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.

Well done. Keep the updates coming in

Nice idea.

btw. if you want to add another level, you may want to try www.fseconomy.com

It`s free and you can haul PAXs and freight around, rent or buy a/c, earn virtual $ etc.

A Group member once did a world trip in a C123 and earned a ton of v$.

The cool thing about FSE is, you have to plan your flight carefully, as it monitors fuel usage and not every airport has fuel in stock.

Very sorry Kilosierra, but this would be impossible for a guy like me. I just want to get out and fly and see the world through FSX. I`m just so lazy and slack that I couldn`t make any profit for my company that they`d fire me within a week!! lol.

Anyway, I`m at Changi aiport at the moment, about to take off for Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Actually while flying across the straits, the islands and water were really superb having a real tropical feel to that area for me. Plus as I`ve never been to Singapore the city does seem quite impressive from the air.

After I`ve finished this trip (if it does indeed get finished) I`m going to have to get out the motorised hanglider and explore many, many places in greater detail. That craft is about the only thing that goes low enough and slow enough to allow me to inspect things in detail.

That`s okay.

You needn`t fly for a group though, you can fly as a single pilot in FSE.

Have fun!

Kuala Lumpur saw an exciting arrival, in the middle of a major thunderstorm. The runway was covered in water, it looked rather impressive.

After KL was Krabi in Thailand, an great flight up from Malaysia ending at a rather small jungle airport.

The next one was slightly hair-raising for me. Kawthouhg airport in Maynmar. It's a single strip situated between two small hills, so you have to make your approach coming down the back of either hill. I guess it wouldn't be challenging for a skilled pilot, but I was on the edge of seat getting the Baron in.

Successful landing but I think I am going to be greeted by more of those at other airports in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Will be exciting getting up into Nepal as well, should look into how the heating systems work.

Made my way up to Loikaw airport in Myanmar after Kawthoung. Way up in the mountains and wasn`t sure what to expect as I didn`t really check it out before departure. Was a little worried as most of the way up there I could the mountains starting to appear in front of my and they looked pretty big and the cloud cover was pretty heavy as well. Luckily finding the aiport (just some mown grass really after I whipped out my iPhone to have a look) wasn`t such a worry in the end though.

Now I`m on my way to Chittagong (Shah Amanat International I think it might be).

The only problem I have with this game really is just that weather updating every 15 minutes. 15 minutes is really just too long for those updates. So many times now I`ve just seen the weather change almost instantaneously, can be very annoying at times. I doubt it is much of a problem for guys (and girls) who can fly on instruments, but it can have a big impact on guys like me who only do VFR.

Chittagong, what a dreary, dreary airport. I was under the assumption it was a major transportation hub in Bangladesh ... a wrong assumption indeed! No traffic, just a rather bland airport. If I do this trip again I`ll be skipping this place completely. Nothing to recommend it.

A quick rest and off to India!! I`m now at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Aiport in Calcutta (spelling of that city can change according to the menu though lol). This aiport is just crazy, completely crazy. The exact opposite of Chittagong. Being a big aiport it has two parallel runways but ... no connecting taxiways!! So if you land or take off on the runway opposite to the main buildings you`ll be crossing a LIVE runway! You`ll have to work your way across a tarmac that has a nearly constant of aircraft landing and taking off from it. A really crazy place, haven`t seen anything like this in the game previously.

Vadodara in India was okay, nothing of real note though. Minor point about India though, many of their airports really do seem to have different spellings in some menus, not a big problem of course though.

After that was Pakistan!! Jinnah International and Gwadar!! Jinnah was a very nice, very busy airport absolutely jam packed with aircraft! I just realised that when I landed in Jinnah I have never seen a helicopter in the game, which I`ve been hoping to see.

Gwadar International ... is supposedly an international airport, but there is almost nothing there. Just a single, rather short strip with a tower and hangar. If you ever decide to fly off a random airport, don`t make it Gwadar lol. There are iirc, only two place to start you plane from. The one I chose ended up being next to the hangar, unfortunately the tower is about 10 metres behind you, so if you use a commercial jetliner, you`ll probably collect the tower after your push back.

Jask in Iran ... just MMFD lol. Just grey and brown, nothing remarkable, single strip only next to the beach.

Now off to Dubai International, which should be really nice. Across the Arabian gulf, or is it the Persian?

