Adak to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

8/29: Departing Adak for Yelizovo airport in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. When I was reading some tips and tricks about the Garmin G1000 integrated flight instrument system, published by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, I finally figured out how to manage the fuel range rings on the map display. So, for the first time on this flight, I reset the fuel totalizer before takeoff, so I could use it to calculate and display the remaining fuel range, which shows up on the moving-map display as a dashed green circle for range with reserve, and a solid green circle for range without reserve. I'll have to capture a screen showing those circles, some day. I've rarely noticed them, but I'm guessing they'll show up near the end of one of these carefully managed long flights.

Approaching Yelizovo airport runway 34L from the south, on a long final approach. Thanks to that artificially-strong tailwind at altitude, there's still about 80 gallons of fuel (about an hour) left, with just a few miles to go. I don't have the instrument procedures for airports outside the USA, so I have to just kind of wing it, so to speak, and make up an approach path that will get me at the right approach altitude, and pointed in the right direction for the runway I've selected. This time, it worked really well. 

On the ground at Yelizovo. Who expected to be facing a Boeing 747 that's taxiing out from the terminal? No problem - I just pulled over to let it pass. One of the disadvantages of the primitive air traffic control in X-Plane, is that it's not realistic enough to be useful, so I quickly gave up on it, and I just try to work my way around all the simulated aircraft I see everywhere. The good news is that the simulator doesn't let me crash into them, even if we go head-to-head, as we simply pass through each other. I hate it when that happens - it makes me cringe - so I make the effort to get out of their way. It's nice, that X-Plane's other simulated airport traffic - mostly fuel trucks - generally tend to stop and let me go by.

My next flight is to Khomotovo airport on Sakhalinsk Island, another long flight, but within the zero-wind range of the SF50.

After that, I'm probably heading to Haneda airport in Tokyo, where my dad used to fly from, back in 1966, when he was ferrying GIs in and out of Vietnam's Danang and other airports.