A scenic Atlantic hop with real-time weather

[OldAirmail]

NOT

That "real-time weather" bit should have warned you.

Still it was a nice real-time exercise in navigation, and I do love it when the airport materializes out of the clouds.



The flight was from Santa Maria (LPAZ) to Ponta Delgada (LPPD) in the Azores.

A short trip (52 nm & just over an hours time - startup to shutdown) true, but very enjoyable.






I took off into heavy clouds.


And it didn't get much better closer to the destination.



But once I started my decent I sighted landfall. (It's over there, on the right)





What luck! An airport out in the Atlantic Ocean!!!


NOW the weather gets better!!!!!!

[Bass]

You were just lucky

Cool shots

[OldAirmail]

Thanks, Bass.

I even enjoyed the full cloud cover of the first shot. I don't usually get such real-time heavy cloud coverage, even when it's right above me.

[OldAirmail]

I've just come back to the little island of Santa Maria. What a letdown.

Having turned off all the weather & clouds, I was hoping for something at least a little interesting. NADA.

Here are the "mountains" of Santa Maria.






And here's the topo map.



The one free mesh that I could find was no better than my FSGenesis mesh (and perhaps even less so).

At any rate - With regret, Tchau Azores.

[CHUCK79]

Nice set, OAM

[OldAirmail]

Thanks, Chuck.

Most of the time I "fly" the familiar Friendly Skies.

But there are a lot of places to go before I make my final landing.

[Skunkworks]

Super narrative and shots!

Simviationites also like a good story!

[OldAirmail]

It's not much of a story, but thanks, Mr SW.



Madeira (MadeiraX) is my favorite island and a place that I would love to retire to.

.
.

Where else can you stand on a cliff, look down 1,840 ft to (589 metres), or up another 4,000 feet (1,219 metres)!


Another favorite island to fly is Taiwan. Even in "standard" FSX/P3d scenery it has great canyons to race through.



If someone doesn't have a good mesh that covers Taiwan, they may want to download the free mesh - FSX ASTER_imp GDEMv2 30m mesh for Taiwan



As to the Azores, there is commercial packages available. Maybe they're worthwhile, but I'm not going to spend my money to find out.