After nearly a six month break from the game, I`m back. For some reason lost my motivation with the game. Played Fallout 3, Crysis 2, Shogun 2, Titan Quest and Left for Dead 2.

Anyway, after leaving Dubai, I flew into Khark, Iran. From there up to Kuwait International airport and then onto Baghdad International. I was wondering if there would be something special waiting for me in Baghdad but alas no US troops on the ground there. I really was hoping for some military installations of some kind.

The areas I`m flying over are very similar to Australia, just miles and miles of desert. The Gulf isn`t very interesting either.

Not sure where I`ll go next, maybe can make it in one hope to Israel from where I`ll fly down to Egypt, Libya and Morocco then up to Europe. Or maybe I`ll go from Libya to Crete and through Eastern Europe. Not sure what I`ll do ... unless anyone knows some interesting landmarks along the way?

I stay away from the middle east...desert is pretty boring. Perhaps the Mediterranean area with it's Greek isles would be interesting.

From Baghdad, Iraq to Ben Gurion International, Israel. Quite a nice flight I guess, the usual desert interrupted halfway by very thick cloud cover!! And I`m not an instrument flier either!! Got a very pleasant surprise just outside of Ben Gurion when the cloud lifted and I could see a nice green coastline. Landing was a pain, as after getting off the runway, I was told by the tower to hold position due to traffic. In front of me I could see a de Havilland, on a potentially fatal course with me if either of us took our feet off the brakes.

The de Havilland started inching towards me then hit the brakes, repeat repeat. No word from the tower, and after being stuck there for at least 10 minutes I thought stuff it and just taxied around the offender to my parking area.

From Ben Gurion to Alexandria International, Eypt was entirely uneventful, very nice flying weather, took about 2 hours (probably less).

The Mediterranean actually seems quite dark to me, does anyone else think so? Not sure if it was just the time of day, but it really does seem dark compared to north-west Australia and south Asia.

It's good to see you're still going - the nice thing about the virtual airspace is that you don't need to worry about global politics!

Do you have a route planned, or are you doing all of this "off the cuff" as you go?

Welcome to the next level.
Best thing I've read on SimHQ.

Very much, "off the cuff"! Originally was planning to go to Africa then back through the Mid-East and into Europe via Turkey, but after a bit of thought, kept going along the North African shores as it will save time. Just not sure where to jump over to Europe though. Think I`ll settle for Sicily, mainland Italy, France and into the UK. Once I get to the UK will have to hopefully find a way over the North Atlantic. Haven`t looked into that at all yet. Haven`t got any idea of the distances yet, UK to Greenland/Iceland then across to Canada. If the Beechcraft doesn`t have the legs might have to find a payware twin-turboprop that does have the range, but similar in characteristics/size.

And very glad I don`t have to worry about global politics as I`ll be heading to Libya very soon and don`t really want to worry about a stray Sidewinder heading my way!!

Thanks Rabbit, it is different playing a game where there is no competition of any kind and enjoying it. Having said that once I submit this reply I will be logging off and playing Left for Dead 2 for a short while!

It is indeed...and I have done it all including mastering the 'Falcon' series.

There is competition in a sense: against yourself and the 'elements' of flight and navigation.

I now do flights where the GPS and moving maps are tossed out the window. (I don't use/refer to them whatsoever) Instead, I plan out my journey making note of the VORs/NDBs and the tracking/radials I want to fly and then I follow that plan all the way to the destination looking out the window only for visual reference.

In fact, I usually depart at dusk so it is well and truly dark by the time I get to the end. Most of the time, I do well - but occasionally I will get well and truly lost and have to refer to the gps/map; if that happens then I 'lose' if you get my meaning.

I`d love to be able to play Falcon, but it is far too complex a game for me now. I used to play Falcon 3 (did 1 and 2 as well), but F4 is just way over my head.

At the moment, I`m the opposite to you! I fly with GPS and my glass cockpit. Takeoff is usually at dawn as I play this game just as much to enjoy the environment as I do to fly.

At the moment I`m already planning my next fly around the world adventure. Not sure what plane I will be doing it in, but whenever I land at my destination I will have a short "holiday" and fly that motorised hang glider around to get a real good look at all the sights in every city. Hopefully that will be fun.

