NZFF

Posted: **Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:51 pm**

Around the World from New Zealand to New Zealand by Props.

Whangarei

>

Norfolk Island

Kiwibarguy here, i'm off around the world. Should take about a year so if you happen to be on come and see where i'm at sometime.Pyjamas check, Marmite check, Phoenix Foundation check and ready to go.

Since i grew up in Whangarei i thought this would be the best place to start. I have chosen my favourite light blue Cessna 172Sp Skyhawk to accompany me as i wanted to do the equivilant of flying around the world at 'walking' speed. You know what they say. You miss everything and all, so we will be flying by prop only.

So if you'll accompany me, we'll be off. Goodbye wife and 3 kids, so selfish of me. I'll bring you back something.

Fuel check, Runway check, got to watch out for those seagulls....stubborn ....very stubborn, and off we go!

First stop will be Norfolk Island.......Norfolk Island in a Skyhawk, you gotta be joking!! It's all good, i'll have 200km spare fuel if all is good.
Goodbye Whangarei, look forward to coming back one day. Well, it was a long flight and as i am doing this with 15 minute live weather updates, all has been good.

Now i have never flown to this far in a Skyhawk on fsx but i can tell you that it was loooooong! The wind was against me and the fuel guage's needle was slowly dropping by the hour. Thankfully the gps lets me know that acording to the ete we should get there no worries.

Touch down, and here we are after a long time looking at water to land safely on Norfolk Island. Hmmm that's funny, no Norfolk Pines.

Posted: **Tue Oct 02, 2007 9:02 pm**

Nice pics - good luck with your trip!

Posted: **Tue Oct 02, 2007 9:59 pm**

Well done on being able to upload your screenies- I'm looking forward to following this one!

Posted: **Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:16 pm**

Good start.

Posted: **Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:17 am**

Trolly wrote:
QUOTE(Trolly @ Oct 2 2007, 10:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Well done on being able to upload your screenies- I'm looking forward to following this one!

Thanks to you Trolly.

Posted: **Wed Oct 03, 2007 9:42 pm**

Norfolk Island

>

Des Pins island,New Caledonia

I set off in the afternoon as i wanted to catch some scenic shots with the sun going down.

It sure was a calm flight again and another trip that involved alot of water. It really puts into perspective for me how huge the Pacific actually is.

As it became darker i started to wonder if i would be able to find the airport. Please remember that i am a novice pilot and that i have decided after yesterday not to use GPS.

Finally arrived following the bearings i had on my knee and saw the light of salvation, yes the runway lights. I dont think i will be doing night time flying until i get a bit better and navigating. Nervous nelly kneecaps banging.

Des Pins Island (New Caledonia)

>

Magenta (Noumea, Caledonia)

Up early the next day i headed up in anticipation to see Noumea. Pretty tame flight again. Great weather, dodging clouds was great fun and finally saw the capital, ooh err, not as big as i thought.

Cloud dodging, great when you are over water with nothing much to see.

What i was suprised to see was that they are environmently concious people, in touch with nature, letting the trees be part of the Airport.

now....flaps, throttle, tree....steady, level, tree....left wing.....bad, tree ....situation...

All good.

NWWM(Magenta)

>TOU(Touho)North Eastern tip of New Caledonia>

NWWU(Tanna Island) White Cliffe southern island in Vanuatu.

First i headed up the Eastern Coast of New Caledonia and found Touho. Quite nice scenery up here for default, impressed i was, was i, i was.

But the real buzz was leaving New Caledonia and flying into White Cliffe where this massive cliff popped out from between the clouds to greet me. It was like close encounters of the third kind flashback. OOoh point, I wonder if they have that mountain on here, must do, somewhere in America, i know that. Devils Mountain i think its called. Anyway, i tried to find a photo of this mountain but as yet still haven't found one.
Great little island to fly around!

Landed safely and called it a night, up early tomorrow.

TAH(Tanna Island)Vanuatu > NVVV (Port Villa, Bauerfield) Vanuatu.

Up up and away in my beautiful . do da do, dont know the words......

Beautiful Sunrise, very calming

Then the sun came up to greet me and up in front of me a wall of cloud

But in the end i finally reached my destination without to much hassle.

