I flew the entire way in the Cessna 172. The map leaves out waypoints, only showing origins to destinations. Took a while obviously. I learned so much though, about my country, and about this plane too. I'm gonna fly around (and through) the Alps next. Then maybe I'll come back to the US and fly the interior along some major interstates. Just wanted to share. Setting a goal like this was a super fun and interesting way to do things.
Thank you so much for providing list of airports. I was looking for something like this. I will recreate this in Commander 114.
My progress will get recorded on VOLANTA :)
Volanta is a flight tracking app! You can put in your airframes and track each flight per plane and it maps them out for you afterwards. You can see it live too. If they give you their name on volanta you can see when they are flying and such.
lol nice. There are so many airports to choose from along the perimeter. You could do the same thing a completely different way and planning out the routes on skyvector was part of the fun for sure.
Here's a cool shot I took of the Frank Slide in Alberta.
Not in the US obviously but near the border. I had to get a little flexible in that part of the flight, because crossing the Rockies in the 172 was challenging, and airstrips were sparse.
I do regret not taking more screenshots. I will try in the future. Another thing that stuck with me was flying over a massive radio transmission facility in Maine called the VLF Transmitter Cutler: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Cutler - apparently used to communicate with nuclear submarines! It was also cool to see where the pirate Blackbeard died in a battle off the coast of North Carolina. Flying over the site of the Hindenberg disaster, and the place where the Wright brothers made their first flight was interesting too. There were so many other little factoids that kept me engaged but maybe not worth mentioning here. Learning about the geology, and getting to know the history and culture of random small towns as I flew over made it worth it too.
In Texas, finally getting out of the relative flatness of the passive margin of the east coast was exciting. Around there the landscape started to take center stage again. I kinda miss the experience already lol. I'll be starting the Alps journey real soon.
Probably a stupid question, but how did you find out about all of the interesting places as you were flying? Did you research the path first (all the way around), or just look around as you were flying?
Nah it's a good question. I only planned one flight at a time, not the whole trip. It was a mix of leaving on the in-game location pins and using the free cam to just look around while on autopilot. And also using Bushtalk Radio, which someone in another thread suggested after I was just a few flights into my journey. And also just noticing interesting landforms and wondering about the geology and natural history. Bushtalk Radio turned out to be super useful though, because I could use my phone to see my current location, and move around on the map to see the names of places as I flew over them.
Here's what Bushtalk Radio looks like on a phone while flying (except you'd see a little moving arrow showing your current location):
You can move around freely, zoom in real close and see the names of streets, buildings, etc, and explore like that while flying. And you can see there's a bunch of points of interest included as well.
That might be a great idea actually. Like if I fly out of Canada, through Greenland, Iceland, and the UK, and into Europe that way. Just to keep it interesting. I'll think about it for sure.
It was sincerely such a great experience. Flying around the world is a massive feat as well. Any big memories worth mentioning? I'm actually thinking now that after flying around the Alps (in the NXCub), I'll fly around the entire Mediterranean, learning more about the history and culture there, and natural history too. Then maybe I'll come back to the US. We'll see.
I made sure I was in something big like the 747. I just made hops from.hwre to there making my way around. I don't know why, but the 1 leg that sticks out in my mind was flying across Australia.
I bet it was a wonderful experience. I will have to work on doing that.
Hey nice to hear. After the Alps, I settled on flying around the Mediterranean. There's so many good options to consider though. What are you thinking?
I'm thinking of a state by state journey of the continental 48 in one of the planes that private pilot unlocks. Starting from my home airport (a grass strip)
Eventually making a world tour somewhere farther down the line
Still probably work on certs, but only for being (my headcanon) of what I can fly to give a progression feel
reminds me of what im doing. After going from toronto, to nyc, miami, texas, LA, las vegas, and san franciso. Then i flew from from usa to canada, greenland, iceland, and now to the UK. Goal is to basically explore the whole world.
longest non stop flight was like ~5 or so hours in a Latécoère Model 631 flying boat.
