New Guinea, Indonesia, Malasia, Thailand, China, Taiwan, Japan

After I left Australia, and still in the Fairchild SA227 Metro III, I embarked on a winding tour of New Guinea, Indonesia, Borneo, Palau, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, China, and Taiwan. I touched down at each of the following airports. You can click on the airport identifier, to see a Wikipedia article about it: 

AYPY - Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

WASS - Sorong, Papua, Indonesia

WATT - Kupang, Timor Island, Indonesia

WIHH - Jakarta, Indonesia

WBSB - Brunei, Borneo

PTRO - Palau 

RPLB - Subic Bay, Manila, Philippines

WMKK - Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia

VTBD - Bangkok, Thailand.

ZUBD - Qamdo Banga, China. This airport sits higher than anywhere I've visited in real life. The airport elevation is 14,219 feet, which is higher than a lot of general aviation aircraft can comfortably fly. When it came time to depart, I thought it was pretty hilarious, that the Metro III's pressurization system was warning me that the cabin altitude was too high, before I had even taken off. 

It was a little tricky flying into this airport, as it doesn't show up in the database on the SkyVector website that I use to plan my flights, and there are no instrument approaches for it, in the X-Plane 11 flight simulator I'm using. Not to worry, because the simulated air traffic control made it easy, by vectoring me during my descent, right to the final approach, and the weather was good enough, to see it from a distance. You can see the airport in this view, if you squint, as it's in the green area in the upper right corner of my view out the windshield.

ZBAA - Beijing, China

ZSSS - Shanghai, China

RCQC - Magong, Penghu, Taiwan

RJAW - Iwo Jima

RJCM - Hokkaido

and beyond...

Circumnavigating Australia!

I started this new adventure in the Fairchild Metro III at Melbourne International Airport in the south of Australia, then continued clockwise around the island continent, with visits at several coastal airports, finishing up with a long flight into the interior at Alice Springs. 

I plan to add some discussion and images from the individual flying legs of this adventure, but for now, I'll just list the international identifiers of the airports I visited. I've added web links to a Wikipedia article for each airport, so you can now click on its identifier, and see the description of that airport.

YMML - Melbourne 

YPAD - Adelaide 

YKBY - Streaky Bay 

YCAG - Caiguna 

YABA - Albany 

YPPH - Perth

YPLM - Learmonth 

YCIN - Curtin RAAF Base 

YPDN - Darwin

YBWP - Weipa

YBCS - Cairns

YBSU - Sunshine Coast (near Brisbane)

YSSY - Sydney Kingsford Smith 

YSCB - Canberra

YBAS - Alice Springs

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.

Flying the DC-3 in the Southwest

I've been having fun with simulated flying lately. I'd forgotten about how much fun it was to fly the 1940s vintage DC-3 around the Bahamas a couple of years ago, but it just popped into my head recently, and I've started flying it around again. 

Lately, I've been exploring some southwest airports, like the one in San Diego I used to fly out of for 20 years. 

From San Diego, I ventured out to do a simulated visit to Jennefer's sister in Yuma, AZ, then to Lake Havasu and back to San Diego, then up to several airports in the LA area. 

This week, I headed from San Diego up to Catalina Island, then San Clemente Island, San Nicolas Island, Santa Cruz Island, Point Mugu, Bakersfield, and just landed at Mariposa-Yosemite airport north of Fresno.

Sorry for stale blog

Oops! I'm still flying around in MSFS 2020 and X-Plane 11 (and leaning toward buying X-Plane 12 which is just being released this quarter), but I haven't taken the time to blog about it. Sorry for the lack of timely posts! 

My latest flights have been ripped from the pages of my AOPA magazines, following along with the authors of "Never Again" and the IFR approach plate challenges and other informative articles by Tom Horne, Neil Singer, Chip Wright, Richard McSpadden, and Alicia Herron, to see how I'd do, when I attempt the same flights under similar weather conditions as they describe. I did take screen snapshots during most of those flights, and I'll post those, "one of these days!"

Exploring the Bahamas

I’m off in the DC-3 (actually, the C-47 military cargo variant), with the goal being to land at most of the airports in the Bahama Islands. I tried to plan a loop, so I'd end up roughly where I started. My itinerary includes a long flight to get to the Bahamas from where I last landed in Teterboro NJ, then a series of relatively short hops, to visit the various island airports. This screen snapshot of my planned route is from the "Foreflight" flight planning app on my phone.

