take an aircraft with decent range.  I usually fly via Narsarsuaq, but made one trip in a Beaver (450 nm range) across central-south Greenland.  I've also made the southern route via Ascension Island.

Oh, and I flew the DC-3 from San Francisco to Hawaii, but had to go via Adak and Midway to do it. 🙂 DC-3 only has 1500 nm range.

Once I've exhausted all my sightseeing flying in MSFS I'll plan an around the world trip.  This might take a while as I've got lots of sightseeing to do. 🙂 

Hook

42 minutes ago, Will Fly For Cheese said:

For a Round The World trip to be considered a true circumnavigation - whether by aeroplane, boat,  it's necessary to pass through at least two points that are antipodal to each other. e.g; Wellington, New Zealand - Alaejos, Spain.

This would involve crossing the equator at least once.

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumnavigation

Oh great, Quito and Kuala Lumpur will make it true circumnavigation for me! Yay! 😄  Thanks for the explanation.

I tried Amelia Earharts route,  but that trip through Africa and MidEast section in xplane was god awful, so picked it up again in India. 

55 minutes ago, LHookins said:

I only have one aircraft with the range to do that, the A2A Constellation.  And yes, I've flown that route. 🙂   

Japan and the Aleutians have their own charm.  Eventually, do both routes!

Hook

I guess that I'll have to cheat a bit on that leg (Hanga Roa > Chile) and refuel on the way. I'll simulate bringing some cannisters with me 😄  😄 I hope that you can refuel in the air in the sim though.

I will fly all over the world in this new sim, no worries there 🙂 

1 minute ago, MichiGanderFlyer said:

I tried Amelia Earharts route,  but that trip through Africa and MidEast section in xplane was god awful, so picked it up again in India. 

Well, you can try again, since the entire planet should look awesome 😛 

21 minutes ago, LHookins said:

Thanks.  Now consider that I did it all without time compression, no GPS, real world weather, and no use of autopilot (hand flying the entire way).  Navigation was both VOR and dead reckoning.  All flight planning and navigation was with skyvector.com . 

The Azores route was one Buffalo flew when they delivered a pair of water bombers to Turkey.  It does take an aircraft with decent range.  I usually fly via Narsarsuaq, but made one trip in a Beaver (450 nm range) across central-south Greenland.  I've also made the southern route via Ascension Island.

Oh, and I flew the DC-3 from San Francisco to Hawaii, but had to go via Adak and Midway to do it. 🙂 DC-3 only has 1500 nm range.

Once I've exhausted all my sightseeing flying in MSFS I'll plan an around the world trip.  This might take a while as I've got lots of sightseeing to do. 🙂 

Hook

Yep, time compression is cheating. I have never used it on my flights.

The Twin Star had G1000's so no NAV skills were required though I still tuned VORs manually as a sanity check.

I did the same trip in the A2A Cherokee a couple of years later with no GPS option so that was entirely chart (skyvector/ Little NavMap) based Navigation. In a lot of places it's a compass and stopwatch job for long durations.

I simulated collapsable ferry tanks by taking passengers of the same weight -and as the fuel burned down in the ferry tanks so I chucked the passengers out. Cruel - but effective for keeping your weights accurate!

I plan to fly to a few places in the new sim for some sightseeing before also embarking for "A quick one around the lot".

Maybe you could organise an "official" AVSIM around the world flight? 

Starting say a few days after the release of MSFS, so that people have a chance to play around with MSFS first?

That Jules Verne "Around the World in Eighty Days" route sounds interesting, or maybe some other historic around the world route? 🤔  

Does MSFS support custom online "rooms" whereby you could host a room for the flight?  Maybe also using real weather, real time of day?