Kenyan Highlands and Great Rift Valley.
For May 24, 2025
Michael MacKuen

Today we shall fly over the Kenyan Highlands and then its famous Great Rift Valley. We depart from Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta Airport [HKJK], where we pick up a number of potential foreign investors who this morning are visiting the Swissport cargo facilities (Gate F 8). We’ve been asked to show in broad strokes the overall lay of the land in this nation’s widely varying countryside. We almost immediately pass over Karen Blixen's farm [BLIXN] (now a suburban museum celebrating her Out of Africa). Next, we see the double volcanic crater of Mount Suswa [SUSWA] and then pass over Hell's Gate National Park [HGATE]. Note the two extinct volcanos and the Olkaria Geothermal Stations. (The park, including Pride Rock and the Gorge, served as a model for the 1994 film The Lion King.) We land at Naivasha [HKNV], a large town whose main industry is now floriculture (you can see the vast arrays of greenhouses). Nowadays the flowers are rushed to Nairobi where Lufthansa, Etihad and other cargo airlines transport more than 90 tons of temperature-controlled packets per week to Europe and the wealthy Gulf States. On the lakeshore is the colonial Naivasha Country Club [LNCC], once a colonial hangout and now a luxury hotel, which in the 1930s served as an intermediate stop for Imperial Airways' flying boat service from Durban to London.


Shallow seasonal Lake Logipi on the floor of the forbidding Suguta Valley

Heading northwest, we fly over Lake Nakuru [NAKURU], the famous soda (alkaline) lake whose dense algae attract a population of a million flamingos – and turn them pink. (We pass over the childhood home of Beryl Markham [BMARK] (aviatrix and author) and then land on the neat grass strip of the international private St. Andrews School Turi [HKQM].

We head west over the protected forests of the Mau National Reserve to land at Marinyn [HKKQ] (preferred approach to land from the west). This is one of the small local airports that serve the many large tea plantations in the Kericho area. Kenya is one of the world’s main producers of Black Tea and tea is the nation’s most significant export product. (About 40 percent of this mainstay of Kenya’s commercial agriculture is produced by large plantations and the remainder by thousands of small independent farmers.)  We proceed west to Kisumu [HKKI], Kenya’s third largest city and its primary presence in the Lake Victoria region.  

Then flying north, we fly over rural Kenya with its large swaths of subsistence farms. Then as we climb into the highlands (7,000-9,000 ft) and approach Eldoret, we can see more commercial farming. The region was successful during the colonial era and has continued to prosper. The new international airport Eldoret [HKEL] was designed to link the central highlands with the outside world. While this has been only modestly successful, the airport does service regular air cargo operations than link local fruit and vegetable producers with markets in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Flying east over the highlands, we approach the western edge of the Great Rift at the long dramatic Elgeyo Escarpment which towers 5,000 feet over the Kerio Valley below. We land at Kabarnet [HKTG], the home of long-time president Daniel Moi and today a center for the sometimes-violent Kenyan politics. The airstrip lies just north of Kabarnet town in the Tugen Hills (in which paleontologists have made numerous discoveries). Views to the west provide a great view of the region’s spectacular scenery. These Kenyan highlands, including the Eldoret area and the Tugen Hills and especially Iten, are home to many World and Olympic long-distance-running champions.

On departure, we scale the ridge of the Tugen Hills and then descend to execute a low pass over Lake Baringo [BRNGO] near Loruk. We want to inspect the rising waters of the lake that are threatening the fishing dependent communities on its shores. Proceeding to the northeast, we pass over the wide Rift Valley to climb over the northern reaches of the Lakipia Escarpment. The country turns dry and we land at the small remote settlement at Barsaloi [HKOJ]. This is Samburu country whose native peoples continue to practice a semi-nomadic pastoral life. Cattle are the currency of success in this very traditional social order that is changing only very slowly.

A quick jaunt north lies the larger Samburu town Baragoi [HKSY]. It was from here that in 2012 about 40 national police officers traveled west into the bleak Suguta Valley to impose order over cattle rustlers. The paramilitary police were lured into an ambush and almost all were massacred. (The national government has provided arms to local Turkana and Samburu tribal communities and asked that they maintain order. This plan is not working well.)

