Thought I’d take the Carenado Seneca out for a scenic flight in the Alps. Created an IFR flight plan from LOWI Innsbruck to LIML Milan Lineate. For some added challenge I planned a short stop at LSZS Samedan. Being about halfway on the way to Milan, I thought I’d refuel there. 

I departed from Innsbruck rwy 26 with half full tanks in fair weather, albeit strong winds. The initial departure kept me constantly busy, handling the aircraft whilst following the published procedure to get safely up to altitude. “Keep a heading of 272 until 3.3nm from OEV LOC DME, then turn visually left to join OEJ on course 066 via RUM”. The procedure is like half a visual circuit, turning downwind then tracking a localizer course, followed by the back course of another localizer to take you safely up to altitude.

Luckily, the Seneca handles well and is great to hand-fly with proper trimming. She seems steady and sturdy even in wind and turbulence, and responds smoothly to control inputs. I climbed to 15,000ft to clear the Alps and easily got 1500fpm most of the way. After a while the autopilot became useful to control heading and vertical speed. It’s not the most advanced out there, but it did its job well enough.

Above 11,000ft or so I encountered overcast clouds and quickly icing conditions and instrument meteorological conditions (IMC). No hassle I thought as I turned on prop, windshield and surface anti-ice. The autopilot had no trouble following the flight plan that I had pre-programmed into the GNS530.

Approaching Samedan on the RNAV 21 I descended into the valley, looking forward to see Orbx rendition of the airport for the first time. I soon realized this was not going to happen. At the MDA (minimum descent altitude) of 8680ft there was nothing to be seen outside other than thick clouds. The airport is at 5573ft, and I had no option but to go around. 

It then quickly occurred to me that I missed the colorful displays in the Garmin glass cockpits. Having nothing in the cockpit to depict terrain, I strictly followed the go-around procedure to climb out of the valley. With minimum safe altitudes of 13,500ft north of the airport and 15,500ft to the south, following published IFR procedures became vital. Although somewhat more challenging in the Seneca compared to e.g. the TBM or the Caravan, she did a good job to keep me safe. 

At 16,000 I tuned SRN VOR and headed southbound for Milan. I reprogrammed the GNS530 for a direct to LIML and chose the VOR18 approach based on forecasted surface winds. 

Descending over Lago di Como I started looking forward to a nice overfly of Milan. The weather however turned progressively worse. Heavy rain showers, turbulence and then blasts of lightning followed by roaring thunder made the approach somewhat nerve wracking. In addition, I started to worry about remaining fuel. I’d burned quite a lot climbing out from the failed approach into Samedan, and also missed my refueling opportunity.

Descending from 3600ft on the 175 radial to Lineate VOR, the weather didn’t improve. Even at the MDA of 800ft (touchdown altitude 353ft), there was still just grey and rain to be seen outside.

Having no fuel for an alternate due to appalling pre-flight planning, I had no choice but to make it down somehow. 

Brushing some tree-tops I realized I had not updated the altimeter, having not been in contact with Lineate tower. A few seconds later, the runway lights came in to view towards my left. Being a non-precision approach, a VOR rarely takes you straight to the runway like an ILS. Crabbing into the wind, going full flaps then a cross-controlled maneuver to line up with the runway then gently flaring before touching down - I made it down to Mother Earth safely! 

To recap this rather lengthy story:

1. The Seneca is a joy to fly, even in challenging IMC using various non-precision approaches

2. MSFS is not just a scenery simulator

3. Note to self: do some proper fuel planning on the next IFR flight

The weather in-sim did not seem to be that far off real forecasted weather, using METARs and weather radar from windy.com. At least not at Samedan, which would have been closed due to clouds below minimums. At Lineate wind speed and direction corresponded reasonably well with the METAR, but cloud coverage and visibility was considerably worse. 

In fact, the visibility on the ground was so bad that even the taxiways were hard to make out. 

LSZS: Wind 200° 9kt, varying from 170° to 240°. Visibility 3400m. Light rain. Clouds few 1600ft, overcast 3200ft. Temperature 7°C, dew point 7°C. QNH 1013hPa.

LIML: Wind 100° 12kt. Visibility 6000m. Light rain. Clouds scattered 2000ft, broken 6000ft. Temperature 14°C, dew point 12°C. QNH 1011hPa. No significant change.

For those (few?) that made it to the end of this post, what do you think of IFR flying in MSFS? And for the lucky owners of the Seneca - I hope you’re as happy with her as I am!

Edited May 11, 20215 yr by Cpt_Piett

Very nice photos and detailed post! I felt like I was there with you! I recently saw a video from the AOPA (I think?) YouTube channel about someone who unfortunately crashed due to IMC and no fuel left a few years ago that sounded a lot like what you were simulating. I can't imagine how scary that whole thing would be in real life. Keep up the cool posts!

Thanks for the post!  I am happy with both the IFR aspect and the Seneca, which is probably the best Carenado aircraft I have bought. 

Thanks for the feedback!

This has got to be one of the more challenging flights I’ve done in a sim thus far. MSFS’ rendition of weather and atmospheric effects, combined with the flight characteristics, visual appearance and convincing soundscape of the Seneca - all added to the immersion and the feeling of being there. 

The Seneca is a bit of a leap from the comfort-zone of glass cockpits however.