Welcome Bush Pilots to...

As this is our first Vacation Day and in keeping to tradition, we have 2 preludes to the standard Day's flight.

Prelude 1:

Fly your choice of commercial carrier (or fast jet etc.) all the way, for about 9,000 nm. from Anchorage to Johannesburg ( FAOR ). This is the jumping off point for people (tourists) heading inland in the south. Flight plan how you like, but note that the Great Circle Route takes you over the north pole ( a twitchy place in X-P, not to mention RW )

Prelude 2:

If you are a real flying nut with lots of time, you can then take this next hop. If you just want to get a tiny bit of tube time in and have an extra hour this week, you too can take this route. I have included scenery links for this part of the Day if you are interested. It is Johannesburg that is the optional part so here is the various sceneries and important details you need to get from FAOR (the destination is linked further in the standard Day stuff):

FAOR (frmly FAJS) Scenery:

V10/11

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/21839-johannesburg-airport-fajs/

V11

https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/FAOR

SkyVector:

https://skyvector.com/airport/FAOR/O-R-Tambo-International-Airport

Please Note:

With this scenery and the rest that follow for this Vacation Day, your sim might offer up an error message that the "Scenery May Not Look Correct". I was not inclined to troubleshoot other developers packages, so I did test them and all is okay so just go ahead and okay the box when it pops up.

Okay, now that you have perhaps 'scratched the tube itch' , now let's get on with Day One.

Day 1 Details:

Intro:

We have been given tickets at Jo'Burg (or have flown in) to get to Gaborone, Botswana ( FBSK ). Once there, we are greeted by Freda, on loan to EPOCH as Vacation Coordinator, who directs us outside and points down the ramp to... what?

A line of Douglas DC-3s!

Oh Yes! It seems that we have been asked to volunteer to bring these babies from Gaborone up to Maun ( FBMN ) as another part of their journey to the Congo for further service. Although we will be staying in Maun, I'm sure we'll all gladly pass on an Air Botswana trip to Maun and instead fly one of these iconic old birds up there ourselves!

So this is today's flight:

Real Metar.     No Co-Pilot.     Today's Date.     Time = 1000 Local (GMT+2)

Departing FBSK     Arriving FBMN     Fly Direct     App. Altitude = 6,500'ASL     VFR

SkyVector:

https://skyvector.com/?ll=-22.269309083256736,22.968753037182267&chart=301&zoom=8&fpl=%20FBSK%20undefined%20FBMN

SCENERY Links for Gaborone & Maun:

FBSK Gaborone Scenery:

V9/10/11

https://www.xpfr.org/?body=scene_accueil&sc=196

V11

https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/FBSK

SkyVector:

https://skyvector.com/airport/FBSK/Sir-Seretse-Khama-Airport

FBMN Maun:

V10/11

https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/17079-fbmn-maun-international-conversion-of-frits-beyer-and-jacques-botha-original/

V11

https://gateway.x-plane.com/scenery/page/FBMN

SkyVector:

https://skyvector.com/airport/FBMN/Maun-Airport

SV - VFR:

https://skyvector.com/?ll=-24.555833333,25.918888889&chart=301&zoom=4

Upon arrival, just check in with Eustice in the tower and then get someone to show you to your accomodations whilst in Maun. Tomorrow we'll get you sorted and you can get up to speed with OK Delta Air who are hosting us for this vacation. It's 35'C right now, just right for snoozing

Cheers, and have fun with the Goonie birds

bc

Three Dakotas are now safely in Maun, Botswana.

Rocky, gofigure and myself flew the Day 1 from Gaborone while checking for all of the adventure beta things like flight viability, fuel burn, scenery both ends etc. and are happy to report that Day 1 is ready for everyone to fly!

A shout out also to CptTroll who had some issues with X-P that prevented him joining us (hope we can get that sorted tomorrow) and Magger01 who dropped by to say howdy and is looking forward to joining the NFers next time!

Cheers all. A great flight and way, way different than even tundra flying in Western AK. Think you'll enjoy it!

bc

Welcome to Botswana. Botttt-swwwwwaaaannnnna. I like saying it.

Here a tail-cam shot of the scenery. Not too exciting, but perfect for my being too-long-out-of-the-saddle return to flight.

Lots of pleasant conversion to make the time pass by, and learn a few more things about flying and flight simulators. Without any coordination, all three DC-3's left with 4 hours of fuel on board.

Returning from a visit to see John, I realized how rare a sight it is to see an absolutely empty Dizzy-Three...

The satellite view (on extreme zoom) of N5831B over Botttt-swwwwwaaaannnnna....

The VSkyLabs DC-3 is a pleasant model to operate. Easy to start, works well, and looks good...

