The Scarlet Pipistrel Visits the Dolomites
For Wednesday, June 21, 2023
Michael MacKuen

Today we have some fun flying through the Dolomites (Dolomiti in Italian, Dolomiten in German) in the north-eastern part of the Italian Alps. This is a trip through steep jagged peaks and green alpine meadows sprinkled with clear blue lakes  and fringed with firs. The mountains are distinctive for their pale grey limestone hue – the name stems from the characteristic mineral dolomite.

The Dolomites are renowned for their hiking. We shall do the next best thing ... flying. And what better aircraft than the Pipistrel – from nearby Slovenia?


Over the Dolomites

We depart from Cortina D’Ampezzo [LIPT], the beautiful resort-center of the area. It is known for its après-ski scene and its jet set and Italian aristocratic crowd. [Think James Bond.] During the peak of the ski-season, the population swells from 7,000 to 40,000. The town hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics and will co-host the 2026 Winter games. The small airport was built for the 1956 games and there is talk of renewing the (nowadays) disused airport. [We shall fly from here, thanks to our scenery author’s imagination.]

After crossing over the town itself, we turn west and climb up to the Valparola Pass with the steep Lagazuoi [LAGZ] looming above on the north. Further on, we encounter the spectacular Puez-Geisler [PUEZ] massif on the right and Piz Boè to the left as we fly over the Gardena Pass [GARDP] to enter the tourist-friendly Val Gardena (Gröden) [GRODN] on the western side. We turn southwest and climb up to the Alpe de Suisi (Seiser Alm) [SUISI], “Europe’s largest Alpine meadow.” This is a beautiful high-altitude grassland that attracts visitors to its classic hotels and huts. At the western end, we quickly descend 2,000 ft to visit the small historic St. Valentin Church [VALEN] just above the village Suisi. Then a further descent into Bolzano (Bozen) [LIPB], an urban area of 250,000 and the cultural, commercial, and tourist center of the Dolomites.

We fly south and then east into the Fiemme Valley to a small airstrip Volavisio [LIFZ] alongside the Torrente Avisio. [This will take some care as the field is partly hidden in the trees. A low pass will suffice.] Nearby is the large town Cavalese, the valley’s administrative center. (The associated cable car from Cavalese to the nearby mountain Cermis has been the site of two major cable-car accidents, one in 1975 and one in 1998 – the latter due to USMC pilots flying low in the valley. You should see and avoid this cable car if you approach from the east.) After a brief stop, we proceed down the Avisio to the Adige valley, overfly the city of Trento (Trient), and land at Trento Caproni [LIDT]. Aviators might like to glance at the Caproni Museum of Aeronautics, the country’s oldest aviation museum – founded and nourished by Gianni Caproni (the early aviation design legend) and his heirs. In addition, the museum is blessed with an Aeronautica Militare F-104G Starfighter which, pointed to the sky, stands as a gate guardian.

We take off and turn immediately to the southwest, flying through and over the mountains to Asiago [LIDA]. (This is the home region for the famous cheese.) Asiago is the site of a major WWI battle – Ernest Hemingway fought here. Nearby is the Alpine War Monument that memorializes the Italian and Austrian war dead from the 1915-1918 war – well over a half million for those years. The Italians and Austrians attempted offensives but mainly settled down to four years of very deadly static mountain warfare. In the Dolomites, if you draw a line from Trento to Asiago to Cortina and the north, you will get a good idea of the battlefront – where each side dug into mountainside fortifications and fought to a standstill.

We fly east to Belluno. On the way, we fly low over the Feltre Paragliding Club Launch Site [LI16D] located on Monte Avena. (The Italian Paragliding Championships were held here in early June 2023.) Not sure if we can land on the mountaintop meadow and then launch out over the grand Valbelluna below... We make a brief visit to the Santa Giustina Aeroclub [LIOA] on the way to Belluno [LIDB]. Belluno is the most important city of the Eastern Dolomites. The large grass airfield is home to an Aero Club as well as glider and skydive operations.

For the sport, we make a quick hop of 4nm to Tignes [LIUG], a small grass airfield with a challenging hillside location. Then up the Piave Valley to pass the high Vajont Dam [VAJ], one of the world’s tallest. In 1963, shortly after the dam started operations, a huge mountain landslide above the new lake caused the water to overflow the intact dam by 250m [!] and cause widespread devastation in the valley below. The dam is now out of service with a dry basin behind the wall. We continue up the valley, over the pretty Pieve di Cadore Dam [CADOR], and then turn up into the mountains for the Altiport Casera Razzo [PZ73], a grass strip up on the altiplano.

Then northwest, staying high (8000’) to fly among the peaks. The most famous are the rock formations of Tre Cime di Lavaredo [TRE]. We turn north at Monte Piana [PIANA] where in WWI the Italians and Austrians contested the high ground – Austrians holding the northern summit Piano and Italians the southern Piana. The two sides lost 14,000 men – without military effect. A mountaintop “Open-air Historical Museum” memorializes the events. Our descent down the valley brings us to the Dobbiaco-Toblach [LIVD] grass airstrip – in the middle of a set of farm fields.

This is the long east-west Puster Valley (Val Pusteria, Pustertal). To the north lies the current Italian-Austrian border. We proceed west to Brunico (Bruneck), the valley’s largest town. We take a look at Bruneck Castle [BRUNK] which was built as a fortress and later converted to a more elegant princely residence. Today it hosts the Messner Mountain  Museum Ripa site, one of six museums in the Dolomites initiated by wealthy mountaineer Reinhold Messner to celebrate the culture and life of mountain people all over the world. Soon afterwards, we pass over San Michele Castle [SMICH], built on a steep cliff in 1091 and the most important fortress castle of the Puster Valley.

