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Douglass' European Journey (Flight Sim Career)

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
I'm starting a new parallel career that will follow Douglass in his Cessna 172 from the tip of Iceland down through the UK and then into mainland Europe. I started in "Sandbox Mode" which gives me $1,000,000 and all the qualifications and access to missions (I already ground my way up from mail carrier in my North American dynasty). Once I make enough money I will probably buy a DA62 and then a TBM 930 to increase my range and cargo capacity, but for now we're doing short hops in the Cessna 172. I decided to start in Iceland because they have a ton of small airports. Live weather might be a bit too challenging in the Cessna 172
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
First Mission is flying a single VIP passenger from BIBI to BITE, a distance of 28 N.M. I'm also carrying 162lbs of clothes to sell.

17601

A journey begins:
17602

Decent weather, given the latitude, but the first bay I flew over was frozen! Gonna need to stay down below the clouds in this bird.
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Our destination is nestled between some large mountains at the edge of the ocean. This bay is partially frozen but we see open water beyond! A successful landing leaves the VIP passenger "on time for the game." Not sure what they are playing round these parts, hockey? The sale of some pants add some $ to the account.
17604
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next Leg is BITE to BIPA with another single VIP passenger and a couple hundred pounds of cell phones, the most lucrative cargo! I'm not sure who is buying these burner phones, but I'm not asking questions.

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The valley was too narrow for me to gain altitude and climb over the top, so I took the ocean path out.
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Snow melted pretty quickly as we flew south, not sure if this is just THE SIM not doing seasons or if Global Warming is melting @bruin228 's Iceland this quickly?

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Look at that majestic little valley of farmland and their very own frigid beach!
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What a cool spot to land! Just this little runway on a spit of land sticking out into the ocean!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next flight is BIPA to BIRF hauling another single hockey aficionado and a load of mackerel that won't sell for much. Oh well, the point of this career isn't to make money it is to see the world and we need to head SOUTH!

17626


Rather than skirting around the ocean path I decided to climb up to 2,500 feet so that I could see this river inlet that looked absolutely amazing! The result was... ice obscuring the view and threatening Douglass' very life!

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Fortunately Douglass was able to safely launch the drone and take a good exterior shot of the scenery. If you look closely you can see the fear in Douglass' eyes!

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Since I was iced up, I opted for the faster instrument style approach at about 90 knots with only 10 degrees of flaps. This extra airspeed made me feel better with the ice and gave me the opportunity to go around if everything went to shit. I did the potato field style flare and held it above the runway, taking advantage of the fact that this is one of the longer runways I've seen so far. I was off center to the right a bit, which is a habit I've noticed on all the runways that look like 2-lane highways. I think it's just my lizard brain trying to prevent me from dying in a head on collision, lol. Still, I touched down nicely, which the VIP hockey fan appreciate. No comments from the Mackerels. Here's a vidya:
 
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next flight is BIRF to BIRK, our first hop over 50 miles at 67 n.m as we head into Reykjavik. I would like to stop over for an extended layover in Rykjavik someday on a future European vacation. It seems like a nice way to break the flight up. I'm good for like 6-8 hours and then my legs start to really ache from being crammed in and the last few hours of any Europe flight really suck for me. Stopping in Reykjavik for a couple days of hot spring soaking sounds like a great way to counteract that. Anyway, we took a contract to fly 463 lbs of the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine over. I'm going to give myself a little extra bonus on this flight as I plan to fly by the Jules Verne Monument! Neo Fly features "tourist flights" that I will be taking advantage of on the journey. Since this one was on the way I figured I'd get two birds stoned at once.

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After the icing adventure on our last flight I decided to skirt around the massive cloud enshrouded volcano named Snæfellsjökull (had to copy pasta that name!). I'll have to come back here sometime in the summer to see what this is all about. In general I feel like I've missed out on a lot on the early portion of this journey due to my fear of icing conditions.
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At the base of Mount Snuffaluffagus or whatever is the Monument of Jules Verne (Here Begins the Journey to The Center of the Earth): More reading!
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NAILED IT!
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This was my first low flight across the ocean. Had to keep it down at 1,000 feet and still had to dodge some clouds!
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In the big city!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Hauling another single VIP passenger from BIRK to BIBA. I had a couple of mission options to this airport, but I decided to fly the lightest cargo mission since CELL PHONES were available. I ain't gonna be able to buy that TBM unless I slang burner phones like Saul Goodman!
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The sim was really buggy tonight for some reason, I had some ridiculous framrate drops and stutters. I dropped from 60 fps to 6 suddenly and it was really jaring. The update also reset my camera control settings so when I tried to zoom the drone around to take a photo of my plane, I about crashed my plane instead because the gamepad was controlling the plane!

The flight itself was tough. I was just trying to stay alive through the fog and snow! I found it notable that nothing iced up this time... The OAT was right at 0C so maybe I just got lucky, or maybe the new sim update fucked that up.

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Uhhh... YIKES... that doesn't look like a fun storm to fly into. This is where the G1000 really pays off, because that would be really disorienting without the artificial display.
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Cool looking volcanic tidal flats on my way into the landing zone.
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Infinite float mode flaps are gone now, so I'll have to re-adjust my landings to normal mode flaps. I've been flying for a few weeks with double lift flaps thanks to the last batch of glitches and I got used to it. Tonight the landing felt disorienting but I managed to pull it off with all bonuses.