NVVV (POrt Villa, Baurfield) Vanuatu > Sangafa (NVSE)

Lovely jubbly morning to take off. The real weather has been good to me, so far. I'm going to enjoy the good weather while it lasts.
Wow, there are alot of islands up here.

Take off time!

Wow massive crosswinds! keep her steady.

Lovely day to fly. I look forward to seeing the volcanoes soon.

yay here i am. No not at the airfield, i have finally caught up on my blog! woo hoo!

Posted: **Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:24 am**

Hi, If you can think of anything i could do to better this blog please let me know. e.g pictures too big/small, information on journey, places to visit, scenery freeware, please let me know. In discovering these places i hope to find places that may also enlighten you to visit and see also. At the moment i am preparing to teach my new students (im a bar tutor) so i had to rush this last blog. I hope to provide a bit more info on each leg (History, interesting facts) and learn more navigational jargon as i improve. Im also looking at showing some maps with my journey, but im not sure how to do that. ..All feedback is welcome. Looking forward to flying tonight. Must get back to work.

Day 7 NVSE (Sangafa) > NVSS (Santo Pekoa) Luganville

Well ive checked everything, so off i go

Goodbye Sangafa.

off we go to see the volcano

Well....no volcano... what a disappointment

Around we come to land at Luganville.

Time for a Dry Martini, made the kiwibarguy way, 90ml gin, 20ml vermouth, stirred not shaken, sorry James Bond, you dont know what you are talking about.
Luganville was home to over 40,000 American troops during WW2 and was the main holiday destination for most South Pacific troops.
See ya tomorrow. Medieval 2 time.

Posted: **Thu Oct 04, 2007 9:47 pm**

Great screenshots, the first sunset one at the top of the second update looks amazing- the water is unlike anything I've ever see in FS!

Your tour is going well- those screenies of the devils mountain place look very much like Bora Bora- you could have fooled me- are you sure you are on the right island?

Posted: **Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:27 pm**

A nice bit of island hopping -- and somewhere I've never been!

If you make the following changes to your FSX.cfg, you'll find the red text in the top right corner doesn't sit there forever when you change views...

ChangeTime=1.000000
TransitionTime=1.000000

The settings are in the [Display] section.

Also, if you pause the sim to get a picture, don't forget to wait until the flashing "Simulation Paused" text is off! (a lot of people don't, and it can spoil an otherwise good picture)

Finally, press and hold the ALT key, the the menu strip will disappear. Just press ALT again when to want the menus back.

Finally finally, don't forget you can always crop the picture to make it more dramatic, or for better composition. But do it BEFORE you resize it! I post a lot op pics on a board where the max width is 800 pixels, so that's what I tend to resize to, but without that restraint I'd probably size them to 1024.

Keep up the good work.

Posted: **Thu Oct 04, 2007 10:35 pm**

G-HEVN wrote:
QUOTE(G-HEVN @ Oct 4 2007, 11:27 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
A nice bit of island hopping -- and somewhere I've never been!

If you make the following changes to your FSX.cfg, you'll find the red text in the top right corner doesn't sit there forever when you change views...

ChangeTime=1.000000
TransitionTime=1.000000

The settings are in the [Display] section.

Also, if you pause the sim to get a picture, don't forget to wait until the flashing "Simulation Paused" text is off! (a lot of people don't, and it can spoil an otherwise good picture)

Finally, press and hold the ALT key, the the menu strip will disappear. Just press ALT again when to want the menus back.

Finally finally, don't forget you can always crop the picture to make it more dramatic, or for better composition. But do it BEFORE you resize it! I post a lot op pics on a board where the max width is 800 pixels, so that's what I tend to resize to, but without that restraint I'd probably size them to 1024.

Keep up the good work.

awesome!! Thanks for that! really constructive!

Posted: **Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:31 am**

For the maps etc I just use an old copy of MS encarta and cut and paste using paint etc
for examples you can see my trip - towerguys world tour - just down the page a bit ( maybe page 2 now as I have been slightly delayed recently)
cheers and enjoy the trip.

Posted: **Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:45 am**

towerguy wrote:
QUOTE(towerguy @ Oct 5 2007, 03:31 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
For the maps etc I just use an old copy of MS encarta and cut and paste using paint etc
for examples you can see my trip - towerguys world tour - just down the page a bit ( maybe page 2 now as I have been slightly delayed recently)
cheers and enjoy the trip.