Africa is finally finished! My last landing there, Tripoli and not a SAM in sight!

I actually enjoyed my sojourn into Africa. Some parts of the north coast very lush and green, with the mighty Sahara just behind it.

From Alexandria International, Eypt landing at Benini International (near Benghazi) and Tripoli International aiports. The one thing I thought was a little odd, was that both airports are very close to the coast but several hundred feet above sea level. No problem of course but most airports that I`ve landed at so far when they are on the coast have been very close to sea level.

And now, finally into Europe! My last flight into the Mediterranean will take me to Italy, somewhere in Sicily I think. I wonder how Europe looks at this time of year?

Different strokes for different folks, Yuka...
The point is getting 'out there' and flying. Don't get me wrong - I like to dabble with the G1000 (confusing or what??) every now or then and I still take the LevelD out for a full INS-driven experience but my love is for the old-school navaids.

Out of curiosity - what is your preferred aircraft?
I've found out quite quickly that the default aircraft don't have working secondary VOR/NDB gauges (you can't switch them).

Hi Rabbit, I fly the Beechcraft. Very easy to fly for beginners like me. Not sure if I can make it across the Atlantic yet with it. A while ago I found another twin-turboprop on some website which does have much better range and it has the G1000 to boot! We`ll see what happens in a few more days anyhow.

Finally in Europe! Landed at Punta-Raisi (Palermo) just a short while ago. Very short flight over the Med from Tripoli. Not sure where I`ll go now, maybe up to Rome for a pizza. Maybe I`ll have to do some real research now, not quite sure how high the Alps are. Hopefully the Beech can go straight over the top.

From Palermo to Rome and finally into France, Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

What a freaking good experience. Very much, "Stay on target ... Stay on target!", trench run on the Death Star kind of stuff. Going over the Alps into Austria was just amazing. I was wondering if my little Beechcraft could handle those altitudes as the higher we got, the slower we got!! Eventually I turned off auto-pilot and and manually flew through the valleys and over the smaller hills, avoiding the big monsters. Luckily it was good weather or I would have been smeared over the side of some mountain.

The plains of south-eastern France almost as interesting as the deserts of Australia and the Middle East. Anway, after about 3 and a half hours of flying safely touched down at de Gaulle ... on the wrong runway lol. Next stop will be Heathrow.

Heathrow, what a racetrack!!! How many times was I told to hold position due to traffic? So many times! Those little cargo trucks were really annoying.

The approach was rather spectactular though, coming over the English Channel, up the Thames and over London was really nice.

But now from one of the world`s biggest airports to one of the smallest. I`ve just taken off from Heathrow and am heading towards Barra airport, Scotland. This might be spectacular as Barra according to wiki is a beach airport, so I`m expecting something very small and possibly difficult to spot from the air.

Too much FXS today, going to log off and do something else for a while.

Barra was kind of interesting, maybe 5 runways but I could find only 2 of them. Landed on the shortest one which seemed to be only a few hundred feet long, pulling up just before the trees. No buildings at all, probably a good idea as looked likely that a high tide would come up and wash everything away.

A refuelling off to Rekyavik aiport in Iceland about 500km so the Beechcraft should just be able to make it. Shortly after take-off the rain was coming down, actually across completely horizontally in buckets. Will take to it again after dinner.

Rekyavik was a piece of cake, the Beechcraft made it easily. Funny kind of airport as at one end there is a large apartment style building which is just asking to have its roof scraped by the landing gear of aircraft with a lazy pilot.

Next stop was Aasiaat (say that three times quickly). Now that was exciting. Greenland with all the snow over it, and piles of small mountains jutting up out of the ground looks like some alien landscape. And in the middle is the enornmous plateau which I didn`t know I would be flying over, and it is incredibly high. My little plane chugged over it ... just. If I my flight plan was a little more to the north I would have probably smacked into the side of a glacier which I could just see out my starboard window.

And to top it off, it was roughly 700 kilometers there, a very long trip. And the airport was hard to find being a tiny little sucker. And did I tell you about the fog? The left side of the island was like in perpetual fog. It lifted just enough for me to find the airport.

And now on to Canada! What is your destination there? Goose Bay?

fascinating to a beginner such as me.

Destination is Nain in Newfoundland, another gravel strip. Looking at Google, it might be another tiny strip. When I last saved it was pretty good weather, not sure what will be waiting for me when I start again tonight.

