World Tour 2 - Leg 3 - Bilbao to Vitoria

None of the jobs available from LEBB convinced me, so I decided to plan a short hop to Vitoria, where a nice cargo job was waiting to be delivered to Girona. In addition, I found 5 passengers wanting to go to Vitoria, so I decided to fly to LEVT. However, the weather was kind of borderline. I should have flown IFR, but decided to go VFR since, over the map, it seemed to be an easy flight of just 20 minutes, following a highway. I was wrong.

Again, the high speed of the Baron on take off made me suffer during the traffic pattern. I was unable to find the visual exit point while I flew over Bilbao and this led me to follow the wrong valley.

The confusion increased even more due to the low altitude and high speed. I could not follow properly the highway leading to Vitoria and, as a consequence, ended up flying in turns trying to orient myself.

Finally I decided to do VOR navigation to LEVT, but again, due to the stress of high speed at low altitude, I confused the frequency by a digit, and for few minutes I followed the wrong station. The visibility was decaying quickly and I was next to hit some aeroturbines. Luckily, when I realised about the wrong VOR and fixed it, I was near LEVT runway 04, so I immediately landed.

Lesson well learnt. Don't fly VFR on marginal VMC or non-VMC with the Baron, it's simply too fast and difficult to orient at low altitudes, specially when following features of the ground. And a magneto is broken, but I'm lucky it was only that.

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Technical details:

LEBB - LEVT

S1 S AP-68 N

Distance: 30 nm

Average GS: 170 kt

Average alt.: 3,000 ft

METAR:

 

LEBB 250730Z 29005KT 250V330 9999 SCT017 BKN028 16/13 Q1021 NOSIG

LEVT 250830Z 31008KT 280V350 9999 FEW020 BKN032 BKN042 14/10 Q1020

 

 

World Tour 2 - Leg 2 - Burgos to Bilbao

I know I said I would avoid IFR as much as possible, but I decided to fly this leg on full IFR for two reasons. The first one was the weather. The whole area is expected to be cloudy and rainy for several days, with a exceptional window of more "clear" skies at the time I flew. The second reason was that I hadn't tested the 58P in IFR yet, so I saw a good opportunity here. In addition, I know quite well the area, so I won't discover anything new by flying low, so... let's test those instruments!

After checking the charts, I decide that the best way of flying this leg is over DGO VOR, so I plan accordingly SID and STAR, deciding on a cruise altitude of 9,000 ft. This way I don't have to pressurize the cabin (something that is stressful if repeated often). Also, the leg is too short to climb higher. So, I embark my 3 passengers and take off from runway 04.

I didn't remember how stressful it is to fly manually a SID/STAR, but very satisfying. I barely didn't have time to check out of the window, although certainly many clouds were there. The sky was broken, so some patches of ground could be seen, but definitely not good enough for VFR, especially around mountains.

I also took advantage to test the ILS approach capacity of the Baron, which was awesome. It perfectly catched and followed the glideslope. In general, it behaved really well in all stages of the flight.

A very pleasant flight that allowed me to refresh my instrumental skills. Luckily there were no traffics, and no ATC to talk to, otherwise things would have been more difficult.

The weather is expected to be bad around the Pyrinees over the next days, so I might fly IFR again for the main reason I already mentioned... I know quite well the area so I'd prefer to advance rather than to sit and wait. I'm also not quite convinced about the jobs that are at Bilbao, so I might hop around to get something better.

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Technical details:

LEBG - LEBB

DGO1R DGO DGO1Q

Distance: 115 nm

Average GS: 215 kt

Average alt.: 9,000 ft

METAR:

 

LEBG 242100Z AUTO 06012KT 9999 OVC022 11/08 Q1020
LEBB 242200Z AUTO 29005KT 260V320 9999 FEW025 OVC043 16/13 Q1021

World Tour 2 - Leg 1 - León to Burgos

Here we go! Everything is ready at LELN for our departure. Three passengers on board and all systems checked for taxi. The run up looks great, so I enter runway 05 and take off!

