New Zealand to Tasmania

From ChristChurch, I started gazing toward Australia, where I spent a month visiting with a family years ago, and decided to first hop over to Hobart, Tasmania (YMHB), since we all (don't we?) have fond memories of the Bugs Bunny cartoons and their Tasmanian Devil. I wasn't sure about the range of the Metro III, so I switched to the good old McDonnell-Douglas MD-82, which has direct heritage from the Douglas Aircraft DC-9.

The MD-82 is a sleek T-Tail twin medium-range jet aircraft, that I admired back in the old days, and have flown in as a passenger a few times. 

After I arrived in Hobart, I switched back to the Metro III, and flew around the west coast of that island, pausing in Launceston (YMLT). I really enjoyed seeing some of the gorgeous scenery around Tasmania!

From Launceston, I headed north, flying across the Bass Strait to Melbourne International (YMML), to begin a circumnavigation of the island continent of Australia. 

New Zealand

While in Auckland, I decided to experiment with some different aircraft I had seen on the X-Plane User Forms site. 

I tried the Beechcraft Staggerwing biplane, which is way more than the usual old biplane. It's more of a fancy traveling machine, that people of its time were able to use, to get around faster, and in a little more style, than the usual air travelers of the time. 

 

I also experimented with the Supermarine Spitfire, the classic air combat flying machine that the British used to defend England during World War II.

Leaving Auckland, I switched to the Fairchild-Swearingen SA-227 Metro III, to island-hop a short way down to ChristChurch, NZ (NZCH).

Learning the SA227 Metro III

For my upcoming adventure around New Zealand and Australia, I decided to learn to fly the shorter-range Fairchild-Swearingen SA227 Metroliner III, a twin-engine turboprop in which I've had some experience riding as a passenger, for business flights back in the 1984-2010 time frame. Back in those days, we hopped from San Diego to airports in the Los Angeles area, and also connected to Santa Maria airport from San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles, before they started using the CRJ to fly directly from Denver to Santa Barbara. I learned to take my flying earplugs with me, as the Metro III's turboprop engines sent quite a bit of vibration into the cabin.

The cockpit view of this aircraft is quite a bit busier than the old Cessna 172 type planes in which I've logged most of my time. This plane has its own additional "killer items", like a switch to arm the nosewheel steering that must be off while flying, cabin pressurization driven by engine bleed air systems that must be off for takeoff, but on before getting above 14,000 feet, and hydraulic systems that enable the landing gear to actuate.

To help me manage all the systems and associated switches and gauges, I downloaded the Xchecklist plugin for X-Plane, which guides me through the steps with written and verbal prompts for each required action. Even knowing what to do, I still had a steep learning curve, just becoming familiar with the locations in the cockpit, of each of the switches and gauges. I heavily modified the Metro III checklist that I found, to be in a more logical order. Along the way, using some of my rusty programmer skills, I created an Xchecklist User Defined Language (UDL) that provides some basic Xchecklist keyword highlighting in Notepad++, my favorite text editor on the PC.

Tahiti to Auckland, NZ

From Tahiti, remembering a few flights when I was a passenger as a young adult, I decided to head in the direction of (relatively) nearby isle of New Zealand. I flew the shorter-range 737-800 into Auckland International airport (NZAA). The ILS approach into Auckland took me down through very low clouds, before I was able to make out the runway. Fun challenge!

Cancun to Tahiti

Thinking about fun warm places to go next, I decided to depart Cancun and visit the tropical island of Tahiti. I climbed into the Boeing 747-400, which has the necessary range, and flew into Faa'a International Airport (NTAA) in Papeete. I got to enjoy a gorgeous sunset, as I was flying the approach.

Denver to Cancun

For a winter escapade, I flew the Boeing 737-800 from Denver International airport (KDEN), and headed south to seek warmer weather in Cancun, MX (MMUN). 

I started this flight to Cancun in the afternoon, but then I took a break for dinner, and resumed after sunset, so it was dark when landing in Cancun, and I don't have any scenic screen snapshots. However, it was even more challenging for me, to be landing at this unfamiliar airport at night.