Milford Sound, Wanaka and Queenstown

[MM]

Milford Sound, Wānaka and Queenstown
For Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Michael MacKuen

Today we visit one of the more beautiful spots in the world to see how it looks in “early days” MSFS 2024. We start at Glenorchy and fly over the mountains to Milford Sound. Then switch to light amphibians to explore the natural beauty of the sound. And then switch back to fly up the coast and circle around Mount Aspiring National Park to Wānaka. Finally, we return over the mountains to Queenstown.


Milford Sound

We begin on the northern shore of Lake Wakatipu at Glenorchy Airport [NZGY], a site that hosts parajumping, flightseeing, and light aviation. Climbing, we fly over the many modest peaks and ridges in this section of the Southern Alps before we descend into the Arthur River valley to land at Quinton Lodge [T004]. Then 10 miles to Milford Sound Airport [NZMF] which should have plenty of summertime tourists.

We switch into a small low-and-slow amphibian (perhaps a C172 or XCub) to fly out Milford Sound (technically a fjord) and enjoy the sights. (See the special flightplan “Milford Sound on Floats.”) We want to see the famous Milford Sound Waterfalls. First, note the famous Bowen Falls (near the tour boat docking facilities), the tallest of the two permanent waterfalls. Land at Harrison Cove and water-taxi to see the rocky whitewater of the Harrison River, a nice little waterfall, a very long waterfall (both names unknown) and  the Milford Sound Underwater Observatory (a quick tourist attraction). A good time to admire the much-touted MSFS 2024 pebbles (J). Then pass the oft-photographed Stirling Falls, the second of the permanent falls and perhaps the more dramatic one. Cross over for The Overhang (and some giant seals?). This stretch should (but doesn’t) include the Fairy Falls (cruise ships sail right underneath) and Bridal Veil Falls, (semi-permanent and impressive after a heavy rain). Then continue to see a high cascading falls (name unknown) and a whitewater flow (name unknown). And then venture out to the Tasman Sea at Fox Point and St Anne Point – and perhaps a careful water landing if the weather permits. Return via Seal Rock (a favorite sunning spot for local fur seals…but perhaps not today) and the Four Sisters (four equally high parallel tracks down a cliff face and visible only after a decent rain and not today). We finish at the Milford Sound Breakwater to park at the tourist boat docks.

Next, we restart from Milford Sound Airport [NZMF] and circle-to-climb to the northeast over the Notch 6700 between Mount Tutoki and Mount Madeline near Teal Lake. Proceed out over Lake McKerrow to Martins Bay Aerodrome [NZMJ] and Martins Bay Lodge. This is a fairly short field with hard rocks or hard trees at the northern edge so take care. Then on to Gorge River Airstrip [NZGE], a lovely short and narrow challenge. The spot has plenty of character as it is the home of Robert Long and his family who have dropped out of “capitalist” society and lived close to nature on the Gorge River. Their only contact with the “outside world” is a monthly helicopter – and the occasional visit of a small flock of multiplayer pilots.

Then up the coast to Haast Aerodrome [NZHT].  We head east and south along the scenic valleys of the Haast River and then the Makarora River to land at the Makarora Aerodrome [NZMW]. This is a hikers’ hub and an access point for the Mt. Aspiring National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Area). On takeoff we turn right into the park and up the Wilkin River valley climbing all the way. At the top of the valley, we cross the ridge (6200) and head southwest toward the peaks. We first pass Fastness Peak and then proceed to a great view of Mount Aspiring itself. Worth a long look. Then southeast over the Matukituki River and Lake Wānaka to land at the Wānaka Aerodrome [NZWF]. This is a field with some worldwide fame in the aviation community. It has a modest number of commercial flights (Sounds Air) and it is a base for scenic and charter flights around the region. More famous, the Warbirds over Wanaka air show has been held biennially since 1988, regularly attracting crowds of more than 50,000 people. Great stuff.

Next, we fly back over Wānaka, a beautiful resort town that works in summer and in winter. It has bars, restaurants and accommodations but it is much less commercialized than Queenstown. In a modern twist, it hosts “That Wānaka Tree” which is partially submerged in the lake near the town. It is “New Zealand’s most famous tree” and its most photographed tree … and a star of social media. (This is modeled, but hard to see from the air.)

Heading southwest, we climb over the valley to see the Cardrona Alpine Resort, a successful modern skiing facility. (Far below, on the Cardrona Valley Road, is the world famous Cardrona Bra Fence. It is hard to explain why Asobo failed to model this admittedly quirky POI – although a vocal minority of locals will be pleased with the omission.) A few miles along the mountains lies Coronet Peak, the oldest of the region’s ski resorts. We (optionally and irresponsibly) might jump down along with the jet boats and shoot the white rapids of the Shotover River Canyon. (The Shotover Jets are recommended for breathtaking adventure but not for soothing relaxation. Everyone gets wet.) The Edith Cavell Bridge, a single lane heritage structure, stands 147 ft over the Shotover River.

