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Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 8:12 pm
by Mikaere Flavell
G'day

Wouldn't we all love to be in our favorite GA aircraft flying around the Caribbean, well now is the chance to do just that.

How it works

We will all depart Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, Known as Saba (SABA) and head towards Gustaf III Airport,Known as St Barts (TFFJ) after arrival in St Barts we will then fly to Princess Juliana International Airport (TNCM). We will then fly back to Saba. If we all make it in one piece then we will fly the route again.


Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport (SABA)

The airport has the shortest commercial runway in the world, only 396 meters (1,299 ft) long, flanked on one side by high hills, with cliffs that drop into the sea at both ends.

Although the airport is closed to jet traffic, regional airline propeller aircraft are able to land there under waivers from The Netherlands Antilles' Civil Aviation Authority. The most common aircraft to land there are the Twin Otter and BN-2 Islander


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Gustaf III Airport (TFFJ)


Both the airport and the island's main town of Gustavia are named for King Gustav III of Sweden, under whom Sweden obtained the island from France in 1784 (it was sold back to France in 1878). In 1984, Swedish Minister of Communications, Hans Gustafsson, inaugurated the terminal building of the Gustaf III Airport.

The airport is served by small regional commercial aircraft and charters. Most visiting aircraft carry fewer than twenty passengers, such as the Twin Otter, a common sight throughout the northern West Indies. The short airstrip is at the base of a gentle slope ending directly on the beach. The arrival descent is extremely steep over the hilltop traffic circle; departing planes fly right over the heads of sunbathers (although small signs advise sunbathers not to lie directly at the end of the runway). The airport is located in the island's second-largest town, St. Jean.

The History Channel programme Most Extreme Airports ranks Gustaf III airport, which is casually referred to as "St. Barth's", as the 3rd most dangerous airport in the world.

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Princess Juliana International Airport (TNCM)

Princess Juliana International Airport (also known as Saint Martin International Airport) is the main airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, located on the Dutch side of the island in the country of Sint Maarten. In 2007, the airport handled 1,647,824 passengers and 103,650 aircraft movements. The airport serves as a hub for Windward Islands Airways and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, St. Barthélemy and St. Eustatius. It is named after Juliana of the Netherlands, who as crown princess landed here in 1944, the year after the airport opened. There is also an airport on the French side of the island, called Aéroport de Grand Case or L'Espérance Airport.

The airport is perhaps best known for very low-altitude flyover landing approaches due to one end of its runway being extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach.

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Details

Date: Saturday 2nd May 2015
Time: 1930Z-2030Z Time Converter
Where:The event will be flown on the VATSIM network, But feel free to fly it offline if you want to
What:Any GA aircraft, Make your you can takeoff from Saba in it.
Duration: Approximately 1 hour

Links
Unfortunately the Default FSX and P3D scenery for SABA and St Barts is corrupt and has some major cosmetic issues. The following links are some freeware and payware scenery options.

Saba
Freeware:Saba Airport Fix with installation instructions 1.63MB

St Barts
Freeware:St Barts Photoreal 86.7MB

The Installer is in a different language, I believe its french or something. It is relatively easy to install. It is recommended that you set the installation location to the desktop then drag and drop the contents of each folder into the corresponding folder in your FSX/P3D directory. If you have proplems installing please fell free to get in contact with me on the teamspeck server or send me an email.


Princess Juliana International Airport
Freeware:Princess Juliana International Airport 10.2 KB

Fly Tampa
Payware:Freeware:Fly Tampa
For the ultimate experience it is recommended that the Fly Tampa is installed. This addon will fix the scenery for all airports

Well thats it! Please fell free to contact me if you have any concerns, suggestions or comments my email can be found bellow.
Mikaere.flavell@gmail.com

Thanks

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 3:36 am
by Adam Magiera
0800Z (4 a.m local time) is a bit early for this night-owl to be up :lol: , i'll have to pass this time around.

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 7:51 am
by Mikaere Flavell
Hi Adam

Thanks for the reminder. The event was originally scheduled for 0900Z but I put in the wrong time by mistake. 0900Z will still probably be to late or to early for you. Sorry it is kinda hard to satisfy everyone and it was hard to find a time to suit America.

Thanks

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 11:44 pm
by Adam Magiera
Mikaere Flavell wrote:Hi Adam

Thanks for the reminder. The event was originally scheduled for 0900Z but I put in the wrong time by mistake. 0900Z will still probably be to late or to early for you. Sorry it is kinda hard to satisfy everyone and it was hard to find a time to suit America.

Thanks


Its all good. Early morning is not a strong point of mine. My prime is about noon-3am. Those 10 years of night shifts really killed the ole circadian rhythm :lol: .

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 8:07 pm
by Edward Watson
We always found around 1930-2030Z on a Saturday night..
converts to:
1930L UK Sat
1530L US Sat
0500L AU Sun
0900L NZ Sun.

That is just a generalisation as each country has multiple time zones.

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 6:16 am
by Mikaere Flavell
Hey Ed

Thanks for that great suggestion. The event has been rescheduled to 1930Z and will finish around 2030Z as it is around 1 hour long.

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Sun May 03, 2015 11:08 pm
by Roger Eve
Well only Mike and I turned up for this flyin :( :cry: Unfortunately Mike disconnected during the second leg so I continued alone. This was very disappointing as Mike had obviously gone to considerable trouble to set up the flyin. It would have been fun with a few other pilots. I have got out of the habit of hand flying light aircraft and so island hopping in a B1900D was great, and challenging too with some difficult airports. With no ATC on VATSIM this was just like flying on FSHost.

It seems impossible to get a good turn out for online flying :evil: :evil:

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Mon May 04, 2015 2:06 am
by Edward Watson
Sorry Roger & Mike,

As I couldn't fly it in the sim, and the my other general PC with FSX is running like a dog (I think it has some nasties on it).. the framerates are unflyable.. I gave this one a miss.

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Mon May 04, 2015 9:05 am
by Mikaere Flavell
Hey Guys

Unfortunately my computer had a blue screen and shut it down during the flight. I have now resolved this and have upgraded to windows 8.1. Thanks for coming Rodger and hope you enjoyed this flight.

Re: Island Hoping: 2nd May 2015

Posted: Mon May 04, 2015 9:12 am
by Andrew Squires
I would have joined but I still not like vatsim sorry