bernd1151

From Haifa we will head north into Lebanon, many years ago known as the Switzerland of the Middle East. Then we cross the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea and reach Cyprus, where we plan a short stopover in Pafos. The next island to cross will be Rhodes, before we fly along the eastern shores of the Peloponnese peninsula on our way to today’s final stop: Athens. Lebanon has a great hinterland with a mountain range that extends almost the entire length of Lebanon, paralleling the Mediterranean coast for about 240 km (150 mi), with northern outliers going as far as Syria Their highest peak (not visible here) is “Qurnat as Sawda” (“Black Peak” in English), at 3,088 m (10,131 ft). Over Beirut (which was once known as the Paris of the Middle East) and its big airport, which is testament to its former popularity, but sees today far less traffic After a short hop over part of the Med. Sea we have reached the eastern portion of Cyprus Turning west brings us over Larnaca and its intern. airport The limestone cliffs of Cyprus are famous for their caves, some of them are not even known to the locals Our planned stopover in Pafos, which serves as a joint civil-military public airport After a short break we continue our flight westward, here we fly along the highest mountain of Rhodes. Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece in terms of land area and “Attavyros” is with 1,215 m the highest mountain Approaching the beautiful island Milos, also known as the “Island of Colors” thanks to its jewel-colored waters and its buildings, which are painted in vivid primary tones Finally we have reached the Peloponnese, a large mountainous body of land. It offers its many visitors some spectacular archeological sites like Olympia, Mycenae or Tirynth, but also Byzantine churches and superb old castles We had north to our destination Athens Athens intern. Airport Eleftherios-Venizelos comes into sight Many cruise ships wait here to pick up their passengers Thanks for viewing. The next three weeks I’ll be away from my PC, so the tour will continue in the second half of October

That looks great. Is it MSE 3? I just got an e-mail from them that for a limited period (until Sept 30th) everything MSE related will be discounted by 50%

Very nice shots and I agree with you, True Earth Netherlands is really a gem

Many thanks for your kind comment!

Beautiful shots, Ryan

Fantastic colors!!

Superb sequence of pics, Harald and your FS9 really shines

For our third leg, we will cross the Nile again westwards for a short hop to the Giza Pyramid Complex. Then we head east to the Suez Canal, cross the Sinai Peninsula in order to reach Aqaba and the Wadi Rum. The ancient city of Petra is just 100 km (60 miles) north of it. From there we’ll fly further north to the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv and Haifa, where this leg of our tour will end. The Great Pyramid of Giza (also known as the Pyramid of Cheops) is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Pyramid Complex. Built over a 10- to 20-year period, it was finished around 2560 BC. Initially at 146.5 meters (481 feet), it was the tallest man-made structure in the world for more than 3,800 years. The other two pyramids are the Chephren and Menkaure pyramid. And then of course there is the equally famous Sphinx. A few miles further south, there are four other, but much smaller pyramids Now we turn east and head towards the Suez Canal If you look a bit closer, you can even see some of the Hendrik Nielsen AI ships in the canal Our next destination will be Aqaba and the Wadi Rum. But for this we first have to cross the Sinai Peninsula. In the distance you can see the Red Sea On the Eastern shore of the peninsula is the gulf of Aqaba, which is also the northern tip of the Red Sea Below us is Aqaba and the valley you see in the distance was the way Lawrence of Arabia had chosen to reach the town and take it over from the Turks in July 1917 We flew along the valley and have reached the Wadi Rum (in English: valley of light sand) Also known as the “Roman valley” it is cut into the sandstone and granite rock formations in southern Jordan. It is also the largest wadi in Jordan This time the photoscenery has a much higher resolution and looks quite close to the real world Our next highlight will be Petra, an archeological city that dates back with its first settlements to 9,000 BC. In the following centuries it became a big regional trading hub with over 20,000 inhabitants in its peak days during the first century AD. As many of the city’s more famous buildings were built into the rock formations, one cannot see that much of them from the air. The next two pictures should give you a better impression of Petra’s most famous building, the “Treasury” or “Al Khazneh” in Arabic It is an even more special place, when people light their candles in the evening. Around 600,000 tourists visit Petra annually After Petra we head further north to the Red Sea. At its northern tip we turn west again for Tel Aviv Above Tel Aviv we turn north to our final destination of today: Haifa Haifa Thanks for viewing and see you hopefully on our next leg, which will bring us to Cyprus

They look great. Is that FSX or P3D?

Many thanks Ted and I'm happy that you like them Oooops, you are absolutely right, Mohamed!! I'm not sure why I made this mistake 🤔

Excellent screenies. And also from me a big thank you to Milviz to give us this plane for free 😉

Many thanks for your comment!! There are many great places in Africa that beg to be explored. But in quite a few of them security is a huge issue

After a couple of enjoyable days in Malta, we continue our journey. Our final destination for today was supposed to be Alexandria in Egypt, but there is apparently no freeware airport for that city that works in P3D v4, so we decided to conclude this leg a bit further south in Cairo instead. We could have taken the straight route above sea and along the coast, but that would have been a bit boring. That is why we will fly south instead, cross Tunesian airspace and some portions of the Sahara desert in order to go back into Algerian airspace, where we will reach the Tassili n'Ajjer mountain range. Taking off from Malta’s LMML, we make first a short tour of Valetta again. Over Tripolis, capital of Tunesia We have reached Tassili n'Ajjer’s western part. The mountain range gained world fame after the discovery of ancient rock art in the 1930s. Over the years, more than 15,000 petroglyphs and paintings were identified, as were a great number of archeological remains. But more spectacular is its eastern portion, where we are flying to now. Tassili n'Ajjer covers a massive area of Algeria, on the border of Libya, Niger and Mali. As these names imply, this is not one of the safest places to travel, but we have no intention to land in any of these countries, we just want to experience this area’s beauty from the air. But no photoscenery can give you an impression of how it really looks. Since 1982, Tassili n'Ajjer is a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its special cultural and physical significance. Flying on a north-easterly course again: sand, nothing but miles and miles of sand Below us one can spot the large marina of El Alamein Above Alexandria and the Nile area, which is recognizable by its much more fertile land. Meanwhile we have turned south and follow the Nile until we reach Cairo We have reached Cairo and prepare for landing. Above the plane you can see in the distance the Giza pyramid complex, which we will explore a bit more on our third leg of this flight. As you can see, this photoscenery doesn’t have a very high resolution and is best viewed at 6,000 ft and above. Reason is that it covers with the whole North African continent a huge area Oh, I forgot to mention...when we were landing, we ran on vapor 😏😏 See ya soon and thanks for viewing

Great screenies and beautiful plane. Did you have a tailstrike at taking off 🙂

Great post and nice pictures. If you are into military hardware, the name Convair stands out prominently with the iconic B-58 Hustler. I love this aircraft