Towerguys World Tour

[towerguy]

Its funny how things happen sometimes - after all the reading and study I did on chile while getting ready for this leg and then doing the virtual flights - today at work we had a visitor to the Tower, Jose , The head of the Santiago Oceanic ATC unit and I was able to talk to him for a while about flying in Chile and show him some of my shots so far. He also showed me a great website for this area -

www.dgac.cl

- this is the equivalent of our CAA and on this site you can get all the weather and notams for Chile and also into the AIP with all the approach charts, rules and regs etc. It even has links to webcams at aerodromes all over Chile including their strip in the antarctic. So if you are going to fly here then this is a must visit site!

cheers all.

[Charl]

Pategonia...conjures up intrepid Victorean exporers prancing through the jungle wielding butterfly nets.
Didn't know it was still called that.
Pretty rugged looking from up top though.

[towerguy]

I think I may end up with a weight and balance problem on this journey. The more I see of South American food the more weight I seem to be trying to balance! Last nights grilled steak was massive and of course I had to finish it all just to be polite.

This morning was taken up mostly shuffling paper and filling out reams of forms. Entering the country as I have is slightly unusual and the local officials were going through everything twice! Even though I had already done all this prior to leaving Auckland it all needed to be explained again. Still, the weather outside was so atrocious that even filling out forms didn't seem so bad.

A very prophetic taxi sign!


I think the locals finally gave up in exasperation or just plain ran out of paper as they've given me the go ahead to continue my trip although I think maybe it's a case of " go and be someone else's problem"Â￾. At least the local engineers are pretty cool, helping to push TGY into the hangar so I could pre-flight out of the rain. We must have been quite a site to the passengers waiting to board the Dash "“ three grown men stripped down to underpants pushing an aircraft across the apron in the pouring rain in the middle of continuous thunder and lightning.

Eventually dried off and pre-flighted, I taxied out and sat at the hold, programming the GPS and waiting for a break in the weather"¦ and waiting "¦ and waiting "¦ "¦ and waited. I was about to flag it away for the day when things started to ease up so with a quick "Zulu Golf Yankee ready"Â￾ and a last check of the gauges we got a take off clearance and were away!
Well I had thought it had eased up but - "wrong'! I was solid IMC from just after rotate - and the turbulence!



I had planned at 7000ft but requested and was cleared up to 10000ft to try to get out of some of it but still had to get clearance for track deviations around the bigger build ups.



Settling into the cruise I had to slow back a little from the planned speed just to avoid exceeding VA in the turbulence. This was going to put me at Mar del Plata well after dark so I spent some time reviewing the approach plates again.

Eighty odd miles down track and I seemed to be out of the worst of it and cruised for quite a while on top of a layer of Cu and SC. Stupidly I hoped that this would continue to destination "“ yeah right!



Approaching Bahia Blanco VOR ( BCA 114.3) I was again in and out of weather and my first glimpse of the Atlantic was exactly that "“ a glimpse.



Now I was with Ezeiza control and on the second leg towards Mar del Plata, the sun setting behind me through the clouds and lights coming on in the darkening countryside below.



Ezeiza passed a weather update on Mar del and it didn't look promising "“ more towering Cu and CB's which I could make out easily enough by the continuous flashes along the horizon. The stormscope showed them up quite well but I started reviewing the missed approach and onwards divert to Buenos Aires just in case.

By this time it was fully dark and at TOD I started down and was given vectors for the "Visual approach??? Runway 13'. It's night, black as the inside of a cow, hissing with rain, constant lightning and they're vectoring for a visual? Okay they must know something I don't, so we'll give it a go but let's have that approach plate for the ILS open anyway.



Sure enough, after dragging my sorry ass along at 2100ft getting pounded and bounced, could I see the runway? Lucky to see the wingtips mate! So around we go and set it up for the ILS approach. By 300ft I was ready to spend the night in Buenos Aires but ,,, wait, right on DA , there, just to the left "“ yep "visual"Â￾ ( sort of).



After all that, the landing and taxi in were smooth and uneventful; I guess something had to go right!



After shutting down and closing up it was a sprint through the rain to the terminal. Now where are the taxis at this time of night?

Map and details



This leg 503nm 4.0hrs
Total 6956nm 48.0hrs

[ZK-Brock]

Hey Craig, how do you go about finding out about all that foreign airspace that you fly through?

[towerguy]

first step is to input the plan in MSFS flight planner and zoom in close as it shows airspace boundaries and restricted areas etc. You can also get the names from this usually. Then there is FSNavigator which is good. For the areas that I have Jep charts for, it's easier, as they list all comms units and frequencies at the side of the chart. Heaps of research online helps and failing that I have the ultimate insiders guide to ATC - I send an AFTN message to the tower at said location and ask them! (but thats only for emergency use and I can't do it on a regular basis.)

