Complain, complain, complain….look, just ‘cause we started this Flight of the Month Club in January (the middle of winter up in the Northern Hemisphere)…you want summer you gotta wait ‘til at least June for that. Now, it’s July and I bet the next couple-three months will be warmer. Just you watch. Alastair, thanks for this, might be some nice screenshots!
17:00 Local Time, June 29th, FCI Headquarters, NZ: During the past month I have had a whirlwind tour of the southeastern quadrant of the planet, now I am “returning to base” to get ready for the next leg of our Flight of the Month Club. This has been an exhausting couple of weeks and I look forward to some time in the hot tub at the NZFC Headquarters Hotel – right there on the bluff, overlooking that big gorge. Once the HSI comes alive I disconnect the L-1011’s autopilot and hand-fly the ILS into 02R. (I thought you weren’t supposed to have runways 02/20 because of the risk of dyslexia? I guess it’s our airport, we can do what-the-heck-ever we want to do!!) It is really dark out there tonight, and maybe a little hazy too because according to the DME, I don’t see runway lights until 7 miles. Oh well, nice to be “home” anyway.
19:00 Local Time, June 30th, FCI Headquarters, NZ: After 26 hours to rest up, I taxi the Dash 8 out to runway 20L NZFC. Skies are partly cloudy and it’s cold, brisk winds are out of 157°. It’ll be a short flight down to Queenstown, where Bill left us off last month. As soon as my wheels leave the pavement I can see that it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Because it is a shorter flight I keep the controls myself, and climb up to 11,000 feet. Keeping my heading in the bumping and shifting wind is a challenge but soon I start my descent into runway 23 at Queenstown. Winds have picked up down here, 17 knots gusting to 25 out of 177°. I don’t know why I expected to see little rabbit lights running to the strip but there aren’t any of these, just the all-white PAPPI lights! So I pull back on the throttles and fight to keep the wings level until I can slam the right mains down at 19:35. It ain’t pretty, but I’m not in hospital either (and the nose gear is still attached).
Dawn, July 1st, Queenstown, NZ: At a few minutes after 7 AM I have received the envelope. Inside it says, “After flying into Honolulu International you decide to book a luxury sightseeing tour of the islands…” That’s all I need to know. I quickly register a plan with ATC and by 7:30 I have the Trace-Air A320 (My own repaint from FS2000 – Think Sabena only with a big “T” rather than the “S”) pushed back and started from the parking area at Queenstown, New Zealand. We are instructed to taxi out to the end of runway 23 and are immediately cleared for take-off. Real-world weather is showing scattered low clouds and temps in the lower 30’s (F). Scarcely have the wheels left the pavement and ATC is telling me to turn right. Now it looks a lot to me like there are mountains right there! So I ignore the controllers until their third callback, then I acknowledge and execute my gradual turn to pick up the route to the next VOR. I’ll be flying direct to Auckland this morning so we step-climb up to FL350 before leveling off and asking for breakfast to be served. The rest of the flight is uneventful and I hand fly the ILS into runway 5. Auckland has clear skies today, should be nice for a day of sightseeing!
23:00 Local Time, July 1st, Auckland to Honolulu: The North Island is certainly a different world from the South Island isn’t it? New Zealand must be a really fascinating place! I am just thankful that even here, 24 hours a day, I can tune in to the inspirational music at http://www.plr.org/. But now we are moving on: “Air Tahiti Nui, A340 requesting clearance delivery for IFR to Honolulu.”… After some panel and start-up difficulties I am ready for pushback at 23:20. We depart runway 5 and quickly pickup the direct routing to Hawaii. The night is short and the flight progresses without incident ~See Picture 1~ until we are directed by ATC to vector for landing on runway 08L.
