Honolulu to Okinawa

Preparing to depart Honolulu for Okinawa, JP. I've been reading about the SR-71 missions, and they talked about flying out of Kadena AFB on Okinawa Island, so we'll call this next flight a "Glowing Heat" positioning flight to Okinawa. This is a long 4,043 nautical mile flight, so I expect I'll be refueling enroute. I don't think X-Plane supports simulated midair refueling, so I'll cheat and add some fuel when I'm halfway there, if the tanks are less than half full at that time. Here are some things to do in Okinawa.

Taxiing out for departure at Honolulu. A Boeing 747 decided to push back at the same time I started moving, so I chose the courteous option of waiting for them to taxi past me.

Climbing away from Honolulu, heading up as high as I can get this beast to climb. I love the well-done sunlight reflection portrayed by X-Plane.

As shown on the Foreflight map, I'm a little more than halfway to my destination, and as I expected, I need more fuel, with total fuel at about one-third capacity. The X-Plane designers conveniently placed the fuel loading controls on the Configuration menu, so I've added about 30,000 pounds of fuel for the rest of this long trip.

After checking Foreflight for the Kadena weather, I've decided to fly the ILS approach to runway 05L. I found this old Kadena ILS 05L instrument approach plate on the Japanese civil aviation website. Hopefully it'll be good enough. All I really need is the ILS frequency for tuning my NAV radio. If X-Plane knows about that ILS, I'll be in good shape for flying the approach.

Still some way from Okinawa, and suddenly the threat screen started lighting up with white dots. I wonder what that's about? 

Looking down, I discovered that Kitajaito Jima Island, with Kitadaito Airport and other structures and signs of civilization, is down there below me. Clever. So the "threats" were probably simulated indications of radio and radar signals emanating from the island.

Descending into a broken cloud layer at 12,000 feet.

Established on the ILS to runway 05L (the ILS frequency worked!), and breaking out of the broken layer at about 1,900 feet, as forecast.

Here's a photo I found on the web, of a real "Habu" taking off at Kadena. The locals named the SR-71 after the local Habu Cobra snake that they thought it resembled.