[G-HEVN]

Must admit I hate the built-in FS flight planner, and as a predominantly VFR flyer, even the likes of FSNav, FSCommander etc don't meet my expectations.

So I wrote my own!

You'll have seen screenies from it on my Ox2Ox tour. It uses a mixture of terrain elevation data downloaded from NOAA (haven't figured out the MS mesh format!), data direct from FS (airports, navaids, boundaries, vectors etc), towns, cities, VRPs and points of interest courtesy of LINZ, the UK AIP, and a bunch of other web sites.

I don't really want to give out copies at this stage -- it doesn't actually write a flight plan usable in FS at this point! -- but eventually it'll be freeware, and no doubt I'll be calling for testers at some time...

[towerguy]

always happy to help if required - I'll let my 'story' stand as my record - if it's the type of thing you want then fine - if not then no worries either - as I said , always happy to help.

cheers

[towerguy]

Leg 12 Mar Del Plata (SAZM) to Buenos Aires (SAEZ) 192nm


Well at least the lightning and thunder had stopped at last. Finding a place to stay turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. All the bad weather combined with end of season wind-down has left most places pretty empty. I took a taxi down to the waterfront and watched the Atlantic rollers pounding in for a while just to pass the time then headed out to the airport. After sharing coffee with the local controllers I headed out to "golf yankee" and made the usual preparations. Today is just a short leg up to Buenos Aires where I will meet my wife off the Aerolineas Argentinas flight from Auckland. She is going to accompany me along the coast up as far as Recife.



Gps programmed,Taxy out and runups complete,it was up and onto the clocks right from lift off - again! Takeoff was to the southeast on rwy13 and then climbing back to the west up to 6000ft to intercept track to VOTRA then up to Ezieza (SAEZ) via overhead the Gen. Belgrano VOR (GBE 115.6). Solid IMC all the way 'til 5nm south of Votra and then broke out the side into clear skies but with a scattered to broken layer down low.



60 odd miles out I got vectors for the ILS approach onto Rwy 11 at SAEZ. Down to 2200' and onto the localiser I descended back into the murk. At Decision Height there was nothing to see so it was into the standard missed approach. I did just get a quick look at the runway as I was climbing out but nowhere near enough to make an approach on. Climbing back to 3000ft I went around to the north and tracked out for another go. The suburbs out here were wide open and so were the local aerodromes so if I missed again I'd just drop into one of these. Descending into the murk again, the tower advised that there had been a small increase in vis so thats at least hopeful!



Sure enough about 500ft I was in the clear(ish) and able to land.



Taxiing in it was hard to credit that it was clear just down the road!



This leg 192nm 2.2hrs
Total 7148nm 50.2hrs

[ZK-Brock]

Nice Towerguy How does one decide what the decision height will be? Is it based on the ILS category, aircraft type etc...?

[Alex]

ILS category, aircraft equipment and aircraft type as far as I know.

Great to see where you are up to towerguy, thanks for the pics.

Alex

[towerguy]

work out your acft category A,B,C or D - and then check against the approach you are flying at the bottom of the approach plate. this will list the minima for the different categories and may have remarks about special requirements or restrictions for different categories. ie circling not available to north for cat. D etc

to work out your acft category

based upon Vat where
Vat is the indicated airspeed at the threshold:
Vat = 1.3 x Vso; and
Vso is the stalling speed in the landing configuration at maximum cert. landing weight.

you must operate in accordance with the requirements of only one category. you may not reduce category due reduced operating weight ; but - you must increase category when actual handling speeds are in excess of those for the category.

Cat Vat
A Less than 91kt IAS
B 91kt or more but less than 121kt IAS
C 121kt or more but less than 141kt IAS
D 141kt or more but less than 166kt IAS
H Helicopter not applicable

relevant page is NZAIP ENR 1.5-17 4 Arriving flights.

so for example if your stall speed in the above configuration is 90kts IAS then 1.3x90=117kts IAS which from the table is Cat B.

so checking my approach plate for SAEZ Ministro Pistarini ( Buenos Aires )
Cat B is 259ft - 800m for the S-DME/ILS 11
or 460-1500m for the S-Loc/DME 11 or
570-2800m for circling approach
there is also a note to the effect that Circling N of rwy 11/29 not authorised for Cat D.

elevation is 59 ft so I am looking at 200ft AGL for the straight in ILS/DME.

