We've got a big flight here and I'm not gonna lie I'm a BIT nervous. Flying from Iceland to the Shetland Islands BIFM to FEA, this is my longest flight over open ocean. Two VIP passengers will be on my flight of 481 n.m. With a full load of fuel and my fat ass this will put us near the max takeoff weight with no room for tradeable goods. Fortunately the passengers are TWINKS, combining to weigh 330lbs total!
Getting an early start:
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Flying into the eerie orange fog/clouds and rising sun, just a little snow/rain mix right at freezing temp. Flying into a 20+ knot wind! I hope we have enough fuel, lol. This thing is supposed to have a range of like 670 n.m., but I've never come close to testing that and especially not into a stiff wind! There's an abandoned looking airstrip in the Faroe Islands, so I adjust my course to align with that just in case... I cut back to 2100 RPM, which seems to be my most efficient throttle setting that keeps me above 90 knots.
Ominous low clouds dead ahead, but a ray of hope above?
Looks like my plane has NEXRAD, so I switch over to make use of that... I'm not sure what the colors mean, let's home GREEN=GOOD because that's what we're about to fly into!
Sweet babby jesus, a brief break in the clouds! It feels so good! I'm tempted to climb a little higher, but the OAT is 0 Celsius, so I'm afraid of icing conditions in the higher clouds. Now that we've broken through the first storm, we've got a bit of a tailwind as well! The fuel flow rate is around 10 gallons per hour and the fuel gage says we have around 20 gallons in each tank? (hopefully not total!) We are still about 3 hours out according to the GPS, so we better pray EACH tank has 20 gallons! I will check in 1 hour and if it reads 15 gallons in each tank we should be good, otherwise I will land in the Faroe Islands!
LAND AHOY! The Faroe Islands in the distance. It's been about 50 minutes and the fuel gage has only dropped about 3-4 gallons, so I think we have confirmed each tank has that much remaining, so we should be able to make it! I also decided to slip up to 3500 feet as a lot of the mountains seem pretty tall!
The satellite coverage of the Faroe Islands is... lacking. Here is the town of Torshavn, which looks like fuckin Red Baron 3D or something
@GuyIncognito ! This is pretty weird because the Neofly imagery is good in this area (and I believe they use Microsoft imagery). I wonder if my internet was out?
Thankfully the Shetland Islands look better!
I had to land with a solid 30 knot wind on a tiny airstrip I could barely see.... It wasn't my best landing ever, uploading a youtube video that I will post tomorrow!