First the good news: One thing about this whole Crossing-The-Dateline thing (and I’ve experienced this in real life too) is that although I left at 23:00 July 1st, it’s now, still, July 1st! Ultimately I get parked at the gate at 11:23 AM (12 hours before I left Auckland) J
Then the bad news: This ATC sucks. I haven’t had FS2002 too long and we should just be GREATFUL that we have ATC at all! (So stop whining). But when I tried starting my descent at 150 miles out they told me not to drop below assigned altitude. Once they finally cleared me to descend it was…..well, way too late. I tried slowing down but it was no use. They had cleared me to 5,000 ft and I was FULLY configured to land, dropping at 2,000 fpm but I was still at 11,000 ft just 11 miles out! I passed over the airport at 5,000 ft only to have ATC clear me to, “2,000 ft and maintain until established on the localizer.” I figured that gave me the okay to GET to the localizer so I went missed, flew a 20-mile, right-hand pattern and re-established on the ILS. Then, is this normal? They wait until I’m just 5 miles out to hand me off! So here I am trying to hand-fly the approach (luckily I was basically configured and trimmed) and now they want me to tune tower and confirm that I’m number one to land? “I should hope so ‘cause if I’m number 5 in line right now we are in a whole mess of trouble!” ~See Picture 2~ I’m still learning the intricacies of this new HGS heads-up panel but I really like it (despite the visible frame-rate hits!).
Then the bad news: This ATC sucks. I haven’t had FS2002 too long and we should just be GREATFUL that we have ATC at all! (So stop whining). But when I tried starting my descent at 150 miles out they told me not to drop below assigned altitude. Once they finally cleared me to descend it was…..well, way too late. I tried slowing down but it was no use. They had cleared me to 5,000 ft and I was FULLY configured to land, dropping at 2,000 fpm but I was still at 11,000 ft just 11 miles out! I passed over the airport at 5,000 ft only to have ATC clear me to, “2,000 ft and maintain until established on the localizer.” I figured that gave me the okay to GET to the localizer so I went missed, flew a 20-mile, right-hand pattern and re-established on the ILS. Then, is this normal? They wait until I’m just 5 miles out to hand me off! So here I am trying to hand-fly the approach (luckily I was basically configured and trimmed) and now they want me to tune tower and confirm that I’m number one to land? “I should hope so ‘cause if I’m number 5 in line right now we are in a whole mess of trouble!” ~See Picture 2~ I’m still learning the intricacies of this new HGS heads-up panel but I really like it (despite the visible frame-rate hits!).
So, here I am in Hawaii. Ahhhhh, I can smell the flowers already. HEY! Aren’t there supposed to be little island women here to lai me? (I almost miss-spelled that! A Freudian slip for sure!!) ~See Picture 3 from the mid 1970’s~ Anyyywaaaaaaay, after lunch I wander over to “Alastair’s Island Air Service” to see what I can scare up to fly. The Lake Renegade looks good for starters. So I sign the papers and taxi her out at almost 16:00 Local time, July 1st.
I depart from runway 08L and fly at just 2,500 feet along the shoreline, over downtown and along Waikiki Beach. ~See Picture 4~ I stay visual until after the Diamond Head Volcano and then turn left to fly along the north shore. As I progress northward I get that famous afternoon-island-moisture as some cloudy haze stacks up against the mountains. I even got a few shots of rain on my windscreen. I spend some time buzzing around here and there along the north and then western edges of Oahu ~See Picture 5~ . Finally I turn back towards Pearl Harbor and make a wonderful (if I do say so myself) harbor landing near the Battleship Arizona’s Memorial ~See Picture 6~ .
After floating over to shore I find a dock to tie up to and climb out. Over at the Ford Island NAS I find an unclaimed plane with gas tanks half-full. “How luck is this?” I say to myself while climbing in. I’ve never flown one of these planes before but am pretty familiar with their specs, so after some tinkering I get the engines to fire and taxi (WHOA, kinda wobbly there) out to runway 4. As the police start closing in I advance the throttles and take to the sky at just after 17:30 local time. This puppy climbs a little faster than anticipated but I finally get her back under control at 320 knots and 5,500 feet. I turn toward Molokai and slow back down to 270 knots and 3,500 ft for cruise. One thing I notice (maybe it’s just a wackey FS model) is that even at 270 knots, I have to trim out at a 5-8° nose-up attitude to keep from loosing altitude. 
