Hi there,

sorry for the delay... Real life kept me busier than expected over the last few days. But now it’s finally time to jump back into the cockpit. Today, we’re leaving Pakistan and heading further east towards the Indian subcontinent. Our route takes us from Mohenjo-daro to Kishangarh — 364 NM and about 2.5 hours of flight time. Kishangarh is just another stopover for me, nothing particularly special. But flying all the way to the Himalayas nonstop would simply have taken too long.

Here we go...

As always — never go flying on an empty stomach. So I cooked myself a typical Pakistani/Indian dish: mutton tikka masala. That’s basically meat with onions, ginger, tomatoes, chili, pepper, turmeric, and garam masala. As you can see, today’s route is fairly straightforward, heading due east. We’ll cross the mighty Indus River shortly after takeoff, then continue across the Thar Desert and over dusty Rajasthan.

As for the weather forecast... well, let’s not talk about it. Most major airports in India are currently reporting MVFR or even IFR conditions. That’s not because of bad weather, but due to the dry season, with lots of haze and air pollution hanging over the cities. That said, flying VFR over the countryside is still perfectly possible, where air pollution is practically nonexistent.

It’s 08:10 local time, and temperatures are already above 30°C! The sun is blazing down on the tarmac as I complete the walkaround and refuel the aircraft — despite already having the wingtip tanks filled.

Twenty minutes later, the aircraft is ready, I’m ready, and the avionics are configured. After a very short engine warm-up...

...we leave Mohenjo-daro behind.

Shortly after takeoff, we cross the mighty Indus River, which rises in the Himalayas and flows into the Arabian Sea.

Just a few moments later, we leave the green Indus basin behind, and the landscape changes dramatically...

...from fertile fields to desert.

The next 90 minutes (or perhaps even longer — I honestly don’t remember) are rather dull. Here you can see us cruising at 9,000 ft over the Thar Desert.

Jaisalmer is the only real city along our route. Other than that — it’s mostly just desert and wasteland.

At least we have a 16-knot tailwind. Imagine dealing with a headwind on a route like this? I’m already longing for more interesting scenery!

As we approach Kishangarh, today’s destination, you can once again see how impressive MSFS live weather can be. MVFR conditions were reported at the airport — not because of actual weather, but because of haze and air pollution over the city. MSFS reproduces that layer remarkably well.

ATC vectors us west of the airport. Here we’re still above the haze layer, but visibility gets noticeably worse as we descend toward the airport.

“Report runway in sight!” Hmm... here we are intercepting the localizer. It’s only a VOR approach, so no glideslope guidance. And even at 2 NM from the runway, the runway is only just becoming visible.

And that’s it for today. Welcome to the middle of nowhere — somewhere in central India.

Thank you for flying with me once again. 

My journey so far:
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/693237-rtw-01-munich-venezia/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/693300-rtw-02-venezia-benevento-italy-at-its-best/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/693450-rtw-03-benevento-corfu/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/693522-rtw-04-corfu-chania/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/693582-rtw-05-chania-marsa-alam/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/693915-rtw-06-marsa-alam-hawtah/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/694233-rtw-07-hawtah-muscat/
https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/694641-rtw-08-muscat-mohenjo-daro/

 

Nice set, you always making me hungry with those first shots..😄

cheers 😉

What a delightful and fascinating trip.