We experienced near-perfect conditions for the landing at FBMN Maun (I had 2.6 hours of fuel remaining). I'm looking forward to future vacation opportunities from this locale.

Tough luck   having to fly one of these classic Heinz models to Maun, only to have it taken over by another pilot for continuation elsewhere,  The fun and classic luxury of these babies would be well suited to the high-dollar adventurers into the delta.  But,  oh well,  I just savored the experience for the two hour flight.

Taking off from Gabarone.

You don't get to see much more starkly beautiful landscape anywhere on earth!

Classic pax environment for sightseeing. Lots of revenue here!

Finally some GREEN as we approach the delta region!

I dare say this was a lot more fun than flying in on that tube over there!

Now to find the Vacation Coordinator, Freda, to get me a golf cart ride out to my Five Diamond accomodations. 

Haha MarvH. There you go... just the type of quarters you were wanting

Nice pics gents. Thank you both very much!

bc

Made it safely to FBMN day one.  Look forward to the rest of the journey.

A fourth DC-3 arrived at Maun yesterday.

Cpt. Troll brought in a LES bird after an uneventful flight from FBSK. The weather was clear skies with a very gusty 17 knot tail wind. The ride was a little like trying to walk across a trampoline. The LES DC-3 behaved quite well and for the first time I used the auto pilot during the last half of the flight. That took a lot of fiddling to keep her trimmed out and on course. The landing was text book, one of my better efforts however, I would do well to remember not to pull back too far on the throttles, it's rather embarrassing to have made a perfect landing, only to have the engines shut down before you clear the runway. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy flying these old radials?

As Rocky mentioned earlier, the landscape is quite featureless so I'm thinking navigation in the delta will be quite the challenge, especially for a plane like the SMS DHC-2 which has no GPS.

So here we are, on vacation in Botswana, WOW! I'm not sure about the heat, but am really looking forward to hanging out with a bunch of Bush Pilots and our upcoming adventures.

Now pass me another cold one mate!

--

CT

Hard to believe that there are ADF & VOR/DME in Africa. I used radials to fly from FAOR O R Tambo Johannesburg to FBSK Gaborone and on to FBMN Maun and ADF as a check once closer to the destinations.

So at times you can use Nav1 VOR/DME & ADF to aid navigation while flying the Beaver. Also someone on Pete"s site was talking about adding a GPS using Plane Maker.

Welcome to Maun Gents!

The real joy of flying bush out here is using the ADF out of Maun and a bit of good ol' fashioned navigating, along with the Mark 1 eyeballs of course. You will be surprised to see how difficult it can be to pick your strip out of the near-featureless terrain. Always look for landmarks, few as they may be.

Can't wait to read comments after this coming weekend's release  

Cheers,

bc

Yeesh, I've got to get in gear, or I won't get there in time to get one of the tents with a basement and a swamp cooler!  (One stores the gin in the cool of the basement, old boy, lest it sweat or get bruised.)   

I'd be very interested to know how to add a GPS to the SMS Beaver. I looked at doing that a while back but couldn't figure out how to do it.

--

CT

Just thought I'd share a couple of screencaps of my Day 1 flight. I too love the DC3! The brilliant livery you see is the work of Mr. RockLobster.

Enroute FBSK - FBMN

Arrival FBMN:

And at the moment, I'm trying to get comfortable with several Cessnas that I've never flown before. After watching all the Bush Pilot episodes bc linked for us, I have a lot of work to do. Those Afric Bush Pilots were very impressive.

__

CT

@jetjerry:

Hey, one of our NFers flew the VOR as well (can't recall if it was Rocky or gofigure). Did very well! It was a fun flight and quite the change from the norm

@CT:

Good going sir, and welcome to the 'dusty little town' of Maun. You can grab one of the luxury tents when you install the scenery this weekend!

Cheers,

bc

bc quote: "You will be surprised to see how difficult it can be to pick your strip out of the near-featureless terrain. Always look for landmarks, few as they may be".

A flight to FB51 Motopi just for practice flying the newly purchased VSL DC-3 w a SimSmith (Rocky) livery.

As you can see the runway is non-existent/featureless as I sit facing RWY 26 w only windsocks at both ends. 

Oh no... where's dat runway go?  

Coming tomorrow my good man - that and a host of others (19 in total this version) and a number of goodies to delight and surprise

Cheers,

bc

Adding runways is good news, hard to even see the windsocks unless you're right on top of them. It helps if you happen to spot some African Antelope, then you know you are close.

Well, as you'll see in about 15 minutes in the Day 2 writeup, I have a picture of Santawani in the post and of course the link for the new scenery package. The 'lope love each and every one of the runways

Cheers,

bc