Maybe it’s also the fact that there seems to be NO SEAT in this model ‘cause every time I look around or outside I get back to the cockpit to find I’m looking at sky. (Shift+Enter, Shift+Enter, Shift+Enter) I take a pass over MKK and make a couple zig-zags over the island ~See Picture 7~ before heading on to Maui and overflying that airport. ~See Picture 8~ Alastair suggested that I could land here but I have another plan….Hana. In FS2000 this was pretty darn tricky and I figured I may be less-likely to get arrested there. So I fly the short distance over to Hana and make another fine landing on runway 08 ~See Picture 9 – lots’a smoke for such a small plane!~ at about 18:15 local time. Then I run off to find a little beachside hut somewhere remote!
July 5th, 07:30 Local Time: After the police stop combing the area, I look up one of my Firefighting buddies (Firefighters always have buddies somewhere, it’s a worldwide Brotherhood) and arrange my flight out of here to Hilo. We get the plane all checked out and I taxi her out into the water. We bob around a while until I get it all positioned and set for take-off just a couple minutes before 8 AM. I think this CL-415 has become my favorite FS amphibian, very stable and forgiving. So, off to “The Big Island” and some volcano touring it is. I fly direct to the MUI VOR, then climb up and over the BSF NDB and down over Hilo. I fly around the southern end of the island ~See Picture 10~ and on around the western side of Hawaii. On the inbound flight I thought that PHSF looked interesting so once over Kono International I turn to the BSF NDB again and executed a Touch-and-Go from this airfield, which sits about 6,200 feet ASL ~See Picture 11~ . Not much room up here!
Maybe it’s also the fact that there seems to be NO SEAT in this model ‘cause every time I look around or outside I get back to the cockpit to find I’m looking at sky. (Shift+Enter, Shift+Enter, Shift+Enter) I take a pass over MKK and make a couple zig-zags over the island ~See Picture 7~ before heading on to Maui and overflying that airport. ~See Picture 8~ Alastair suggested that I could land here but I have another plan….Hana. In FS2000 this was pretty darn tricky and I figured I may be less-likely to get arrested there. So I fly the short distance over to Hana and make another fine landing on runway 08 ~See Picture 9 – lots’a smoke for such a small plane!~ at about 18:15 local time. Then I run off to find a little beachside hut somewhere remote!July 5th, 07:30 Local Time: After the police stop combing the area, I look up one of my Firefighting buddies (Firefighters always have buddies somewhere, it’s a worldwide Brotherhood) and arrange my flight out of here to Hilo. We get the plane all checked out and I taxi her out into the water. We bob around a while until I get it all positioned and set for take-off just a couple minutes before 8 AM. I think this CL-415 has become my favorite FS amphibian, very stable and forgiving. So, off to “The Big Island” and some volcano touring it is. I fly direct to the MUI VOR, then climb up and over the BSF NDB and down over Hilo. I fly around the southern end of the island ~See Picture 10~ and on around the western side of Hawaii. On the inbound flight I thought that PHSF looked interesting so once over Kono International I turn to the BSF NDB again and executed a Touch-and-Go from this airfield, which sits about 6,200 feet ASL ~See Picture 11~ . Not much room up here!
ATIS for Hilo was reporting winds out of 229° at 7 with broken ceilings 2,600 ft. I dropped down to 2,500 feet and flew outbound for runway 26. Turned final and made another very smooth water landing in the bay near the runways ~See Picture 12 , moments before touchdown~. I taxi to shore and we pile out a bit before 10 AM, still time to enjoy the day! A funny post-script was that ATC was clueless about my plan. I turned final and they announced, “Sun Country 415 you are cleared to land, number one for landing.” I touched down smoothly in the bay (not even on airport property) and ATC says, “Nice job Sun Country, taxi to the gates.” Well, I guess that means all was forgiven after stealing that Skyhawk!
Alastair, it really is too bad that you have never been able to experience this lovely place in real life! The smell of fresh Gardenias (Especially after getting Laied)….the sea breezes….the sunset filtering through palm frawns….the trickle of a near-by waterfall….the cool drink, just presented to you by the hot babe (that part is for Rik!)….the grating of sand in your shorts….the burning skin from a lack of SPF….the fact that when you go to the store you no can understond da’Kine like fo talk of da pipples. But hey, virtual is ALMOST as good as the real thing…..Isn’t it? Thanks for the memories!