[towerguy]

Legs 13 and 14 SAEZ - SUPE - SUMU

Julie and I have spent a couple of days exploring Buenos Aires and it's surrounds, doing all the usual tourist things like going Gaucho riding and visiting the antique markets. Best of all we got tickets to the football at La Bocha (thats 'real' football - Soccer- and played South American style - absolutely superb!). Another surpriaingly good tour was the cemetary of La Recoleta. This is where Evita is buried. Sounds weird I know, but it's really an amazing place to spend time walking around looking at the variety and beauty of the tombs.

We decided that now that the weather had cleared, we would take a VFR trip across to Punta Del Este in Uruguay. It is supposed to be the premier beach resort in South America so how can we pass it up. And it has a Casino!

The morning dawned clear and calm so we got away early(ish) and climbing out to the east of the city we had a marvelous view of the Rio de la Plata ( or river Plate) with Uruguay in the distance.



It was offshore here that the German Battle Cruiser 'Graf Spee' was scuttled after putting in to Uruguay following the 'Battle of the river plate'early in WW2.



Landfall on the northern shore was just west of Montevideo. Julie commented that it would have been nice to have visited. "But we don't have the time unless something changes along the way" I said - words that would soon come back to bite me.

From Montevideo eastward along the coast is just a succession of white sandy beaches. The water doesn't look so crash hot but thats apparently just sediment carried by the river.

Despite having read the charts I was still surprised at how short the strip at 'Punta' looked.



Putting it right on the end and braking firmly we pulled up with some room ( but not a lot!) left to spare and backtracked to park at the base of the Tower.

What a day! Taxi into town followed by lunch and then the Casino for a while - I came out about even so I guess thats the same as a win. Then there was some time for some shopping and the Beach.

During the afternoon I had noticed the wind getting up a bit and there seemed to be a few tops developing to the north and west. We called it quits and caught a taxi back to the airport, picked up weather, threw in a quick VFR plan back at 4500ft and got underway.



Looking at the weather I thought that level would probably need to be revised and sure enough, just after airborne I had to level at 2000ft and pretty soon was back down at 1000ft and configured for low level bad weather.



It was getting pretty bumpy and Julie was obviously not enjoying things by then and truth to tell neither was I!



I decided that if there was no improvement by Montevideo then we would divert into there as I didn't want to go back to face a short strip in bad weather at Punta del Este.

The weather reports from further west were not flash, so when the lights of Carrasco Intl showed up ahead in the gloom, that was it, we called Control and advised we were diverting and then switched to Tower for joining.
We got a "join right hand downwind for rwy19, no1." followed quickly by "cleared to land".





Thanks guys!



I was so glad to be on the ground, as the cells just rolled over the field as we were shutting down, not something I would have liked to push on into.





Legs 13 and 14

leg 13 180nm 1.6hrs
leg14 54.8nm 0.9hrs

Total 7382.8nm 52.7hrs

[ZK-Brock]

Wise decision, and good screenshots Woulda been quite entertaining for NZFF if you tried to get TGY down at Punta del Este in bad weather, and showed us the screenshots

[Charl]

Interesting part of the world - lots of Nazi conspiracy stories post-war.
Never figured out why the Graf Spee was scuttled - bad intelligence? the Brits didn't have much in the area that could trouble it.
Or maybe there was a secret vote on board, just to give this war a miss and sit it out in a nice South American holiday resort?

[towerguy]

LEG 15:- Montevideo (SUMU) to Foz de Iguazu (SBFI)


We had a quick look around town this morning and have put Montevideo on our "definitely coming back to look at in depth" list. Great food, great beaches,friendly people. We already have Hotel bookings up at Iguazu so must keep going.
Rather than heading back to Buenos Aires we filed IFR from Montevideo to Iguazu Falls (SBFI).
Last nights front moved through and there was just scattered SC and Cu around. Once again on the move, we were followed out to the holding point by an Aerolineas Argentinas 737.



I had noted both of our departures were to fly runway heading. Checks complete and in the air I was just about to switch to departures when I heard the call "....Cleared takeoff!"
I immediately took a 30 degree left and switched to departures requesting further left but was only given a heading 10 degrees off the runway heading! I told them in no uncertain terms that I was turning a further 30 degrees left! Just then the B737 screamed past my tail right about where we would have been! ( Microsofts ATC! as real as it gets! I sure as hell hope they NEVER get into it for real!)
Resuming track and levelling at 7000ft we continued on course for Monte Caseros up on the Rio Uruguay.



The countryside below us, seen through the clouds, is fairly intensive farming country, a lot like home.
We cruised for a while just looking out the window and passing time filling in incident report forms etc.
By the time we passed the Rio Negro the cloud was building up ahead but we had enough gaps to get a good look out to the northeast at the man made lakes created by the huge Hydroelectric schemes.



