Myanmar to Kathmandu

Preparing to depart Myanmar for Trivhuvan International airport in Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal. While I was on the ground in Myanmar, looking around the map for interesting places to go, that were close enough to be within the range of my little SF50 jet ;-), I became fascinated by the idea of popping into Kathmandu - another place that I've heard about many times, but never visited. I saw the trip distance was 705 nautical miles, which was stretching it a bit, but I resolved to throttle back at altitude, which would give me enough range with reserve, to make this trip achievable. This image shows the Garmin G1000 instrument panel, programmed for the flight to Kathmandu, and a close-up of the approach to the destination.

I was very intrigued by the instrument approach to Kathmandu, which involves a continually curving and descending flight path through a pass in the mountains to the airport, and an equally curvy and climbing missed-approach path back out of the mountains to the missed approach holding fix. This curving-approach capability is what makes Area Navigation (RNAV and now GPS) approaches so much more powerful, than the usual straight-in ILS approaches we've seen at the majority of major airports for the past 60+ years. I had to try it!

The thick layer of clouds below me was generating thunder and lightning, which was not unexpected, considering the green blotches on the weather radar (NEXRAD) display on the moving map to the right. What I did find a little unnerving, was the sound the thunder was making in the cockpit. I've rarely heard thunder in the cockpit, when out there really flying IFR, and it's just a little more powerful statement, that there's a storm out there to be respected.

As I was descending, I was continuing to monitor the predicted fuel quantity at landing, and happy to see I would have about 100 gallons left at the airport. In the meantime, the display was showing me the first turn of the curvy instrument approach I was about to follow.

The moving-map display is tracking my progress along the curvy path through the mountains, and showing in red the terrain that's higher than the aircraft. In the old days, without a moving-map display, I think most pilots would consider this approach a no-go, when the visibility is less than excellent. Today, with the help of a very capable autopilot with vertical navigation, I'm threading this needle with just 4 miles visibility, and a very high level of certainty that the aircraft is where it's supposed to be, at every moment in time.

Just finishing up the curvy part of the approach, about 8 miles from the airport. More of the terrain all around is above me, which is expected for this airport surrounded by mountains. The visibility is starting to get better, as I'm descending out of the thicker clouds.

On short final, about 2 miles out, with decent visibility. I'm descending into a little basin, with higher terrain all around now.

On the ground at Kathmandu! I found a cool little hangar, where I could taxi in, and spin around, and protect the plane from the rain.

Bangkok to Myanmar

Departing Bangkok, Thailand for Mandalay International airport in Myanmar. I wanted to head North, and this seemed like the best choice of a major airport in that direction, plus the name "Mandalay" rang a bell, so here we go...

With the real-world-weather selection I've made in the simulator, I never know what I'm going to see on my flights. This time, there's a beautiful fluffy white cloud layer below me, during the enroute portion of the flight. I love that! Of course, it probably means I'm going to have some clouds to descend through, when I get to Myanmar.

I found an instrument approach chart for Myanmar online. It's a bit old, but better than nothing, at least for a simulated flight. The ILS to runway 17 has a procedure turn, which helps to get aligned with the final approach course without an acute angle turn, when arriving from the southeast, as I'm doing.

Myanmar has reduced visibility today, but nothing too challenging for a properly executed ILS approach.

Someone went to the effort to simulate a nice terminal building for us, and a decent collection of aircraft on the ramp.

Phnom Penh to Bangkok

Departing Phnom Penh, Cambodia for Bangkok, Thailand. My draw to Bangkok, is that my dad used to talk about his many trips flying into Bangkok when I was younger, and then our flight stopped there, on our family relocation trip from the west to east coast, "the long way," many years ago.

I only realize now, that I forgot to capture any X-Plane screenshots of this flight... oops, sorry.

Da Nang to Phnom Penh

Departing Da Nang for Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I've seen this name so many times, in the media, that it seems so familiar, so I thought I'd pop in, and maybe get a little more familiar with the lie of the land around here.

On final approach to Phnom Penh on this beautiful sunny CAVU day.

