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A Flight Across the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts

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Okay, the title is a little bit clickbait-y.

This is Air China 1215, daily service from Beijing to Kashgar, an ancient silk road city. This flight will take us across China and the deserts of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Xinjiang.

Join as at Beijing Capital Airport, where we begin boarding at gate C33 ahead of our 7:05am departure:

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We've got a good passenger and cargo load, and fueled up for this 5-hour flight we are bumping right up against our MTOW of 79,300kg as we enter 18L for Departure:

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Takeoff and Climbout from Beijing Capital:

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Over the Yan Mountains, the landscape becomes much more arid:

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Crossing into Inner Mongolia, it's cloudy and the mountains are creating some moderate turbulence. We are now over the Gobi Desert.

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Now over Gansu Province, the terrain is harsh, dry, and mountainous. Whispy desert clouds pass below.

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About 3 hours into our 5 hour flight, we cross into Xinjiang over Lop Nur, the site of the first Chinese Nuclear Test in 1964.

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As the Gobi Desert turns into the Taklamakan desert, we see a vast expanse of sand dunes, with the Tian mountains far in the distance.

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We are truly alone up here, and despite being over land, this is Class II airspace.

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As we approach the western edge of the Taklan Desert, we pass over Aksu and the Kunlun Mountains.

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As we begin our descent into Kashgar the clouds thicken.

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Kashgar feels like an Oasis after hours over the northern deserts of China. Lush, and rainy.

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We touch down in Kashgar just after 12:30pm, 5:05 minutes after wheels up out of Beijing.

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And we're at the gate after a quick taxi in.

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No doubt my favorite part of MSFS has been the ability to fly and explore parts of the world neglected in P3D and FSX. What a treat this flight was!

Edited by StAgre

7800X3D - RTX 5080 - 64GB DDR5 - Dan C4-SFX

Very informative and a great eye-opener regarding out-of-the-way places.

John

Nice shots and im with John F, very informative.

Very nice shots and informations 👍

Landscape are looking awesome !

cheers 😉

08.2024 new PC is online :  ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-F GAMING WIFI Mainboard,  AMD Ryzen™ 9 7950X3D Prozessor, G.Skill DIMM 64 GB DDR5-6000 (2x 32 GB) Dual-Kit, MSI GeForce RTX 4090 VENTUS 3X E 24G OC Grafikkarte, 2x WD Black SN850X NVMe SSD 4 TB - Drive C+D, WD Gold Enterprise Class 12 TB for storage  HDD, Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 1000W PC - Power supply, Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO CPU Aircooler with 7 Heatpipes, Design Meshify 2 White TG Clear Tint Tower-Case, 3x 4K monitors 2x32 Samsung 1x27 LG  3840x2160, Windows11 Prof. 23H2 - now Windows11 Prof. 25H2

Flightsimulator Hardware: Honeycomb Throttle Bravo, Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, Logitech Flight Joke System, XBox Controller, some Thrustmaster stuff, Winwing CDU Panels.

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Fascinating post with excellent shots Sir . 

 

 

 

 

 

Great shots! I love going to these remote places. So much to discover 🙂

7950X3D | RTX 4090 | 64GB DDR5

Excellent and informative stuff, great shots.

Ryzen 9 7900X, Corsair H150 AIO cooler, 64 Gb DDR5, Asus X670E Hero m/b, 3090ti, 13Tb NVMe, 8Tb SSD, 16Tb HD, 55" Philips 4k HDR monitor, EVGA 1600w ps, all in Corsair 7000D airflow case. Sims in use - 2020, 2024, XP-12 and -11, FSX/SE, P3Dv4.5 and v5.4. DCS and AFS2 installed but rarely used

Wonderful series...! I can feel the Pilot's loneliness over that vast Taklamakan Desert...🙂...thanks for sharing...!

Fantastic!! I just try to imagine doing a flight like this in FSX...

Naaaaah 😃

Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase headwinds

My specs: AMD Radeon RX6700XT, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM, 34" monitor, screen resolution: 2560x1080

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

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