Speaking of Canada.....As a tribute, I'm going to try to fly my CF-18 to the Mediterranean using a tanker for refueling the non-stop trip.

I will be interested to see what you do when you get to the East USA coast - the only route across the Pacific is to Hawaii and its too far for the FSX Beechcraft King Air (2000 nm approx and the King air has 1790nm or so range). The reason I know is I was thinking of also doing a round the world as per Earhart's route but couldn't find an aircraft that could do it other than the big jets and Earharts actual plane (Lockheed Electra which you can actually get for FSX).

You might be as interested as I was to read this (someone who has doen the route for real in a Beechcraft 350 (long range version I assume as he had the range to do the Pacific crossing unlike the FSX version):

http://www.nauticalcurrents.com/amelia_earhart_mem_flt.html

I love the way he fired his navigator for messing up twice - classic.

Yeah, it`s going to be a pain. I have a couple of options though probably, that I`ll have to check out very soon as I have already left Nain and on my way to Halifax a bit further south. After that I intend to see New York and head west. So it really shouldn`t be too far away.

The options I have are-
1) role-play it and pretend my plane has extra tanks crammed in somewhere (and give myself unlimited fuel) or;
2) I`m looking at going up to Alaska and finding my way across. Not sure if this is feasible as I really haven`t looked into in detail, but as there are many islands up there and there is Provideniya Bay Airport. I keep forgetting to see if it is listed in FSX airports everytime I start the game up but will have to check it very soon. I think this will be the route I take. If I can get to Russia I`m sure I back to Australia.

See what happens soon, just hope I don`t get stuck in the Gulag archipeligo forever though hehe.

I would just pretend to have the long range version and add extra fuel mid air.

Call me strange Nats, but I really want to try and cross the Pacific without using the fuel cheat if possible. I think someone mentioned in an earlier post that I wasn`t worrying about no-fly areas which is certainly true as noted by flying through Libya recently. There are many things I do that I probably shouldn`t so getting over the Pacific without using just this one cheat is very important to me.

Would the default Learjet do it? It flies quite nicely, the engine noise is pleasant to listen to for hours and hours ;-)
It lands similarly to the Baron, just a bit faster.

It has to be done in the same aircraft sorry. The Learjet looks like such a great aircraft though. When I do the same journey again it will be in the Learjet.

Update on the trip though. Did Nain to Halifax. Halifax would definitely get my vote for one of the most beautiful airports I think. Great airport surrounded by forest, looked absolutely wonderful on the way in. Nain by the way, was nearly a deathtrap. Runway is very close to the water and fairly short with some buildings at the far end, really really close. I got the plane to stop literally just a couple of feet in front of those building, was a little exciting.

From Halifax to Kennedy International in New York. A very busy airport when I came in, was a little nervous waiting to be allowed to land. Weather was great for the takeoff though, flying over the Big Apple was rather exciting seeing some landmarks I know from the movie/tv.

Anyway off to Chicago and O`Hare. Another exciting journey.

I remember an episode from "Ice Pilots NWT" where they had to fly two water bombers across the Atlantic. Officially these planes also can't fly these long distances - so they put collapsible fuel tanks in the planes and connected these to the fuel lines.

As it's not possible in FSX to add tanks to planes (? - I think) it could be simulated by using the "fuel cheat" - just don't think of it as a cheat but as transferring fuel from a collapsible container into the main tanks. After all, if it's done in real life, why shouldn't you?

That's what I was thinking. Amelia Earhart's plane was overweighted with fuel when she attempted the flight around the world and your plane is not much different to the one she was trying it in (other than being far easier to fly and much more reliable). I think the fuel 'cheat' would be a decent compromise to the lack of customisability regarding the planes in FSX. I certainly don't think flying over Alaska would be very interesting or realistic - there's no way in real life you would go all the way up there just to get over the Pacific.

That`s the way I`m going! I`ve made up my mind

...you could even make it more interesting by treating the fuel as cargo and/or passengers when you take off - starting with an (almost) overweight plane - then when you use the fuel 'cheat' you'd lower this cargo/passenger weight with the same amount as you've burnt off during flight.

Good luck with the trip!