Manila to Da Nang

Departing Manila for Da Nang, Vietnam. The attraction of Da Nang for me, is that over 50 years ago, Dad used to fly Pan Am 727s into Da Nang, and he had a harrowing story about needing to leave in a hurry one time. In this pic, the SF50 is climbing out over Manila Bay, heading pretty much due west, with Manila's Ninoy Aquino International airport in the background.

My flight planned route takes me straight west across the South China Sea. Notice my ground-speed is quite low, even for this airplane, because I have it throttled way back, to save fuel on this longer leg.

In this area, the ocean is about 4000 meters deep, according to my National Geographic World Atlas, Eighth Edition. I was excited to notice for the first time, that in their Atlas, NatGeo mentioned being able to look at the atlas pages on their website, and was very disappointed to learn that the web address they provided no longer works.

Using real-world weather sometimes makes these flights much more interesting. The visibility isn't impossible at Da Nang, but it's low enough, to make me glad I decided to fly the ILS approach. At 2.5 miles out, I can just make out the airport, at the top center of this screenshot, and of course things just kept getting better after that. 

Flying the simulator on instruments outside the USA is a little tricky for me, since my Foreflight App doesn't show me any information for airports outside the USA. The simulator's Garmin G1000 does know about the approaches at most airports around the world, so I just use what's in their database, and it "magically" works, without me being able to see the approach documentation, which is fine with me for this virtual adventure.

Hong Kong to Manila

Departing Hong Kong for Ninoy Aquino airport in Manila, Philippines. I chose to turn onto the southeast course immediately after takeoff from Hong Kong, since it was a beautiful blue-sky VFR day, and, not unexpectedly (I had made note of it while I was taxiing out), I found myself facing a rather large hill in my way. The little SF-50 jet did a decent job of out-climbing the terrain, as I carefully watched for the horizon to appear above the ridge line, which it already was doing in this pic.

One positive aspect (most are negative!) of barely clearing terrain on a nice day, is the beautiful view you get, looking back at the airport, with the trees just below providing a lush green background.

While climbing out toward the southeast, I got one last look off to the left, of the site of Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport.

Climbing out over the South China Sea. Here's a good example of the green range rings that are displayed on the multi-function display on the right side of the instrument panel. The dashed ring shows where it estimates I'll be, when I have a 45 minute fuel reserve, and the solid ring shows where it estimates I'll be, when I run out of fuel, at the current fuel burn rate and speed across the ground. Both of those circles are well short of my destination, so at first glance, it might seem reasonable to very concerned. However, at this stage in the flight, I'm climbing at a moderately high power setting, and a fairly low altitude, so the fuel burn rate is quite high. Once I get to my 26,000 foot cruising altitude, and reduce to a more reasonable cruise power setting, the air will be much thinner, so the fuel burn will decrease, the speed will increase, and the range will also increase significantly.

Inbound over Manilla Bay. The ILS for runway 24 brings me straight to the VOR at the airport, then sends me back out on a teardrop course reversal for the final approach to runway 24.

On the ILS to runway 24. The yellow on the multi-function display is showing the mountains behind me, which are already above my altitude.

Taipei to Hong Kong

Departing Taipei's Taoyuan airport for Hong Kong, China. I took this snapshot of the instrument panel, just as I was climbing through 2,500 feet.

Today's flight, involves no challenges - just a beautiful hazy day for an uneventful climb to my cruising altitude of 26,000 feet.

Arriving in the Hong Kong area, with the "new" airport far ahead and to the right of the hilly Chek Lap Kok island. Interestingly enough, I've played around enough in Microsoft Flight Simulator X, that I'm fairly sure I recognize the location and shape of the "old" Kai Tak airport, just down there below my right wing, protruding into the bay with the long rectangular shape of a runway, with its surrounding taxiway and ramp areas, that are no longer visible, since that airport was closed in 1998. The approach to Kai Tak airport was far more challenging than the usual straight-in approach at most large airports, due to a moderately high and threatening hill, with a large orange and white marking painted on it, just off the approach end of the runway. Because of the landscape, they had to point an ILS directly at the hill, which required a sharp right turn just before landing, to align with the runway. I remember as a kid, when Dad brought home a short 8mm Kai Tak approach safety film, and watched it using our home projector. One of the Pan Am training pilots had taken the film from the cockpit of an airliner, so that other pilots that hadn't flown into Kai Tak recently, could refresh themselves on how the approach looked.