Hi there Towerguy, just read your entire trip. What an adventure!!! Maybe we can meet up somewhere along the way. Im heading up through India, maybe Middle East then on into Europe. But that will probably be a fewmonths away at the rate we are going. Enjoy your next leg and thanks for the info.
Question, do you need the cd to run Encarta? because if not i could borrow it from my local library.

Posted: **Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:16 am**

Trolly wrote:
QUOTE(Trolly @ Oct 4 2007, 10:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Great screenshots, the first sunset one at the top of the second update looks amazing- the water is unlike anything I've ever see in FS!

Your tour is going well- those screenies of the devils mountain place look very much like Bora Bora- you could have fooled me- are you sure you are on the right island?

Sorry i was babbling, The mountain that i took photos of in the flight sim is known as Green Mounatin which is on Tanna island in Vanuatu. It reminded me of Devils Mountain which is located in Oklahoma, America. Devils Mountain was used as the landing site for the Aliens in 'Close encounters'. I haven't been able to find one picture of Green Island on the net, so i started to wonder if i had my bearings right or if Microsoft had made a mistake. It's quite a striking mountain to see and you would imagine there would be at least one photo on the net.

Devils Mountain. I hope to find on my travels.

Posted: **Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:22 pm**

AAAArrrrr were are me Mash potatoes , ....... need more mash ,better get cookin

Posted: **Fri Oct 05, 2007 9:24 pm**

NVSS Santo Pekoa (Vanuatu)

>

AGGT Santa Anna (Solomon Islands)

Took off from Luganville, 2nd largest city in Vanuatu, heading over to the Solomon Islands today.

Flying around Santo Pekoa Airport in Vanuatu.

Vanuatu is worth checking out if you want to fly around somewhere tropical, the geography of the land is quite interesting. Islands pop up everywhere and the topography is quite unique too.

See ya later Vanuatu, best stop was definitely Tanna Island.

Beautiful pacific blue.

It was a good 800km flight over ocean to get to the Solomon Islands.
The Solomon Islands are made up of more than 990 islands, which together cover a land mass of 28,000 square kilometres. The main islands are Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Santa Isabel, San Cristobal, Malaita and New Georgia.

Finally coming in to land, its been a loooooooooong flight.

It took me 3 turns to land on this little strip. My darling wife decided she wanted to chat right at the same time. Isn't she awesome.

yes dear!

Time for a Manhattan. that's 60ml Bourbon (or Scotch Whiskey), 30ml Rosso Vermouth ,stirred and served in a Martini glass with a cherry. Nighty night.

Posted: **Sat Oct 06, 2007 12:28 am**

Excellent stuff, wish I had the patience to do an around the world flight, the amount of legs I could of completed if I hadn't given up each time.....

Posted: **Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:33 am**

yes I think you do need the cd but if you get it out once and have your route preplanned you could just cut and paste the whole trip in one session and pull them up and edit as needed along the way - or look in bargain bins for an old copy for next to nothing.

Posted: **Sat Oct 06, 2007 7:57 pm**

LMerraine wrote:
QUOTE(LMerraine @ Oct 6 2007, 01:28 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Excellent stuff, wish I had the patience to do an around the world flight, the amount of legs I could of completed if I hadn't given up each time.....

Thanks for taking the time to check out my site. maybe see you online someday

Posted: **Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:57 pm**

Santa Anna (Solomon islands) AGGT

.

Kirakira Solomon Islands AGGK

Lovely day again for flying. Coral Runways, i really am in the middle of nowhere.

I will be flying along the North Eastern coast of San Crisobal.

Just a short flight today. Nothing much of real interest around these parts.

I love these little strips.

Kirakira, one of the coast lines that was badly affected by the 2007 April Tsunami. Some people reported the waves being 10 metres high.
Tomorrow i make my way to the highest point of the Solomons. Makarakomburu 8,028 ft. (2,447 m)

Posted: **Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:38 pm**

towerguy wrote:
QUOTE(towerguy @ Oct 6 2007, 02:33 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
yes I think you do need the cd but if you get it out once and have your route preplanned you could just cut and paste the whole trip in one session and pull them up and edit as needed along the way - or look in bargain bins for an old copy for next to nothing.

Thansk for that Towerguy. Yeah i think i will try and find a cheap copy somewhere.

NZFF

Around the World From NZ to NZ.