Flying into O`Hare in Chicago is quite nice. Coming in over the Great Lakes and suddenly seeing those tall skyscrapers was a blast. Air traffic controllers were probably swearing at me all the way in as I landed on the wrong runway (again). I think that if I ever moved to a major city in the US Chicago would have to be it. I know that it can be dreadfully cold during winter, but the view from the air was a winner.

From O`Hare to Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt aiport in North Dakota! A regional airport out in the sticks. Just over miles and miles of plains, nothing of note to see really. After watching many westerns when I was a young lad, I have always wanted to go there.

Now on to Pincher Creek airport in Canada. Probably another gravel strip up in the Rocky Mountains. Looking at wiki, the height this place is at, might be a bit of a challenge just trying to find it.

LOL Sure...and if you're bored, why not just jack the sim to 8x??

Pincher Creek was a great little airport. The kind of place you`d like to have a picnic basket with you for when the journey ended and you wanted to get outside and relax. A really picturesque place.

Decided Vancouver International would be my next destination and I wasn`t disappointed. Getting over the Rockies was a thrill even though it`s just a computer game. For those who have flown over them in real life in a light plane must have a heck of an experience doing it. Snow on the upper peaks and pine tress all around, just magical. Vancouver International is another airport that gets very high points for a scenic view.

Now off to Anchorage, Alaska which is my longest flight yet. Flying over the eastern Pacific is pretty good, would be better if there were less clouds around ... hopefully fewer when I start it up again later tonight.

Yep wouldnt have any problem with doing that myself. But then its not my goal to fly around the world in real time in a simulated plane. I could fly around the world in a simulated plane but not in real time. I could fly around the world in a real plane in real time....but thats not likely to ever happen. But FSX doesn't have the interesting variation in terrain of real world terrain to interest me enough to fly real time over expanses of desert and scrub etc. Its ok if you stick to the well detailed areas covered in the official missions, or areas covered by a good expansion, but certainly the UK and I am sure many many other areas of the world are covered really badly in the default game. I found that out just trying to fly across Africa.

Just got to look at Google map's satellite view to see just how varied the Earths terrain really is - I was fascinated looking at the sahara for example there are some weird looking settlements there! But FSX obviously cannot represent that kind of terrain variation or it would be the largest programme in the world! Maybe in 2050 we will have the whole world mapped in FSX ??!

Thank god for autopilot. The haul to Anchorage was a long one, more hours than I care to remember. When I finally realized where the airport was, I was rather happy to realise that I am only playing a game. As I usually check out the details of my destination using Googlemap and wiki, not really checking out the terrain in the middle. Come of the mountains for a plunge down to the runway, not that dangerous in a game, but think professional pilots would be having a good laugh at me.

Now it is off to Aniak over some truly hugely mountains. I think the Baron will be able to cope though.

Goodbye USA and hello Russia! A nice little jaunt across the Bering Straight and into north-eastern Russia! Wasn`t as quite simple as that though. Flying into Provideniya Bay airport was like a low-level bombing run coming in across those mountains, ALOT of mountains around it. Airport sighted ... airport sighted ... OMG where is the RUNWAY!!! I can`t see the little sucker at all. It must be there somwhere! There is a big grass area to the right of the buildings, let`s land there! Oh ... this must be the runway.

Wish I just could have landed a little more to the west, somewhere near Leningrad (St. Petersburg?). I used to marry a lot of those beautiful looking girls from Russia in Japan a few years when I was a marriage celebrant here. I would like to see a few of them again, they were absolutely gorgeous.

After Provideniya Bay, headed to Yelizovo. According to Wiki, it is a base for the Russian airforce, well I bombed out there (pardon the pun). No Migs or Sukhois at all. Just the standard FSX civilian population, the city around it does seem fairly large though.

Anyway, now back home!! Chofu airport (west side of Tokyo, in Chofu city) very soon!! And that really is close to home as I live about 10 kilometres from there in real life. I used to live near the airport about 20 years ago and I haven`t been there since then so it`ll be a strange kind of homecoming.

Just arrived in Chofu! Maybe I can walk to my house from there? The airport is a little disappointing though. The area surrounding the airport in FSX doesn`t resemble the real life area much, but I guess that is because it generically generated stuff. Still it is a very good feeling to be there. Not sure where I`ll go next though. Would like to see Mt. Fuji though, so maybe will plan to overfly it then head to Kyushu then Okinawa and onto Taiwan.