3/05 KTEB-MYAT 867 NM
3/06 MYAT-MYAX 15 NM
3/06 MYAX-MYAM 36 NM
3/06 MYAM-MYAO(MYX3) 28 NM
3/07 MYAO-MYAS 21 NM
3/09 MYAS-MYEH 50 NM
3/10 MYEH-MYEM 24 NM
3/10 MYAM-MYER 35 NM
3/12 MYER-MYCA 31 NM
3/14 MYCA-MYCB 22 NM
3/14 MYCB-MYSM 53 NM
3/14 MYSM-MYRP 28 NM
3/15 MYRP-MYMM 128 NM
3/17 MYMM-MYIG 91 NM
3/18 MYIG-MYAP 89 NM
3/19 MYAP-MYCI 22 NM
3/19 MYCI-MYLD 57 NM
3/21 MYLD-MYLS 26 NM
3/22 MYLS-MYEG 29 NM
3/22 MYEG-MYEF 8 NM
3/23 MYEF-MYEB 42 NM
3/24 MYEB-MYES 6 NM
3/24 MYES-MYAK 63 NM
3/26 MYAK-MYAB 9 NM
3/27 MYAB-MYAF 25 NM
3/30 MYAF-MYNN 27 NM
3/31 MYNN-MYAN 32 NM
4/11 MYAN-MYBS 77 NM
4/13 MYBS-MYGF 60 NM

Here's my running commentary for this adventure. I tried to post just one representative photo from each leg of the flight, to keep it from getting overwhelming. 

I found it interesting, that at first glance, there appeared to be very few radio navigational aids (VORs or even NDBs) in the Bahamas, so I found myself using careful flight planning and dead reckoning to find my way from island to island. I did use the "Foreflight" app on my phone to keep track of my location, which in the real world would also have been an available, if not legal, option for more precise navigation. Side note: After visiting several islands, I found this reference to a list of radio navigational aids in the Bahamas, and am excited to try using them!

I also discovered that none of the smaller airports had anything in the way of weather reporting, so I made good use of the "Windy" app on my phone, which gives a good, if general, weather picture for most of the world. That app would not have been useful without Internet, and since most general aviation planes don't have that, I suppose it was a stretch to rely on it.

3/05 Flying from KTEB, Teterboro, NJ, to MYAT, Treasure Cay Airport, Treasure Cay, Abaco Islands, a flight of 867 NM. Climbing away from Teterboro, I had a great view off to my left, of Long Island Sound, Manhattan Island, and JFK International Airport on the West end of Long Island. Thank goodness for the faster-than-real-time option in the X-Plane simulator, as this flight would've given me over 5 hours to enjoy my view of the Atlantic Ocean and a few cloud layers, with the US East Coast off in the distance, as much as 250 NM beyond my right wing.

3/06 Flying from MYAT to MYAX, Spanish Cay Airport, Spanish Cay, Abaco, a flight of 15 NM. I barely got airborne, when I was overflying the airport, preparing to land. Spanish Cay hardly seems big enough to have an airport, but there it was, extending from one shoreline to the other.

3/06 Flying from MYAX to MYAM, Leonard M. Thompson International Airport, Marsh Harbour, Abaco, a flight of 36 NM. Marsh Harbour is the  second busiest airport in the Bahamas, and I found quite a few buildings and other infrastructure modeled at that airport in the simulator. That's Dry Cay visible out my left window, with the airport off in the distance, probably behind the window post, as I fly a wide left base leg toward the final approach.

3/06 Flying from MYAM to MYAO, Mores Island Airport / aka MYX3, Moores Island Airport, Moore's Island, Abaco, a flight of 28 NM. I (perhaps foolishly) decided to take a chance on a night flight to this island, a short distance to the west of Marsh Harbour. It turned out fine, but the pucker factor was potentially much higher, when looking for that small island airport in the middle of the ocean in the dark. I chose a cruising altitude of 4,500 feet, which I expected to give me a view of the airport from farther away. I found it especially challenging trying to spot the airport lights off in the distance, after I entered a cloud layer with bases around 4,000 feet, on my way up to my planned cruising altitude.

3/07 Flying from MYAO to MYAS, Sandy Point Airport, Sandy Point, Abaco, a flight of 21 NM. I popped into a broken cloud layer on my way up to my cruising altitude of 3,500 feet, which was no big deal, other than limiting my scenic view during the flight.

3/09 Flying from MYAS to MYEH, North Eleuthera Airport, North Eleuthera, Eleuthera, a flight of 50 NM. That's Spanish Wells off to the left, with the Eleuthera airport beyond it, as I head for another left base approach to the airport.

