Thursday, January 9, 2020

USA & South America 2020

Starting a new adventure, first around the USA, and then to South America! An X-Plane flight simulator enthusiast who goes by the handle "Gadflyii" created a newer, Generation 2 model of my favorite Cirrus Vision SF-50 personal jet, which incorporates some of the real world plane's updated features. It has a few extremely helpful characteristics: It can fly faster, higher, and farther, than the original SF-50; it has an auto-throttle to make instrument approaches safer; and it includes more realistic and effective anti-ice protection.

Here's a zoomed-out view of the entire front panel of the new SF-50 G2. The large Primary Flight Display (PFD) is on left, showing the important primary flight information, and the Multifunction  Flight Display (MFD) is on the right, showing the engine health and navigation data, including the moving-map with weather and terrain hazard overlays. These displays look pretty much the same. The big difference in the G2 model shows up in the second line of three smaller displays. While the leftmost display remains the same, the center display now includes some configuration controls for the autothrottle, and the right display has four added controls for individual de-icing equipment activation, a nosewheel steering option, and a cabin pressure dump switch.

I started out this new adventure, with the idea that I would be testing the newly extended range of the SF-50 G2, by flying some longer legs around the USA. According to the write-up on this jet, it now seemed possible to plan flights approaching 1,000 nautical miles (NM) long. Last year's round-the-world trip would have been so much easier to plan and fly, with this extra range. After flitting around the USA a bit, I decided to venture into South America, which is a continent I've rarely visited in real life. After getting partway along on my journey, I started logging each stop on the TripHappy website. At the end of my adventure, I captured this snapshot of the entire trip. As I did for my round-the-world adventure, I posted each flight in chronological order, with the most recent one sorted to the top by Blogger. Click on the Newer Post link at the bottom of this one, to get to the next writeup.

Here's a route summary that I updated after each flight:
KAPA Centennial, CO 1/12/2020
KMYF Montgomery, San Diego, CA 1/12
KOKB Oceanside, CA 1/24
KPAO Palo Alto, CA 1/24
KVEL Vernal, UT 1/27
KORD Chicago, IL 1/28
KBGR Bangor, ME 1/29
KDCA Washington, DC 1/31
KEYW Key West, FL 2/1
MMCE Ciudad Del Carmen, Campeche, Mexico 2/2
MPTO Panama City, Panama 2/5
SEQM Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador 2/6
SPZO Cusco, Peru 2/7
SANT Tucuman, Argentina 2/10
SCTE Puerto Montt, Los Lagos, Chile 2/12
SAWH Malvinas, Ushuaia, Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina 2/13
SFAL Stanley, Falkland Islands 2/14-15
SAEZ Buenos Aires, Argentina 2/17
SBKP Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil 2/19
SBSV Salvador, Bahia, Brazil 2/20
SBBE Belem, Para, Brazil 2/22
SOCA Cayenne, French Guiana 2/23
TTPP Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago 2/24
TFFF Martinique 2/25
TAPA Antigua 2/28
TUPJ British Virgin Isles 2/29
MBGT Grand Turk Island, Turks & Caicos 3/1
MYNN Nassau, Bahamas 3/4
KGLH Greenville, MS 3/5
KAPA Centennial, CO 3/8/2020

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