The power of the Baron 58P is amazing. Even too much for what I'm used to. I intend to fly a left traffic pattern but when I realised, TAS is 200 kt and I'm waaay over crosswind. Definitely a large turn, but I manage to reduce speed and cross abeam tower towards the visual fixes on the south-east. Goodbye to the gothic Cathedral!

From now on, another small issue... I didn't remember how difficult it was to follow terrain features at low altitude from the Baron, due to the narrow visibility from the cockpit. Luckily the highway I'm following is relatively easy to see, and I don't lose track of it. Many iconic villages are left behind, some of them quite important in the history of Spain.

Finally, Burgos show up in the horizon, as well as its Cathedral, always competing with Leon's equivalent. I directly enter on left base of runway 04 and smoothly land in fully manual.

At this point I have to warn that, due to the lack of a decent replay tool in MSFS, landing pics won't be as nice as they were in the last Tour, since I cannot replay the flight safely. I hope at some point in future this will improve.

Beautiful taxi to GA and first broken piece of the Tour... a wing light, easy to fix, luckily. Let's hope all failures will be as simple as this one.

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Technical details:

LELN - LEBG

S1 SE A231 W

Distance: 100 nm

Average GS: 190 kt

Average alt.: 5,500 ft

METAR:

 

LELN 241730Z 35007KT 320V040 9999 FEW050TCU SCT055 20/09 Q1016 

LEBG 241800Z 03016KT 9999 BKN029 16/09 Q1018

 

New World Tour 2023! Rules and summary

It's time to begin a new World Tour!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been flying the new Baron from Berlin to León (Spain). I took advantage of these flights to test both Black Square analog models, and they are very impressive. The normally aspirated plane corresponds to what I had in X-Plane during the previous tour. This one is more complex, including additional systems like oxygen tanks, EDM 760 for leaning and engine diagnosis, heating, A/C, etc... but the performance is the same. Ceiling at 20,000 ft, 180-190 kt of cruise speed, can descend up to 220-230 kt. Definitely, a great plane for this tour.

 

However, the pressurized version (Baron 58P) let me absolutely mesmerized. Climbing comfortably at 3,000 ft/min, ceiling of 25,000 ft, top cruise speed of 290 kt! Overpassing 300 kt on descent... Simply amazing. I love the versatility of this plane. One can fly low and slow, enjoying the landscape, and then decide to pressurize the cabin and climb over the clouds to travel at near 300 kt. All kind of systems modeled, great performance. It even has the tip tanks, for higher capacity and more autonomy. No doubt, this is the best add-on I've tried until now.

So, the decision is clear, and the rules for the World Tour are as follow:

1.- I'll fly the Black Square Analog Baron 58P, with wear and tear. Failures will be set at 8x or 16x, I'll tune this as the Tour advances.

2.- I'll fly on FSEconomy. The plane I have corresponds to the normally aspirated version, but the pressurized model is detected anyway, so I can use it. The only issue is that I cannot make use of the full tank and tip tanks, I'm limited to 142 gallons max. But I'm not planning to do long legs anyway, so no problem.

3.- I'll do VFR as much as possible, although IFR will be used on airports that don't allow VFR or if weather/night surprises me during a leg (Y or Z rules in those cases). The priority will be full VFR legs. No GPS, just ADF/VOR and RNAV analogic navigation. In crowded places that I use to fly regularly, like Spain, France, Austria... I might fly IFR if weather is bad, or to fit better on a controlled airspace. I don't need to explore more those areas.

4.- I'll fly on IVAO, with real weather. I'll follow real procedures as much as I can. In those places in which I cannot find charts, I'll follow standard rules for traffic patterns.

Last but not least, I'll try to fly 1-2 hours legs, although exceptions can be done due to FSEconomy jobs or terrain/weather. Since the maintenance costs are not linked to FSEconomy any more (no REP package), in case I break something or crash, I'll find the way to remove money from my account to somewhere else.

