NZMC- NZOA- NZWF- NZLX- NZQN- NZMFWell here we are at long last, time to complete the 5th and final leg of the Long White Cloud tour, making my way to the very final airport, Milford Sound, in the deep south of the country.
I set the time of day to dawn as I loaded up my flight at Mount Cook Village (NZMC) today. As I taxied to the runway, light snow showered down upon me, and I climbed up away from the beautiful little airport nestled right in the centre of the mountains (
screenshot 1).
Turning to a heading of 165 degrees, I followed the shoreline of Lake Pukaki eastbound, towards my next destination, Omarama (NZOA), which was still 44nm away. Just like Lake Tekapo, the glacier fed lake had a light turquoise glow to it, which contrasted brilliantly with the white snow covered mountains that where just beginning to reveal themselves in the early morning light (
screenshot 2).
I reached the end of the lake, and was flying over the town of Twizel when I picked up the Unicom for Omarama, a town I had never even heard of before this tour, but decided to visit the location as it was nearby. I choose to land on runway 27 and touched down 31 minutes after leaving Mount Cook.
Making a brief roll along the dirt strip, I pulled up again and had to climb steeply to clear the Hawkdun Range Mountains, as I turned to a heading of 222 degrees towards Wanaka (NZWF), the airport famous for hosting the Southern Hemisphere's biggest airshow each two years.
REAL NZ sell a payware addon for this airport which includes both normal airport scenery, and the "Warbirds over Wanaka' airshow scenery which I am yet to buy, but after reading the
recent review on AVsim, I will be sure to add it to my collection soon.
The powdery white snow on the ground below soon fazed into brown hillsides, which then in turn merged into the Godzone Wanaka photoreal addon I had installed, and it wasn't long before I had competed the 34 mile hop, and descended over the shores of Lake Wanaka, 25 minutes late (
screenshot 3).
While I was trying to decrease my altitude, my Cessna 206 was pitching up way too much even though it was trimmed out perfectly, so I decided to make an unscheduled full stop landing on runway 11 to re-calibrate my joystick. I made an awkward touchdown, and sat parked at the side of the runway sorting my joystick settings out. I soon had everything back to normal, but was kicking myself because I didn't have the REAL NZ package installed. What a perfect opportunity this would have been to view it!
Anyway, I taxied back to runway 11, and took off smoothly climbing up over the photoreal scenery (
screenshot 4) towards my next destination, Alexandra (NZLX), which was 29 miles south east from Wanaka. If I had followed the straight GPS line, then I would have left the photoreal almost immediately, so I turned off route (not for the first time on this tour), banking north eastwards to explore the area covered by the Godzone addon I had previously mentioned (
screenshot 5 and
screenshot 6).
I spent 15 minutes on my little detour, but soon arrived back at the landclass boundary and spotted a tarmac runway out of the corner of my eye. I aimed for it, and told the Unicom that I'd be making my touch and go on runway 14, then made a steep dive down from my altitude of 4000 feet to touch the tarmac at Alexandra, a town known for having some of the most varied temperatures in the country- very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, thanks to the bowl shaped valley it sits in.
Within a few seconds, I pulled up again and began climbing up to 8500 feet, to clear "
The Remarkables"Â that sat in front of me, blocking me off from my next destination, Queenstown (NZQN), the town nicknamed The Adventure Capital of the World, because of all the extreme sports that are based around there.
I was taking a screenshot, when all of a sudden the engine cut out, and I realized that I had hit the engine auto-shutdown key by accident. It gave me a scare, but I managed to get it going again, and continue my climb up to clear the mountain tops, and get a good clear signal from Queenstown tower, who instructed me to make my landing on runway 5.
I descended down above Lake Wakatipu, and entered the airport pattern, 30 miles after leaving Alexandra. Once again, I happened to have some
brilliant freeware scenery installed for the area, which included the airport and photoreal ground textures, but didn't have time to make a full stop landing, after loosing time from my joystick incident at Wanaka, and then my photoreal exploring detour.
After the 20 minute hop, I was cleared to land by the first ATC voice I had heard since leaving Nelson, and made a touch and go on the runway which I had visited in real life a few years ago in an Air New Zealand 737.
I had plenty of tarmac to roll along before I had to pull up again, and made the most of the Queenstown photoreal by exploring off route again, checking out the effects of turbulence generated from the brown Harris Mountains (
screenshot 7), and the view of the Shotover River, famous for it's high adrenaline jet boat rides that I had been on when in my real life visit.
I flew back overhead the airport (
screenshot 8) to begin my final hop to the 24th and final airport on my flightplan, Milford Sound (NZMF). I then ventured out across the lake again (
screenshot 9 and
screenshot 10), following it's shoreline straight into the centre of the Fiordland region, at the very bottom left hand corner of the country.
The mountains began to get higher and whiter again (
screenshot 11), and I found myself climbing above the Fiordland National Park home to another world famous tourist hotspot, the Milford Track (
screenshot 12).
I cruised along above the peaks heading at 277 degrees for a good 30 minutes before the Tasman Sea coastline became visible on the horizon, and I descended down over Lake McKerrow to meet the country's western coastline (
screenshot 13). The terrain here was so extreme with huge cliff faces and giant mountains as far as the eye could see that I just wanted to fly off and explore, but I was now only a few miles from the mouth of Milford Sound, and I prepared my self for a tricky approach for runway 11.
As I reached the sound, I banked sharply to make my descent through the narrow mountain pass (
screenshot 14), and was amazed by the breathtaking terrain. I passed by Lion Rock (
screenshot 15) which recently claimed the lives of a plane full of sightseers when their Air Fiordland Cessna 207 crashed into it.
With full flaps, I made a pretty rough landing, and had to brake hard to come to a full stop on the short runway. I then switched to spot view as I taxied to the parking apron and was amazed at the view behind me (
screenshot 16). It was just like I remember when I visited the Sound on a coach tour from Queenstown, and I was meant to have made the return trip via light aircraft, but had to go back on the coach because of bad weather.
I parked up and switched off the engines for a final time, over 1000 kilometers from Kerikeri, where I had started from last month. It is a shame that the tour has come to an end, but still feel happy because I can't wait to get back to exploring the wonderful scenery that Redbaron Entertainment have created for my simulator.
So to sum it all up, from what I have seen,
I have been bloody impressed. No other scenery addon I have ever reviewed creates such a realistic and dramatic environment on such a large scale, and if I had to choose only one addon I was allowed to install for fs2004, it would definitely be RBE's mesh and topo addon. If you don't have it already, then I highly recommend you go and
buy it now. It will give you hours and hours of unique entertainment that is unparalleled in the sim world.
Thanks for following,
Comments are welcome!
by Charl » Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:59 pm 
t Trolly you sure know how to put the pressure on!