We head west over the dry ground to crest the Losiolo Escarpment and descend into the Suguta Valley [SUGUTA]. (The valley floor is about 1,000ft.) This is breathtaking desert scenery. The surreal landscape of lava, sand, and dried mud is broken only by occasional volcanic cinder cones and geological features to the east and west that rise to elevations of 3300 feet. The Barrier Volcano to the north provides a natural break between the valley and Lake Turkana. At that northern edge lies the seasonal Lake Logipi whose alkaline shallow water can attract flamingos. This is a remote inhospitable land with difficult desert terrain, few resources, and soaring temperatures. It is sometimes called the “valley of death.”

We travel north onto Lake Turkana, the world's largest desert lake. The green-blue jade color of the water is created by the presence of algae. The waters contain 40 species of fish and the shores provide sunbathing beaches for Nile crocodiles. (At one time, this was the home to the world's largest concentration of Nile crocodiles.) The indigenous people continue a partly-pastoral lifestyle although increasingly they are turning to fishing as a way to support their populations. The ecological value of the area, as well as the number of truly significant paleoanthropological discoveries, have led to a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation.

We end our trip at remote Loiyangalani [HKLY]. This small village subsists on fishing and gold panning. It also caters to a small tourist trade with a few lodges near the airstrip. Just a month ago, heavy rains caused Lake Turkana to swallow up the critical access road to the town. (Loiyangalani was the setting for the tragic finale in John le Carré's novel The Constant Gardener.) On a more upbeat note, the ambitious Lake Turkana Wind Power Project was completed six years ago to take advantage of the persistent wind called the Turkana Jet. Its 365 wind turbines now produce 310MW of relatively inexpensive “green” power for the national grid. This massive array is depicted in the simulator some 15nm along C77 south of Loiyangalani.

Documentation
The flightplan and a (2021) Pilot's Guide can be found here. (This flight is a modification of our 2021 Kenyan venture.)

Aircraft
This flight ranges over the Highlands and the Rift Valley and is about 450nm in length. A fairly quick aircraft is need to complete the journey on time, one that can fast cruise at over 200ktas. We land at three grass strips (one is a challenge). A good choice for this mission would be the TBM, Pilatus PC-12 or the Beech King Air. (I’ll take the PC-12.) As ever, please fly what you like.

Scenery
Here are some airport improvements that you might appreciate. All are FS2020 sceneries that work well in FS2024.
Eldoret International [HKEL]. Jacques Botha
Kisumu [HKKI]. Jacques Botha
Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta [HKJK]. Chak991
Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta [HKJK] Enhancement. Andrew.Glowacki. (This enhancement is way more than you need but works well. Pick the “no static and building” option. Use only if you have spare time.)
You can get a package of the scenery here. (3.5mb)

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Saturday, set the simulator at 7:00am local for May 24, 2025.
We typically prefer real weather. Note May is the end of the “Long Rains” season, but it may not be finished yet.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Saturday, May 24, 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!

Using default avionics in the SWS PC-12 and BKSQ TBM 850

Here is a suggestion from some experimentation this week. These two excellent aircraft are FS2020 in their roots. As distributed, they still use the Working Title GNS530/GNS430 Version 1 (for 2020). As far as I can tell, the distributed versions do not have the capacity to activate the Working Title Version 2 avionics. Thus, they do not have all the features such as loading in flightplans after the flight has begun. (At least this seems to be the case.)

If you want to use the *.PLN files, you might treat them as FS2020 avionics aircraft. When starting a flight, select the aircraft, starting location (?) and flight conditions. You should now be sitting at the World Map with a satellite view of the starting location. Then use the EFB to IMPORT the *.PLN file (I use the 2020 version to be safe but the 2024 version might work). If the acquisition executes properly, the EFB should now show the flightplan waypoints in the text and the flightpath on the World Map. Now use the EFB command to SEND the flightplan to ATC and the plane’s avionics. Only after all this should you activate the flight and FLY NOW. Once in the cockpit, the flightplan will appear in the avionics (with a delay of several seconds). All this is comes from an afternoon’s experimentation. Obviously, this is only a tentative suggestion and your experience may vary. Let’s compare notes.

It seems that using this FS2020 procedure works for these aircraft when selecting the PMS50 GTN750 avionics (as well as the Working Title GNS530).

The simple idea is that when flying aircraft with FS2020 avionics, the pilot might use the FS2020 procedure to load and activate a flightplan from the World Map. (That is before actually starting the flight and entering the cockpit.)