And the trip itself... well, it will start and finish in León (Spain, LELN). On a first phase, I intend to arrive to Paro, where I cancelled the previous Tour. Instead of repeating the North African coast, I'll cross Europe, visiting the Pyrinees, the Alps, the Balcans, Turkey... The following map shows a general idea (not real legs).

Once at Paro, I'll decide how to continue towards America. Maybe towards Oceania first or directly to China/Japan, we'll see.

Well... let's begin!

World Tour Cancelled (but a new one is coming!)

Well, the World Tour with X-Plane has been finally cancelled. The next leg was supposed to be from Paro to Along, flying over Lhasa. A very challenging leg, due to its length and altitude, but feasible. However, due to all the turmoil caused by the release of MSFS, I don't see how to continue.

For a very long time, I stopped flying in general. X-plane didn't feel as immersive any more, due to the autogen and weather. Landscapes are obviously better with Ortho4XP, but the effort of making them, plus the weather layers and the ugly urban areas, opposed to how nice they looked on MSFS, made me not wanting to continue with X-Plane.

On the other hand, MSFS was not ready at all. The weather, despite being beautiful, worked really bad at that time and didn't synchronize properly with real world. Mountais were round and the fields were full of FSX-like green patches. The Baron was one of the worst default planes in the game, even lacking the ALT knob to select altitude while on AP. At some point I even noticed that the fuel was not being consumed during a 2 hours flight. As a consquence, I left flying for a while.

Time passed by and Asobo somehow finished the product and made MSFS finally enjoyable for the type of experience I look for. After many Sim Updates and many World Updates, real weather is fixed and functional, IFR is possible, flight model is decent and the mesh has been improved a bit. Still, mountain landscapes look better with Ortho4XP, but the difference is not as brutal as it was before, so despite some bad regions in the world, overall landscapes are enjoyable in MSFS. Flat and urban areas are delightful, specially in those regions with good weather.

 

However, default planes were still a huge flaw. Plus they implemented the G1000 and glass cockpit everywhere, which has been buggy and a pain since the release. Now they work better, but still a pain, specially for those who like old way of flying. And the biggest flaw for me, the lack of failures during flight. I cannot enjoy flying and knowing that nothing will happen whatever I do to the aircraft. That gives me the idea that I'm just moving a camera around a scenery, and for that I go to Google Earth.

But decent 3rd party planes started to show up. First, Just Flight Piper Arrows, that I plan to get at some point. I got the M20R Ovation, from Carenado, that is not study-level but decent enough and better than the default airplanes. Then, Cessna 310 from Milviz showed up. This was a game-changing experience for me. Finally I could fly an analog old-school plane, study-level, with failures and wear and tear! This plane is great for immersion, and a very decent machine. Two engines, turbocharged, ceiling of 20,000 ft, cruise speeds of 180-200 kt. Just a bit "nervous" on take off, with highly sensitive pitch, but excellent in everything else. Definitely a great airplane to reconsider doing a new World Tour, since nobody was developing a Baron and the performance is very similar.

 

So I sold the Baron in FSEconomy, to buy the Cessna 310. The closest to Europe is at Madagascar... so I begin to fly the 310 from Madagascar towards Europe, with the idea of starting a new World Tour. And, while I'm doing that, Black Square announces the add-on I though would never be done: the Analog Baron. This add-on rebuilds the default Baron at MSFS to make it analog, fully funcional and study-level. It includes improved flight model, failures, wear and tear... I quickly checked in FSEconomy if my old Baron was still at Paro, or nearby, to try to buy it back and continue the World Tour from there, but no way.

So, after thinking for a while, and thanks to a loan by a friend in FSEconomy, I bought another Baron, located in Berlin, that I'm flying towards Spain.

A new World Tour is coming, this time in MSFS.