As we progressed, the countryside below us became more and more open Pampas style ( complete with MSFS-like repeating paddocks!).



50nm short of Monte Caseros we appeared to catch up with yesterdays weather again. Check out that G/S!



The stormscope was showing widespread activity right across our front but there seemed to be quite a few gaps in between so we pressed on this time. After a brilliant light show and a good bumping around we crossed the Rio Uruguay at Monte Caseros VOR (MCS) back into Argentina.



This area is much more swampy and is dotted with small fishing resorts catering to tourists from further south. The water is said to be so clear you can see the schools of fish.



Crossing the Rio Parana river we crossed over the Posadas VOR and turned onto the final track towards Iguazu.



We were still dodging cells but things appeared to be thinning out. As we headed further north there was a noticeable increase in the size and density of the forest coverage below us. A lot of this is regeneration after years of over logging.



The usual MSFS zig zag ATC bullsh*t vectoring started while we were still about 70nm out but the radio was strangely quiet apart from us!.



Even though we were now out of the weather and into clear skies we decided just to continue with the ILS as it's an unfamiliar strip and we were a bit tired by this time.



It also gave us a chance to look over the town, the surrounding river system and the huge Hydro complex to the north while we approached. We could also see the falls off to the far right in the distance. We will look at those in more depth tomorrow.
Parking at the base of the Tower I just had to take this last shot as we have not had too many blue skies so far!



The guys in the Tower were great and rang ahead to the Hotel for us and organised them to send up a taxi. We are staying at the "Tropical das Cataratas Eco Resort" right out by the falls inside the National Park. There is supposed to be an excellent restaurant and tomorrow we will go play 'tourist' and take the Helicopter ride around
the Falls.

MAP


This leg 3.8hrs 614.5nm
Total 56.5hrs 7997.3nm

[towerguy]

Today we played Tourist - Buffet breakfast and then a walk along the road to see the Falls from the Brazilian side.

They say that this is the side that you should see the falls from in the morning as the light is better for photography and has the finest overall view. We followed the path 1.5km and then out via the catwalks amongst the falls themselves. Even though it was warm we had raincoats on as the spray soaks everything!
Making our way back we took the elevator back to the top and walked along the road.
Back at the hotel we dried off and then caught the bus out to the Helicopter base at the entrance to the park. For about $150 each we are going on a half hour flight over
the falls and up to view the Itaipu dam.



Well! you certainly get your moneys worth with a fantastic view and a running commentary.



The Iguacu Falls are formed by the Rio Iguacu river which starts nearly 1200km away and grows as it heads west until it reaches this spot where it plunges over an 80m cliff which is the center of 275 interlinked cataracts spread across nearly 3km.



This time of the year is after the dry season so the falls are at their lowest. Wow it must be really something to see at peak flow!

Then we headed over the city and up to see the massive Itaipu hydroelectric project.





Still buzzing from our flight we headed in to Foz Do Iguazu for a spot of lunch and some shopping.



After lunch we crossed over to the Argentinian side and caught a taxi out to the park on that side to see the falls again. This side has by far the better observation points and there is a walkway that goes right out to and overlooks the
Garganta del Diablo or "the devils throat" where waterfalls on three sides all empty down the one slot in a massive display of power. Now thoroughly wetted down we spent an hour or two wandering around the nature walks observing the wildlife while drying off.
Finally walked out we made our way back to the hotel for a clean up and to soak up more than just the atmosphere in the Bar.



The screen shots above are from FS9 using the freeware Iguassu Falls addon available on both Flightsim.com and Avsim by Cicero Luis Cavalcante Costa. He has done a superb job I think.
I was going to do some of it in FSX but the falls, one of the major natural wonders of the world are just not there - 'not in the USA' syndrome I guess. But so that you can get an appreciation of the natural beauty of this area and as a comparison of the work done in this addon I have included some actual photos downloaded from the web (royalty free).

[Ian Warren]

Great Pic's TOWER , 1939 - 'Battle for River Plate' hit a nerve! New Zealands own first Naval involment .. HMNZS Archillies , ... this is flighsim Don't Mention the War ....

[ardypilot]

Your tour continues to fascinate me Towerguy- never before have I ever seen South America explored in such great depth, it looks magnificent in FSX too.

[G-HEVN]

Just catching up after spending 11 "exciting" days in Wellington Hospital

The falls scenery stands up very well against the photographs - I wonder if it also works in FSX? - and with your commentary, we could have been there. Looking forward to the next episode...

[Naki]

Sorry to hear about that G-HEVN - get well soon - I agree this tour is fascinating and a great geography lesson - can't wait for the next installment!