Entry 1: January 31, 2013
Today I began the last series of flights I plan to make in my trusty old FS9. I bought this copy of FS9 in 2007 after I essentially wore my first one I bought in 2003 out. Disk 4 is getting tried and is scratched from the in-and-outs of nearly daily flights, and as much as I have resisted FSX the time has come for me to start spending more time there.
The around the world flight will be my first non-commerial aircraft flight since 2006, when I did one in a Eugene Heyart Turbo Otter. That one took 28 days of flying, all in real time and in real weather. Several times I had to deviate from my flight plan because of weather, simulated conflict (in countries where real conflict was occuring at the time) and one substantial crash. I choose the AFG King Air 300 (no mods) this time because I have just finished compiling 21 different North Amercian liveries for the aircraft in one package and want to try them all out. As before my start and end will be Fresno, California (KFAT). Todays flight is a meer hop compared to what will be coming up, Fresno to Port Hardy, Canada, only 940 nm. Weather out of Fresno looked nice at my 8:18AM departure, as I now cruise over Northern California an hour and a half into my flight I can see this trip will be bitter sweet. When it's over FS9 will be retired, but this trip will be remembered.
If you are interested in the whole 194 mb (zipped) 21 livery compilation for the AFG King Air (complete aircraft) it can be found here:
http://www.filefactory.com/file/4989gm06t1kr/KA300.zip
Thanks for those liveries go to Sean Doran, John Hoopes, Joerg Zeitschael, Rui Cristina and Seigfried Schaffer, Joe Zerilli, and Todd Disrud.