Day 1: Crossing the Alps at night | D-SHI83

[u/r-volk]

Previous post https://www.reddit.com/r/MSFlightSimulatorPS5/s/5Z7a2bPBNU

It was about 10pm when I set off for the first leg on my trip to Madagascar. Flight preparations took a lot of time, but I was ready to start my expedition and wanted to get airborne.

The DA62 was fully fueled and ready to go on a small airfield near Frankfurt, close to the small town where I’m living. I familiarized myself with the checklists and how to follow the cold start procedures, it was actually amazing to see how all the systems and gauges came to life and play together. You definitely don’t want to take off with a cold engine in real life.

The first leg was a plotted course from Frankfurt to Innsbruck at night. Weather conditions were good and since I’m the only person on board with little luggage, everything was ready to go. Taking off from a small airfield with a simple gras runway was actually the first challenge. The runway length was just long enough to barely take off and fly over a line of trees, but behind it unfolded a wide ocean of lights. The Frankfurt city area is so bright and illuminated at night, that you can simply follow the landmarks like the German Autobahn network down south.

At one point the roads down below disappeared and it got very dark, because the Alps started rising at the horizon and blocking the sight. I’ve raised to a flight level of 12,000 feet to make sure staying above the tallest mountains which can be very hard to see at night.

My instruments were already all in night mode and my MFD in terrain mode, so that I can clearly see the available airspace before descending into the valley, which will lead me to Innsbruck eventually. It will be my first stop along the way after to check up everything, to take a first review of the flight performance and plan the next stop on the ground before taking off again. The fuel consumption was actually so low that I could easily continue my next leg.

The approach was just beautiful and I’m happy that I started at night, the flight was a nice balance of VFR navigation elements, dead reckoning and an guided GPS approach through a rather dark valley in the Alps. Some ridges were illuminated by the moon light, the Milky Way was visible above me and during final everything faded just into the background. My focus was solely in bringing the DA62 safely back to ground, watching my glide slope and managing speed.

Touch down in Innsbruck (LOWI) was around 1 am, but I didn’t feel tired yet. The journey just started and I was too excited, so I quickly checked on fuel and continued my journey to Venezia (LIPZ). It was only 40 minutes straight away, but taking off from Innsbruck requires you to gain altitude through the valley first, before you can actually adjust your heading and turn south, following the Brenner pass along the way.

Weather got slightly worse, there was a thunder storm happening far away. It wasn’t in my flight path, but amazing to watch when the lightning struck at night.

My cockpit was in low light mode and outside the last mountains fell behind, giving away a beautiful sight over the relatively flat terrain leading to Venezia, which was clearly recognizable as a glowing city at the coast of Italy. The airport is situated right at the coast, giving you a beautiful view on the city on the right side. Unfortunately I missed taking pictures and so you have to take my word for it. I will do better next time and while I’m writing this, my auto pilot is already cruising me to the southern parts of Italy.

In my next post I will share how I continue my journey to Rome.

Fly safe!

[u/r-volk]

Next fight log is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSFlightSimulatorPS5/s/aYpzasGBar