Then we climb up to the top of Kronplatz (7,424’) between the Puster and Gader Valleys. This is a popular regional ski resort with plenty of slopes and accompanying ski lifts as well as a communications mast crowning the top. Especially interesting is the Messner Mountain Museum [MMM] Corones site that celebrates the discipline of mountaineering. This is a distinctive structure built partly into the mountainside on the southwest edge of the summit.

We remain at altitude to reach our final destination the Sennes Rifugio [LIVP]. During the Cold War, this location hosted NATO military flights in light planes to provide scouting functions in the Alpine setting. This “altiport” airstrip is no longer in use although the landing site remains. There is a rather nice rifugio (hütte) here with simple rooms-with-WC as well as the dormitory rooms one might normally expect in these mountain accommodations. Hot meals, Tyrolese and Italian, are standard fare. Thanks to our author’s resurrection of the airstrip, we shall land, park our aircraft, and enjoy the views.

Documentation
The flightplan is available here.

Aircraft
Today’s flight is 224nm with a mix of established hard-surfaced airports and mountain altiports. This is a mission for lightweight sport aircraft with some STOL-capabilities and a speed of 120-130ktas. This might include the Pipistrel Virus, JMB VL3, CubCrafters Cub/NXCub, GotFriends Grravel and Carbon Cub. (Commercial turbine aircraft, though plenty capable, are not a good fit for the event.) I’ll fly the Asobo Pipistrel Virus in the Red/Grey livery (“The Scarlet Pipistrel”) by Rockview101. The Pipistrel is the signature aircraft for this flight. If you prefer something else ... please fly what you like.

Additional Scenery
Most airports are in the default simulator, but not all. LIPT, PZ73, and LIVP are not in the sim and are thus required downloads. In all, I would recommend the following freeware sceneries. Thanks to these fine authors.

Cortina D’Ampezzo [LIPT]. Fasoiben
Trento Caproni [LIDT]. Alex (BMW)
or Trento Caproni [LIDT]. mamu82
Asiago [LIDA]. Alex (BMW)
Area Lancio Delta Club Feltre [LI16D]. erasam
Campo Volo Fant Air Club [LIOA]. erasam
Belluno [LIDB]. erasam
Campo di Volo, Tignes [LIUG]. Troglodytus
Altiport Casera Razzo [PZ73]. Photosbykev
Sennes Rifugio [LIVP]. Gianpa_PoL. (Fictional rendition of historic airstrip. Real rifugio.)

You can get a full package here. (1GB)

In addition to this specific scenery, you will almost certainly want:
Project Lifts – Chairlifts, Gondonlas and Cablecars. mamu82
Powerlines and Solar Farms. mamu82

Finally, the Dolomites are famous for their very craggy sharp peaks. In the Italian Scenery Update, MS have done a pretty good job capturing the overall feel and adding a few areas of detailed depiction. However, the result is only an approximation of the real thing. You might consider a freeware terrain addon which sharpens up several famous “groups” through which we shall fly: Puez Odle by DemoKen. This is really pretty good work on a limited range. However, the package is 4GB so the download is large. And it demands computing power. My old machine could not handle the package without lots of stutters. Your machine may be more capable. If you are inclined toward this scenery, you might give this a test run before using it in the actual flight.

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Saturday, set the simulator at 9:00 am local for June 21, 2023. We typically prefer real weather but may need to adjust.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and Time: Saturday, June 21, 2023. 1800 UTC
AVSIM Discord Server: https://discord.gg/K5Vy6UxWNm  - AVSIM GROUP EVENTS-SAT. COM2
Microsoft Flight Simulator Multiplayer: United States East server.

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the Wednesday multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Please be kind enough to enter the title exactly as it stands in the title=”xxx” line of the aircraft.cfg file. Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!

If you downloaded the flightplan before Tuesday 1500UTC, please do so again. (I made a correction and replaced the online version with the correct plan.)

Those who are flying the Virus should consider getting the improvement mod (link below) which includes a POH and flying tips. 

 

Asobo Pipistrel SW121 Realism Mod for Microsoft Flight Simulator | MSFS

Just a thought of something extra. We might consider a possible visit to Lake Braies (Lago di Braies, Pragser Wildsee) if we have plenty of extra time.

Arguably this is the most beautiful lake in Italy. And it is certainly a photographers’ delight. From our penultimate airport Dobbiaco/Toblach LIVD, we go west. After a half-mile, on reaching the town Niederdorf, we head southwest down the narrow Prags Valley to Lake Braies at the end of a canyon formed by the steep mountains. There are a classic hotel and plenty of tourists nearby. Circle low over the lake to see why it has such a reputation. Then back out the canyon and head west in the Puster Valley to Brunico/Bruneck to see the castles before finishing our trip.

By the way, there is an interesting side story from April 1945 about how a courageous and resourceful Wehrmacht officer managed to save a group of prominent prisoners from likely execution at the hands of the SS. The prisoners were eventually liberated at the Pragser Wildsee hotel.

I'm sorry, but I can't fly tonight. We are getting heavy thunderstorms and more are on the way towards us. It is absolutely not advisable to turn on the computer now and for the next hours, if the power is not out in a few minutes anyway...

Have fun, see you sometime in July!