Okay, the plan was to make the first sim flight of 2021 be a 'nice little earner' for my Madagascar-based Air Hauler 2 MSFS company - Indian Trader...

'So, you'll pay me nearly 25 Grand to fly 3,380 lbs of cigarettes to a small airfield about 800 miles to the north west of here so long as they arrive in less than 31 hours, that about right Chief?'

'That's right...'

'Okay then, I'm your man.'

So then, that's a fully loaded Beech 350 departing from a 4,000 foot runway which is 1,150 feet above sea level and there is no fuel available at the departure or arrival airport, then flying to Selinda just south of the Zambezi, which is at an elevation of 3,100 feet and has a poxy short runway, no tower, and only a few NDBs a few miles away to help you get there, but there are a few larger airports in the region if you need to divert. Weather looks okay at the moment, potentially a bit stormy nearer the destination but nothing too bad although with the destination at over 3,000 feet above sea level, the cloud base might potentially be a problem. Off we go then. Let's use every inch of runway for this one then...

Easy peasy, and the weather looks pretty good at the moment. This one is money in the bank...

Hmm, it's getting a bit cloudier up north and if it gets much worse than this, I might have trouble letting down near the destination...

Uh oh, now there are thunder clouds building up. Still, we should be able to thread through them...

Commencing the descent, it seems it's pretty cloudy...

Good job the Beech is equipped with a radar altimeter, so I decide to steer for the nearby lake and descend no lower than 500 feet AGL to see if it looks like we can make it into Selinda. I can only hope that the nearby airport with the rather rude ICAO code of FYKU isn't trying to tell me something...

Over the lake we can at least now see the terrain, but the ceiling is really marginal...

I decide to take a look whilst on the runway heading and see how feasible it is...

Not chancing that, so I set off for a clearer area weather wise. So much for a nice easy earner, but there was no way I was going to try landing in that with no nav aids to help at all and a ceiling which was nearly all the way down to the surface. Thus it was back up into the clouds and then above them and off to somewhere nicer with hopefully either an ILS or a nice clear ceiling for a visual approach.

 

Great  story  and beautiful pics. Makes  me wonder  if there's  one single corner  of this lovely planet that is not nicely depicted  in MSFS.

P.S. alas for the pool souls at Selinda, as you left them without smokes for the weeekend 🙂

Edited January 1, 20215 yr by duesenwerni

Might want to plan an air drop next time. Very cool, thanks for posting!

Great story line! I second @MartinRex007 idea!

Great post and narrative.  I continue to encourage more members here to add perspective and local knowledge to the content here.  Great job.

Great shots and story! That cloudy descent to reveal the foggy shoreline is a great showcase of the sim's environment.

Thanks for a wonderful entertainment, Alan. I like your rego too 🙂