Approaching the airport on a high and wide base leg, following the published approach to runway 07R. Nice view of the expansive airport, on the other side of the hill on the island of Chek Lap Kok.

The approach at the "new" (vintage 1998) Hong Kong airport, arriving on a long straight-in final over the South China Sea, is very tame, compared to the Kai Tak approach.




I'm thinking my next flight will be to Manila, Philippines. My niece-in-law spent a few months there, last year. I also had a coworker just before I retired, whose family was from the Philippines.

Shanghai to Taipei

Departing Pudong airport, Shanghai, China, for Taoyuan airport, Taipei, Taiwan. Nice view of Shanghai's large international airport behind me, as I'm turning on course for Taipei.

My Dad Captained the Boeing 727 into Taipei many times, when he was temporarily based in Tokyo, and his current friend Rich often crewed with him, as the Flight Engineer. They share one of those "lucky to be alive" stories, when they were climbing out from Yokota one dark night on their way to Taipei, "under an overriding typhoon." They were climbing through smooth air, until they reached 2,500 feet, and ran up against severe wind shear. They were buffeted by severe turbulence, barely able to keep the aircraft right-side-up, and a sudden onset tailwind made them unable to maintain the airspeed necessary to climb, even at takeoff power, with a mountain range higher than their altitude, somewhere not that far ahead of them. This was in the days before GPS and moving map displays, so they were, to some degree, just guessing at exactly where they were, and how far they were from the mountains. Exciting story.

Turning to intercept the final approach course for runway 23R. The broken cloud layer that was reported in the ATIS at Taoyuan airport is visible out the windscreen.

On final approach to Taoyuan airport, with the external spot plane view showing the landing gear down, the northern end of the island of Taiwan in the background, and the afternoon sun reflecting off the East China Sea below me.

Kagoshima to Shanghai

Departing Kagoshima airport for Pudong airport in Shanghai, China. Yet another of the many fun benefits of traveling virtually with a flight simulator, is that I can fly to all these interesting foreign airports, without having to be concerned about passports and Customs, accommodations and currencies, and the political ramifications of visiting countries that are perhaps not our best political friends at any particular moment.

For the first time, I setup X-Plane to use real-world weather, since category 2 typhoon Lingling was passing over the East China Sea at the time. I was wondering just how challenging this flight would be, with realistic weather, on a bad-weather day like today. As it turns out, there was only a little weather when leaving the southern tip of Japan, the trip over the East China Sea at 26,000 feet was completely uneventful, and there were some high winds with limited visibility when approaching Shanghai.

I don't know how the X-Plane developers decide which airports will get realistic airliner movement on the ground, but clearly Pudong airport didn't qualify for any of that ground traffic. It's mighty lonely, here at the airline gates at this rather large airport.

Tokyo to Kagoshima

Taxiing out at Tokyo's Haneda airport, and navigating the myriad of taxiway lights on the ground, before departing for Kagoshima airport, at the southern tip of Japan. I setup the simulator for early morning, before sunrise, so I could make this a night flight.

Approaching Kagoshima airport, as the morning sun is beginning to turn the eastern sky pink.

On short final approach to Kagoshima airport. The yellow color in the moving map display on the right screen, is a terrain warning, showing me where the ground is less than 500 feet below me.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Tokyo

Heading out from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Haneda airport in Tokyo, where my dad was temporarily assigned, back in 1966, when he was ferrying GIs in and out of Vietnam's Danang and other airports.

Turning onto final approach. The simulator does a nice job with the sunset.

On final approach over Tokyo Bay, showing the entire airport just a few miles away.

On short final, showing the nice simulation of the approach and runway lighting to this international airport.

X-Plane 11 has a really impressive simulation of Haneda airport - everything from the complex collection of runway and taxiway lighting, to the many baggage transport vehicles, to the well-lighted terminal buildings, with people looking out. I really enjoyed taxiing around this airport, while finding my way to a gate, to park for the night.