3/10 Flying from MYEH to MYEM, Governor's Harbour Airport, Governor's Harbour, Eleuthera, a flight of 24 NM. In this snapshot, I'm passing over James Point, inbound to the airport, which is straight ahead.

3/10 Flying from MYAM to MYER, Rock Sound International Airport, Rock Sound, Eleuthera, a flight of 35 NM. In this snapshot, I'm over Tarpum Bay, and the airport is straight ahead, at the left edge of the large bay that's called Rock Sound.

3/12 Flying from MYER to MYCA, Arthur's Town Airport, Arthur's Town, Cat Island, a flight of 31 NM. In this snapshot, I'm approaching Cat Island, with the airport in that lighter patch that's straight ahead and toward the top of the image.

 

 

3/14 Flying from MYCA to MYCB, New Bight Airport, New Bight, Cat Island, a flight of 22 NM.

3/14 Flying from MYCB to MYSM, San Salvador / Cockburn Town Airport, San Salvador, a flight of 53 NM.

3/14 Flying from MYSM to MYRP, Port Nelson Airport, Port Nelson, Rum Cay, a flight of 28 NM.

3/15 Flying from MYRP to MYMM, Mayaguana Airport, Mayaguana, a flight of 128 NM.

3/17 Flying from MYMM to MYIG, Inagua Airport / Matthew Town Airport, Matthew Town, Inagua, a flight of 91 NM.

3/18 Flying from MYIG to MYAP, Spring Point Airport, Spring Point, Acklins, a flight of 89 NM.

3/19 Flying from MYAP to MYCI, Colonel Hill Airport / Crooked Island Airport, Colonel Hill, Crooked Island, a flight of 22 NM.

3/19 Flying from MYCI to MYLD, Deadman's Cay Airport, Deadman's Cay, Long Island, a flight of 57 NM. As I was dragging it in on final approach, trying to make the best use of this fairly short runway, I was careful to avoid the tall trees just off the end of the runway!

3/21 Flying from MYLD to MYLS, Stella Maris Airport, Stella Maris, Long Island, a flight of 26 NM.

 

3/22 Flying from MYLS to MYEG, George Town Airport, George Town, Exuma (defunct), a flight of 29 NM. I found a Pan Am paint scheme for the DC-3!

3/22 Flying from MYEG to MYEF, Exuma International Airport, Moss Town, Exuma, a flight of 8 NM.

3/23 Flying from MYEF to MYEB, Black Point Airport, Black Point, Exuma, a flight of 42 NM.

3/24 Flying from MYEB to MYES, Staniel Cay Airport, Staniel Cay, Exuma, a flight of 6 NM. Snapshot taken on the downwind leg at Staniel Cay airport, with the runway below and left.

3/24 Flying from MYES to MYAK, South Andros Airport / Congo Town Airport, Congo Town, Andros, a flight of 63 NM. Snapshot taken while approaching Congo Town airport, while still over a broken cloud layer.

3/26 Flying from MYAK to MYAB, Clarence A. Bain Airport,  Mangrove Cay, Andros, a flight of 9 NM. Snapshot taken shortly after takeoff, with the sunrise off to the east.

3/27 Flying from MYAB to MYAF, Andros Town International Airport / Fresh Creek Airport, Andros Town, Andros, a flight of 25 NM. Snapshot taken after landing at Andros Town Airport and shutting down in front of the typically small passenger terminal.

3/30 Flying from MYAF to MYNN, Lynden Pindling International Airport / formerly Nassau International Airport, Nassau, New Providence, a flight of 27 NM. Snapshot taken on final approach to the Pindling Airport from the northwest, with strong winds out of the southeast favoring runway 14.

3/31 Flying from MYNN to MYAN, San Andros Airport, Nicholls Town, Andros, a flight of 32 NM. Snapshot taken while on left downwind to San Andros Airport.

4/11 Flying from MYAN to MYBS, South Bimini Airport, South Bimini, Bimini, a flight of 77 NM. Snapshot taken while making the turn to a wide left base leg for runway 10 at South Bimini Airport.

4/13 Flying from MYBS to MYGF, Grand Bahama International Airport / Freeport International Airport, Freeport, Grand Bahama, a flight of 60 NM. Snapshot taken while on a left base leg for runway 06 at Freeport International Airport. Woo hoo! That's the last airport in my fairly long Bahamian adventure!