We follow the Gorge Road to Skyline Queenstown – a tourist attraction with a high rise gondola and a ridgetop restaurant on Bob’s Peak. The views of Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables are pretty impressive. Finally, we turn to the east and land at Queenstown [NZQN], the commercial jet airport that serves the region.

Documentation
The flightplans can be found here. In each format there are three flightplans for the three segments: 1 for the initial leg Glenorchy-Milford Sound, 2 for the Milford Sound Floats excursion, and 3 for the longer Milford Sound-Wānaka-Queenstown segment. The New Zealand weather presets are included for your convenience.

Aircraft
This is a flight of 270nm with 8 landings. It requires a fairly speedy GA aircraft that can “fast cruise” at about 150kts and is also at home on grass strips. Popular choices might include the Piaggio P.149, Piper Comanche, Vans RV-14, Quest Kodiak, Cessna 208 Caravan, or the (faster) Beech Bonanza. There are three legs, with the middle leg a quick tour of Milford Sound – we shall optionally switch into, and out of, light amphibians such as the C172 and XCub to allow a couple of water landings. Please fly what you like on the various parts of the route.

Additional Scenery
All of the airports are in the default simulator. That said, these addons will enhance the scenery. (These are MSFS2020 sceneries that are ok in MSFS2024.) Thanks to these talented addon creators.

Glenorchy [NZGY]. SBWorks
Haast Aerodrome [NZHT]. SBWorks
Makarora [NZMW]. callsign1065
Wanaka [NZWF]. SBWorks
Queenstown [NZQN]. T0kenDesign

Temporarily, you can obtain the freeware package here (94MB).

NZA Simulations have fine payware models of the Milford Sound Region and the Wanaka Region – direct sale and through Orbx. (You can get MSFS2020 and MSFS2024 versions for each region.) These are great additions for MSFS2020 and for MSFS2024. For our specific purposes, I would recommend the Milford Sound Region first and the Wanaka Region second. (If you get the Wanaka Region, don’t use the freeware models of Makarora and Wanaka.) These two payware packages are good quality by good developers. However, they are not necessary for this flight – the freeware and default sceneries are pretty good.

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Wednesday, set the simulator at 10:00am local for November 8, 2025. Note that a January 8 simulator time setting, which is mid-Summer in New Zealand, produces Autumn foliage – bright red and orange trees (a bug, I’m pretty sure). Skipping back two months produces something like late Summer foliage. In addition, we want to use a weather preset to avoid the common Asobo bug that puts Milford Sound in perpetual snow-bound winter. We want New Zealand Weather Presets by zkd0s (a long-time New Zealand pilot). We use his NZ Weather – Typical Milford Sound. Just put this “NZ Weather Presets” file in your community folder (or use Addon Linker) and then choose the weather preset as you always do. (Same for 2020 and 2024.)

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Wednesday, January 8, 2025. 1900 UTC
RTWR Multiplayer Discord Channel
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!

[Bert Pieke]

Wow... The word "spectacular" does not do it justice.. 🫢

 

 

Edited January 7 by Bert Pieke

[MM]

NOTAM: Balloons in NZA Milford Sound and Wānaka. Here is a message only for those who are flying MSFS2024 and who are using the payware Milford Sound Region and/or Wanaka Region. For quite some time there has been a bug somewhere that causes hot air balloons to appear in odd places at these airfields: Quintin Lodge [T004], Milford Sound [NZMF], Martins Bay [NZMJ], Cascade Station [NZ35] and Wānaka [NZWF]. (Things are fine in MSFS2020 with and without the NZA scenery and fine in default MSFS2024.) These balloons are static aircraft objects placed by the simulator. The work-around is as follows: go to “Settings|Global Rendering Quality-Advanced Settings|Traffic Airport Quality” (you’ll have to scroll down) and select “OFF”. This choice will prevent the balloons and any other static simulator-placed aircraft from appearing. You can change this special setting at any time before or within flight. While these balloons are an eyesore, they do not affect flight … except on approach to Martins Bay [NZMJ] where the balloons block the approach to Rwy 02. So affected pilots will want this setting OFF before landing at NZMJ.

While this quirk has existed for a while, it disappeared for me over the weekend. The static balloons simply did not appear when they otherwise had before. Great news. Except that they reappeared consistently this morning. Bad news. But they again disappeared this afternoon. Hence this note. If you get hot air balloons appearing in strange places at Quintin Lodge or Milford Sound, you will want to execute this workaround before Martins Bay. Otherwise, thing might be ok …

(You know you are working in a difficult environment when an “undocumented feature” repeatedly appears, repeatedly disappears, repeatedly appears, and then repeatedly disappears again.)
 

[MM]

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[MM]

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