Florida Everglades and Barrier Islands
For Saturday, December 13, 2024
Michael MacKuen

What better time than January to visit Florida? Today we continue our journey through the Everglades and then turn up Florida’s Gulf Coast to enjoy beauty of the Barrier Islands with their white sand beaches and protected nature reserves. In the middle, we pop over to Kermit Weeks’ Fantasy of Flight to see his magnificent collection of flying machines.

Our final destination is “Old Florida” Cedar Key

We leave from Miami Executive Airport [KTMB], a standard General Aviation field which has now become a favorite for business travel. Once airborne, we can take in the Florida Everglades. While these are best appreciated up close from water-level, our overflight provides a fine view of the different ecosystems. First come the vast sawgrass marshes and then the Shark River sloughs (low-lying channels of water). This part of the Everglades constitutes a very wide shallow slow-motion river that runs southwest from Lake Okeechobee down to Florida Bay. Early conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas famously termed the Everglades a “river of grass.” South Florida is flat and the total elevation gradient in the 100 miles from the source to the sea is only 12 feet. The water spreads out over the 60 mile-wide depression and, depending on season and weather, it moves at about two feet a minute and the sheetflow takes six months or longer to reach the sea. We turn at the Shark River Observation Tower (tallest point in the Everglades) and head west over more marshes, sloughs, and cypress dome swamps. The key to the Everglades complex tropical wilderness is the Florida alligator, who not only stands at the top of the food chain but also helps shape the landscape by building waterholes. (The great Florida panther is nearly gone. The newly-arrived invasive Burmese python is another story.) Turning at the mouth of Lostmans River, we encounter the Ten Thousand Islands coastal region covered with dense mangrove forests. We stop at Everglades City [X01], an “ecotourism airport” for Everglades vacationers, and then continue over the Ten Thousand Islands Wildlife Refuge. We reach and pivot over Marco Island, an affluent retirement and vacation resort community that, like much of southwest Florida, is a mid-to-late twentieth century phenomenon. We land at Marco Island Executive [KMKY].

Heading up the Gulf Coast, we pass over Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve one of the continent’s few remaining undisturbed mangrove estuaries. We then turn at Naples Pier and glance at downtown Naples with its high end shops, restaurants, and art galleries. On our way north lie white sand beaches, wealthy homes, and many golf courses. We reach Fort Myers and land at Fort Myers Page Field [KFMY], a former commercial airport and now a busy GA field with a modern Base Operations that caters to executive aviation. Next we circle west over the Causeway to Sanibel Island, a classic “old Florida” experience without high rise buildings, fast food restaurants or commercial development – a lifestyle protected by sustained local community action. As much of the Gulf Coast, Sanibel was hit hard by Hurricane Ian in 2022 and it remains in the process of recovering. Of special note is the lovely Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge whose existence is owed in part to Darling, a Midwest newspaper reporter and cartoonist who became a committed environmentalist long before it was trendy. We fly low along the more exclusive barrier islands Captiva and North Captiva. Then over Cayo Costa (Hurricane Ian’s landfall point) and Gasparilla Island’s upscale Boca Grande which in the early twentieth century became nationally famous as a tarpon sportfishing center (the pass between the two islands is very deep and it attracts the huge fish). The island became a mecca for wealthy northern sportsmen and continues to maintain a moneyed clientele. We land at Coral Creek [FA54], a private airport that caters to the seasonal residents’ Gulfstreams and Challengers. Taking off, we proceed along the barrier islands and their beaches, passing Sarasota, to Anna Maria Island where we turn into Tampa Bay. We fly over (or under) the Sunshine Skyway Bridge which spans one of the busiest shipping lanes in the U.S. (The previous bridge was brought down by a freighter hitting a support structure.) We stop at St. Petersburg [KSPG]. This is a wonderful downtown harbor airport with St. Pete’s marinas, central business district, city restaurants, museums, and Tropicana Field all within walking distance from the FBO.

