Flight Sim 2020 – Heading West (P2)

– Beechcraft King Air 350I – Edmonton to Kelowna

Heyo! Loving Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 so much that I partook in a little project relating to “heading west”. I have to keep the title a bit obscure, though something I had done previously in Flight Sim X. Continuing on from Part 1 (link below) I continued from Edmonton International towards Kelowna. The real fun part of the trip was just coming up and over the Rocky Mountains.

Previous trip was as follows:

Ottawa(CYND & CYRP) > North Bay(CYYB) > Elliot Lake Municipal Airport’ (CYEL) > Sault Ste Marie (CYAM) > Thunder Bay (CYQT) > Kenora (CYQK) > Winnipeg Int’ (CYWG) > Regina Int’ (CYQR) > Saskatoon (CYXE) > Edmonton Int’ (CYEG)

While the trip in this blog posting is as follows:

>Edmonton Int’ (CYEG) > Kelowna (CYLW) > Vancouver (Boundary Bay CZBB) > Kelowna (CYLW) > Vancouver Airport (CYVR) >Port Hardy (CYZT) > Bella Bella (CBBC) > Prince Rupert (CYPR)

Part 1:
https://arcticukitsu.com/Blog/?p=6237

Edmonton to Kelowna:

Continuing the journey from Part 1, we’re now at Edmonton heading towards Kelowna airport.

– Gradually realizing how flatness is eventually giving way to an abrupt mountain range, named ‘Rocky Mountains’.
– There it is! The Rocky mountains.
– Wall of clouds blockading Edmonton from Kelowna. I still pushed through aiming higher in altitude.
– Various people coming and going, or simply roaming around the area to be registered by the game.
– Dangerous beauty.
– Beautifully ominous sea of clouds.
– Clouds becoming interestingly lit up by the setting sun; Layered above and below.

A little split in the above and below segment because all you could see is white. No point taking images. Simply admire the clouds in the above image while noting what I saw in the King Air’s terrain display. This is exactly why I chose both the TBM9 and the King Air for my trip because they had this exact panel allowing me to land in dangerous conditions such as these. Manually.

The below image you can even see the heavy amount of icing, something I had disabled as to not disrupt my flying.

– Sunsetting western Canadian conditions.
– Icing conditions.
– Descending to land at Kelowna.
– Other people were taking off causing me to delay my landing for a while.
– Nearly blood red
– Touch down!

Kelowna has been reached, landed at, and even parked. Having landed safely I then debated whether to make it towards Vancouver or not; Decision was reached. I hastily made my way towards Vancouver finding out the conditions were worse, localized, and even unlandable at my desired destination. Thankfully, I had my reliable instruments to help me out. Normally you wouldn’t do this in real life. Thankfully this is a simulation.

Kelowna (CYLW) > Vancouver (Boundary Bay CZBB):

Wanting to get as far west as possible I darted my way towards Vancouver as quickly as possible. Even if it was sunsetting, I needed to get as far west as possible to allow me a proper vantage point during my next session onwards.

– Can’t see a thing. Brutal weather, harsh localized conditions, manually on final and approach relying heavily on my instruments. Had to do a go-around to then land safely the second time around.
– Even if forced, I landed as safely as I could. Was a very forced landing. Smooth touchdown, forced landing to prevent another go-around.

– Vancouver (Boundary Bay CZBB) > Kelowna (CYLW):

This trip was simply done because of a payware addition of Kelowna Airport. With the thought I would be visiting this area frequently I took off from Boundary Bay to land at Kelowna, to Vancouver International and onward. I wanted to see how the payware Kelowna airport faired.

– Still fairly cloudy.
– Lots of people in the area.
– Love the occasional breaks in the clouds to allow viewing of the scenery below.
– Clouds breaking up further as we near Kelowna.
– Approaching Kelowna (Payware)
– On final approach, and fairly low. It’s a manual landing after all.
– Landed and parked at payware Kelowna.
– Love the additions to Kelowna.
– As someone who prefers smaller planes I would love flying to Kelowna airport.

Kelowna (CYLW) – Vancouver (CYVR):

Having seen the Kelowna payware scenery it was time to move on. Time to head toward Vancouver International!

– Now that we’ve seen the beauty of Kelowna time to resume my flight towards Vancouver. Someone flying an F22 and another flying a Boeing aircraft.
– A bit difficult to see; The landmark buildings are barely visible in this image.
– Yikes…. Again. This time Vancouver international is blanketed in dense clouds. Thankfully I have my instruments to visually guide me in.
– Fairly low, though still safe to land from a sim point of view.

Landed safely as possible, tried to taxi to parking to only fumble that somehow. Seeing as how I landed that is all that matters.

Vancouver (CYVR) > Port Hardy (CYZT):

Invited my friend to join me as far as possible on this stretch of a flight. Took my trusty TBM9 (though should have chosen the King Air) to head up the coastline. Had multiplayer connection issues preventing us from really seeing each other.

– Fairly miserable (if localized) weather.
– Weather was poor in some parts of the airport while clear in another. Weird.
– And we’re off!
– The standard conditions.
– Icing.
– Icing and ascending.
– Absolutely gorgeous.
– Generic flight flew by me (CSC8502) which startled me slightly. Was giving out my position to a friend.
– Maneuvered around to land sooner than planned at Port Hardy.
– Even if miserable weather, still gorgeous.
– Dangerous manual approach.
– On final.

Port Hardy (CYZT) > Bella Bella (CBBC):

We tried to make sense of the issue. We were unable to see each other only talking via Discord relaying our position. Frustrated, we took off announcing our take-off status to then meet up in the air. At this point I even learned how to use the autopilot in more detail thanks to both my friend and Youtube videos.

– And we have lift off!
– Circling around.
– Autopilot messing around.
– Finally seeing my friend and even another person flying around.
– My GPS autopilot looped me back then back towards my destination. Was weird.
– Very menacing, if gorgeous. This sim has some fairly interesting weather patterns.
– Flight was fairly uneventful as we flew through dense cloud cover to decide to land at Bella Bella. Multiplayer glitched out putting my friend at a nearby lake.
– Almost as a seaplane as it difted into the shoreline and into it.
– Drifting further inland.
– We both landed at Bella Bella.

Bella Bella (CBBC) > Prince Rupert (CYPR):

Having briefed ourselves of the connection issue we somewhat struggled to decide where to travel to. We eventually agreed upon Prince Rupert after the other airport was in an awkward positioning. Probably influenced by ‘IRL’ happenings.

– Taking off!
– Out of Bella Bella we go! Still visually gorgeous.
– Blinding beauty.
– Set my autopilot to dodge darker spots in the weather while being bumped around by wind.
– Accidentally left my landing lights on.
– Icing.
– Approaching Prince Rupert.
– On Final

Having landed we found Prince Rupert to be a complete mess terrain wise. This airport needs freeware/payware love to function as a proper airport in this sim. It was so bad I forgot to take proper images.

This blog posting was delayed by a few months thanks to some on-site technical difficulties. I can finally post this allowing me to catch up on my Flight Sim moments. Lots to share, admire, and hopefully be admired by fellow interested folks.

Thanks for viewing and happy flying!