Well, Mt. Fuji was pretty lame in my opinion. Approaching from Chofu, I could see it from a distance, "Is that Fuji?". It just quite didn`t look right, something was honestly missing. It wasn`t until I got to the other side that I could see its iconic shape. And then it was on to Kumamoto airport in Kumamoto prefecture. Kumamoto has been high on list of places to visit in Japan, as it`s the hometown of my favourite singer, Chisato Moritaka who was really popular during the 1990s (and she is still really hot).

Kumamoto was okay, not great, not bad, just an okay regional airport. Kind of blink and you`ll miss it kind of place. Never saw Chisato there either ... /sigh.

From Kumamoto it was on to Chang Kai Shek airport in Taiwan. Located on the north coast, unfortunately it doesn`t have much to recommend about it either. To be honest when I approached it was a pretty much cloud-filled sky. The mountains running down the center of Taiwan are huge though. So for the non-professional pilots such as myself who don`t check things out completely using basic maps, the sheer height of the mountains can catch you by surprise if you`re not careful. At one point I turned off autopilot just in time to avoid hitting the top of some mountain.

Now it`s on to Subic Bay Internationl in the Philippes. The sun is out, still cloudy but should be an enjoyable flight. From there I guess it will be Papua New Guinea and back to Oz!

Living in Yukarinomori's shining light.


FIRST, Chiang Kai Shek in Taiwan:







NEXT, Kumamoto:






NEXT, CHOFU and surrounding area:

Thanks Plainsman, I really should have taken more screen pics during this journey! Next stop is Subic Bay in the Philippines, see you there!

Did you buy and install GEX Middle East and Africa?

The Philippines is a pretty big place. Fly over a large part of it from Subic Bay to Rendani in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, another very long flight.

Work has been getting in the way of flying again, but hopefully that is past me now and I should be able to fly much more regularly again from next week.

Rendani as expected was pretty much nothing! Taking off straight south was a little worry though as there is a very large mountain south of the airport.

Now, on the way to Jackson Airport in Port Moresby and I`ll be getting very, very close to home.

A fine day for flying, the weather of the western side of PNG is just great. I thought I`d plan a flight this time to avoid mountains whereas now I think I should have tried to find the Kokoda trail and flown over that. Just for those who don`t know, the Kokoda trail was the site of intense fighting between Japanese and Australian forces during WW2. Along with Gallipoli in Turkey I think these two places are (almost) held sacred by many Australians these days.

Finally back in Australia. On the way to Port Moresby, I noticed Horn Island in the Torres Strait was close so decided to go there rather than Jackson International. It was also good to go to Horn as I worked on Thursday Island during the mid 1980s for a short while. Thursday Island holds the main township for the Torres Strait, but has no room for an airfield as the there is a huge hill in the middle of that small island.

If you ever decide to go to Horn, be careful of runway 25, as just off the the end of the runway is a very deep ditch ... ouch! I had a bad landing unfortunately on my first attempt as I couldn`t pull up in time due to a bad approach.

Now down to Cairns and then I will be very close to home.

Cairns was great, probably my best landing ever The final flight back to Brisbane was pretty good, slightly cloudy but a nice flight. But after visiting a total of 26 countries it is finally over and I`ve popped a beer.

Congrats!

So, any idea for the next flight?

Indeed, congratulations on finishing your pretty epic journey.

Maybe now that you've circumnavigated the world, you can do a polar journey? Go up north through Europe and Scandinavia, take a left at the Arctic Circle, come down south through Canada, North and South America, then take another left at Antarctica and come back up through Africa?

Thanks muchly guys! Actually was thinking of doing an all continent flight next on that little plane. This time go to South America and end it in Antartica. Haven`t even looked yet to see if Antarctica has airports in the game, but I think I could hop over to Tasmania and then possibly make it to the South Pole? Even if there might not be no airfield there, I could at least get the plane down on the ground to finish the journey.

First Horn Island!









And now Cairns!!








Finally Brisbane!!!

Thanks Plainsman! I wish I had had those add-ons though!! Horn Island/Thursday Island area is very interesting and it was great to see those screenshots of yours from there. Looking at the houses in those shots, they are just sooooo Australian, they make me feel a little homesick at the moment!