For a change of pace, our route turns inland. We execute a touch-and-go or low-pass at Lakeland Linder Field [KLAL] to salute the annual “Sun ‘n Fun” weeklong fly-in and airshow held each Spring. (This year will be the 50^th anniversary.) We land at Fantasy of Flight [FA08] – a 4,872 ft private grass field which demands some care due to the nearby water, trees, and cows. The facility hosts much of Kermit Weeks’ terrific collection (some aircraft are visiting other museums or are under restoration elsewhere). The main hangar and restoration shop are to the northeast and the main museum to the northwest. North of the roadway are two more storage hangars. If we look around we can see outdoors a B-25, a Constellation, a PBY, and a Stearman. Through his efforts of acquisition and restoration, Weeks’ team has produced one of the world’s best collections of “flyable” vintage aircraft. Sadly, our schedule prevents our staying as long as we might like.

We turn back westward to Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional [KBKV], a busy GA operation on the outskirts of the Tampa area. It also hosts Army National Guard helicopter and Special Forces units. Then to the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. This is the special place dedicated to protecting Florida’s very own Manatee, the large, slow-moving, and curious marine mammal. Manatees are capable of complex associative learning and have good long-term memory. Social interactions are subtle and intricate. (We dumb pilots should be so lucky.) In winter, when the Gulf waters become cooler, manatees migrate to the rivers and bays of the Crystal River region where the hot-spring-fed waters are warm all year long. Once endangered, the manatees are doing better but still face severe threats from humans and environmental change (here is a lovely full documentary). We take a quick look at the islands and calm waters before heading west to our final destination Cedar Key George T. Lewis [KCDK]. Our final stop provides some entertainment as this is the shortest paved public runway in Florida (but not tiny at 2,356’) with a displaced threshold at either end. The airport cautions, “It is very common to come in too high and too fast on approach! If you do not touch down in the first third of the runway do not be embarrassed about going around. Consequences of landing long or hot may be blown tires or a swim in the marsh.” The locals then describe it as “one of the most beautiful and unique airports in the country. It is always a worthwhile visit.” Local drivers monitor pilots’ radio calls and will meet arrivals at the airport to provide car service into town. (You might like a video documenting a Cardinal flight from St. Pete to Cedar Key.) Cedar Key itself has been characterized as “boring” or as a “charming, historic, off-the-beaten path spot.”

Documentation
The flightplan can be found here.

Aircraft
This tour over the Gulf Coast is a bit longer than usual and calls for a slightly faster aircraft. The trip is about 375nm and we want a General Aviation aircraft that can fast cruise at 185-190kts. Some of our favorites include the Cessna 310, Cessna 414, Beach Baron, Beach Bonanza (Turbo), TBM 850/930 and the PC-12. Pilots of faster aircraft are encouraged to exercise throttle control. Of course, you should fly whatever you like. (I’ll take the Black Square TBM 850 in a Tim Scharnhop livery, specially modified here to depict the real world TBM 850 N889JG, as popularized by Jan Kees Blom’s 930 paint three years ago.)

Additional Scenery
These are not all necessary for the flight. They do add color and some are just excellent quality freeware scenery. Thanks to these authors.

Miami Executive [KTMB]. edpatino
Everglades Airpark [X01]. JustSeanC.
Marco Island Executive [KMKY]. goldenred49
Fort Myer Page Field [KFMY]. Fasy73
Coral Creek [FA54]. Opachki
Fantasy of Flight [FA08]. rotornut44 (Emerald Scenery Design)
Brooksville-Tampa Bay Regional [KBKV]. Art_P
Crystal River [KCGC]. zak001
Cedar Key George T. Lewis [KCDK]. LKPDesigns

Temporarily, you can download a scenery package here. 521 MB.

Small suggestion. When flying over the Everglades you might select the simulator’s Grass-Bushes setting at “Ultra”.

Time and Weather
Set the simulator for 1:00 pm local for January 13, 2024.
We normally prefer real weather and Florida should be fine. And yet, understanding that Florida weather is notoriously unpredictable, we can adjust if necessary.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Saturday, January 13, 2024. 1900 UTC
AVSIM Discord Server: https://discord.gg/K5Vy6UxWNm  - AVSIM GROUP EVENTS-SAT. COM1
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 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!
 

Really nice flightplan.. this one is a keeper. 🙂

The current forecast for Saturday is overcast skies with thunderstorms in the south with some clearing further north. With any luck, the storms will pass through. If we cannot do real weather, then an appropriate proxy would be Jeff’s brilliant new “Scattered 2” weather preset. (Cloudy with occasional gaps and shafts of light.) That preset was included in his package in the “Lusitania” flight this past Wednesday. (If you missed it, you can get Jeff’s work here.)