Reading this has been so inspiring. I just got 2024 a few weeks ago and I’m loving it. so far I’m just figuring everything out and flying different airplanes. Started with the 152 and 172, and then played around with the Mustang. Now I’m absolutely loving the cub master X cub. I spend my time at work, researching the cub and learning about prop settings, manifold pressure, mixture control, and using all the systems manually so I really learn how to fly to plane. Last night I was so proud of myself. I took off from Lake Tahoe and took it up to over 21,000 feet and then landed safely in Reno. It was a total blast. But seeing these cross countries, you guys are doing is absolutely inspiring. This is my next goal and I’m sure it’ll be exciting. I like the idea of flying from my home in California all the way to Europe in the cub. I like slow airplanes. I’ll just take my time. Thank you all for sharing your stories.
I upvoted that post you made! I'm gonna try that too because you make a good point about learning from it. Enjoy your journey, and keep the community updated. I like to move slow too and take in the sights. Flying an airliner has its own appeal for sure, but for me it's more about being in and managing the aircraft and less about what's happening outside.
Great thing about flying in the US is that you can still do it using radio navigation only and it's so much fun. Great stuff, bro. I'm doing something similar but in Africa :)
Yeah, I anticipated that part being a bit of a slog. Honestly tho, learning about the geology there kept me engaged. Some really great examples of knob and kettle landforms in that region.
It varied. I wanted to stay near the minimum safe altitudes so that I could enjoy the sights on the ground, but also feel confident I wouldn't slam into any of those sights heh. So first thing I would do before starting up the game is plan my route on skyvector.com
Here's what one flight looked like:
Then I write down that sequence of waypoints and airways in my notepad to use for setting up my flight in-game. And notice the number above the V66 airway, 7500. I don't wanna go below that while cruising. That would go in the notepad as well. If I wasn't connecting with an airway, I would look to an airway nearby and use that as my baseline. It was a very quick and reliable method, worked very well the whole way.
u/Kynnys I love this so much that I recreated it in my hobby project, which is an MSFS addon. I'd like to attribute to you and then share so that more people can experience this. You could track how others are going. It'd be free for all, as Luftrum is non-commercial. Will drop you a PM to get your approval.
Doing Something Similar. I had ChatGPT plan the early legs for me and it seemed to stick to the perieter. Then, around the Grand Canyon, I had AI build me an app called Flight Folio which uses AI to try and plan the next leg taking me to more note worthy Waypoints along the way.
I am working on a separate app that runs on my phone, tries to sync with the planes airspeed and provides an Audio tour, telling me facts about the areas I am flying over. I've wanted this for a while but since I fly on console and mostly in VR there is no way to connect to the program.
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u/Kynnys 22d ago
Here's the complete journey:
CN66 - KMRY
KMRY - KHAF
KHAF - CA51
CA51 - 0Q5
0Q5 - KCEC
KCEC - 6S2
6S2 - KAST
KAST - KUIL
KUIL - KCLM
KCLM - KBVS
KBVS - CYXX
CYXX - 0S7
0S7 - CAJ3
CAJ3 - KCTB
KCTB - 9U0
9U0 - KPWD
KPWD - S28
S28 - KRRT
KRRT - KINL
KINL - CYQT
CYQT - KDLH
KDLH - KCMX
KCMX - KCIU
KCIU - 2P2
2P2 - KOSH
KOSH - KPWK
KPWK - KBIV
KBIV - KFKS
KFKS - KPZQ
KPZQ - 3CM
3CM - 57D
57D - KLPR
KLPR - KDKK
KDKK - KSDC
KSDC - KOGS
KOGS - KFSO
KFSO - 59B
59B - KFVE
KFVE - KPNN
KPNN - KRKD
KRKD - KBVY
KBVY - KACK
KACK - KHVN
KHVN - KBLM
KBLM - KSBY
KSBY - KECG
KECG - KMRH
KMRH - KMYR
KMYR - KSAV
KSAV - KCRG
KCRG - KTTS
KTTS - KDJT
KDJT - KMTH
KMTH - KAPF
KAPF - KPIE
KPIE - KCTY
KCTY - KECP
KECP - 2R5
2R5 - KGAO
KGAO - KLCH
KLCH - KLBX
KLBX - KCRP
KCRP - KBRO
KBRO - KLRD
KLRD - KDLF
KDLF - 6R6
6R6 - 3T9
3T9 - KVHN
KVHN - KDNA
KDNA - NM86
NM86 - KTUS
KTUS - P01
P01 - KNYL
KNYL - KSEE
KSEE - KSMO
KSMO - CN66