After circumnavigating Australia in twin-engine Beechcraft (starting and finishing in Brisbane) I finally started my round-the-world trip in the same craft last night. I started in Brisbane again and flew up the coast through Rockhampton to Cairns, then out to Mt. Isa, Alice Springs and finally up to Darwin. Last night I departed Darwin and flew into Inonesia landing in Cakung just a few minutes ago.

And let me tell you I have never been so excited from playing a computer game. No killing or competition of any kind, just piloting a light aircraft from one country to the next, and landing it on some bush strip (well, Cakung does have a tower, but only one strip and no taxiways or support building).

The thrill of exploration from this game is really good. Such a pity I just didn`t stick with it over the last 5 years, as I could have seen so much more of the world. Doing this really makes me want to get out in the real world in a light aircraft to see what is really out there.

Next call I think will be Bali.

Bali!! I can see why so many Aussies and everyone else goes there for a vacation! The ocean just looks great.

Was a great flight from Cakung, taking about three and a half hours. Super weather all the way. Flying over Indonesia is such a different experience to that of Australia. Nice and green, very tropical with that ocean sprinkled with fishing and pleasure boats.

Landing at the airport is a piece of cake, just don`t get caught up watching all the local girls having a swim all you`ll find yourself and your aircaft in the drink with them (looking suitably embarassed).

Next stop is Jakarta`s Soekarno–Hatta International Airport.

Good luck with it. It will interesting to know how many flying hours you do.

I guess you don't have weather conditions and flight plan permissions and no-fly areas to contend with?

What are you like with your navigation. Do you just use what comes with FSX?

I've circumnavigated the US out of sheer boredom. Landed in each of its four corners to refuel and went on.

Funnily enough, this country ain't as big as I've always imagined. Maybe I should do some *real* long hauls for a change.

Cool undertaking. I've stuck to the few scenery-enhanced areas of FSX I have, mainly Australia and Pacific Northwest, since they're such dramatic improvement over the vanilla FSX and there's still plenty to see there. Are you using any scenery add-ons in your trips?

I`m flying a Beechcraft Baron 58 with a Garmin G1000 which makes navigation so easy. With weather I use the real-world option, so every 15 minutes FSX downloads whatever weather is in the local area. Not during this trip, but in the past I have been informed by the tower that I wasn`t allowed to take off (as I use VFR only). As for flight permissions and no-fly areas, I haven`t run into any problems so far, but will just have to wait and see what happens. At the moment, I only have what FSX originally gave me, I would like to buy some stuff soon though.

Just in case anyone wonders why I have a Garmin 1000 but use VFR ... the Garmin makes navigation so easy that once you get used to it, basically I think you could fly anywhere in the world. But I can`t do instrument flying, so if the airport is covered in fog, even though I have that Garmin I can`t use it well enough to land safely.

I love these sort of flightsim endeavours.

A couple of years ago I flew the MAAM B-25 from my home airfield in Mannheim, Germany to Port Moresby, New Guinea. In real-time.

I`m guessing that is the Mitchell bomber? How many hours did that take and how many refuelling stops did you make?

The flight in to Jakarta was truly great. Nice weather all the way. Glad I was close to the controls as halfway through the flight I found a seriously big mountain coming up in front of me. Adjusting my auto-pilot I gained height and just made it over the top, the turbo-props just starting to splutter as we made it over.

Two surprising things happened to me though. 25 miles out I thought I could see the city, it looked like the city of Jakarta, but I was rather mistaken. The airport there is friggin huge! I`m wondering what things will be like when I get to mainland Asia, Europe and the States. I`m guessing some of them will be monsters.

The other thing was that when I was about 7 minutes out, the sky changed from scattered cloud to dense, thick low-lying cotton wool!! It just changed suddenly, I guess it might be a result of the program only updating the weather every 15 minutes. I decided to push on and get out under the cloud cover, which luckily for me, worked very well.

Anyway, need to go to real-life work now and get back to FSX later tonight. Having a quick look at Google map on my iPhone just before, maybe I can get up to Malaysia this week.

Departed Jakarta for Sultan M Buddaruddin Ii airport ealier tonight, and what a thunderstorm it was, 5am and pitch black with lightning coming down so I was rather surprised the tower let me take off while I was a VFR flight. Was a little exciting and at times I wondered if the lightning would bring me down. The storm cleared and I made it to Buddaruddin with no problem.

Anyway up to Singapore now and hopefully a cold beer at Changi.