I had some more ambitious plans for tonight's sim, but after the update frustrations, a CTD on my first attempt at loading the sim, a dead Garmin G1000 on my second attempt to load, I was just happy to be able to fly from point A to point B
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Fighting the COVID in ICELAND, hauling a load of vaccines from BIBA to BIFM, had a little extra cargo room available to bring along some NAVY BLUE PANTS to sell for profit.
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It was my first sunny day in Iceland, I'm thankful that I got one day of this before I leave tomorrow!
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Pretty little town, the people who play on that soccer field could likely beat the USMNT!
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Some strange coloring in the creeks in the tidal flats, I'm not sure if this is mineral deposits, algae, or something else. It's definitely visible in the aerial imagery as well, so no sim glitch here!
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Took a MAGIC HOUR shot of HVANNADALSHNUKUR or something like that. I took the photo because you can see some glaciers @bruin228, which I wanted to document since they'll probably be gone in the next sim update
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
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!
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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.
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Ominous low clouds dead ahead, but a ray of hope above?
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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!
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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!
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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!
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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?
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Thankfully the Shetland Islands look better!
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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!
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Even with some 4x SUPER SIM, that was a long flight and Douglass had a coupla drinks. This was definitely a drunk landing, lol. I was doing pretty well with my CRAB PEOPLE approach, but then I tried to do the thing @bjc described to me once where you dip a wing and counter with opposite rudder.... I did that, but I think I did it too early and ended up left of the runway! I corrected and floated back to the middle but didn't touch down until I was about 2/3rds of the way down the runway.

 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
After a really long flight yesterday I decided to taka 5 mile flight with 3 tourists so that they can see Muness Castle from the air. Almost 30 knot wind again on the runway today, yikes!

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The sea was angry that day, my friends...
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Oh wow there is actually a castle in the sim! Or a hotel.. something is there anyway!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Decided to spend a little more time in this area and took a contract to fly some EMS folks to a cruise ship that has run aground in Loch of Girstla. Don't ask questions about how a cruise ship made it into the lake, GO GO GO!

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Don't worry, Douglass is on the way!
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Douglass made a perfect offroad landing to deliver the medic to the stranded cruise ship! As soon as Douglass set the parking brake, the cruise ship departed from this version of the simulation! Probably a good thing, since it didn't belong in a lake! Douglass will have to keep an eye out for glitches in the simulation, as this was a bit unnerving!

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Then he flew back home using the classic IL2 CLIFF OVER THE OCEAN LAUNCH RAMP to takeoff!
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hayvis

Will-Gnome Member
@hayvis I'm generally in your part of the world, I think you should give me some pointers.

I'll give you a tour of my neck of the woods in South East England - Fly over the white cliffs at St Margarets Bay. You can get low, and see Ian Flemming's old beach house, and the Pines tea rooms, run by a lovely bunch of old ladies, and where I have eaten over a hundred roast dinners. -

St Margret's Bay -

View-of-St-Margarets-Bay-Custom.jpg


51°08'57.6"N 1°23'02.2"E

Tea rooms are -

51°08'56.2"N 1°22'58.9"E

Ian Flemming's - notice how inspiration for the lairs of Bond villains is taken from the architecture and location -


EVGE9VsXQAIAdCl.jpg


51°09'08.2"N 1°23'17.2"E

From here, you can take a turn north and fly over Deal, where I have been for most of the pandemic.

On your way be sure to check out Walmer Castle - Which used to be the Queen Mother's favourite seaside residence -

walmer_castle_and_gardens_484_jpg_original.jpg


51°12'02.0"N 1°24'07.9"E

Then swoop down to Deal Pier -

Pier_Sunrise.jpg1.JPG


51°13'25.4"N 1°24'21.0"E

Then my house is tucked just behind the beach -

51°13'32.2"N 1°24'12.4"E

After this, continue north and you will have a view of the local golf courses which are some of the best in the world. The Ancient Highway (mentioned below, passes through and is extremely beautiful -

Royal Cinque Ports -

51°15'02.4"N 1°23'42.4"E

Royal St George's (home of The Open Championship 2021) -

SaintGeorges.jpg


51°16'27.8"N 1°22'05.9"E

Then be sure to check out Medieval Sandwich town (literally the BIRTHPLACE OF THE SANDWICH) When in Deal I ride there and back every day via the beautiful ancient highway (started by the Romans) -

the-barbican-gate-in-sandwich-kent-w1200.jpg


51°16'27.8"N 1°22'05.9"E

You can finish your journey around the tip of South East England taking in the beaches of Broadstairs -

Viking Bay -

51°21'29.0"N 1°26'36.5"E

Kingsgate Bay - Dog friendly and our favourite sandy summer beach spot -

51°23'02.4"N 1°26'32.7"E

And finally Botany Bay -

imageresizer


51°23'21.2"N 1°26'06.9"E
 
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
That's awesome, I'm excited to explore those areas! I'm planning to work my way from Shetland down through Scotland, cross over to Ireland for a loop and then visit the MEN before heading into the lake district. From there I'm not sure how exactly I'll work my way through England... but I will be sure to visit your sites before crossing over into France. It might take me a couple weeks to make my way down there, I'm not sure.
 

hayvis

Will-Gnome Member
That's awesome, I'm excited to explore those areas! I'm planning to work my way from Shetland down through Scotland, cross over to Ireland for a loop and then visit the MEN before heading into the lake district. From there I'm not sure how exactly I'll work my way through England... but I will be sure to visit your sites before crossing over into France. It might take me a couple weeks to make my way down there, I'm not sure.

'll try to think of some must see places in the Lake District and across. It might be an idea to fly through post industrial Britain on the way from the lakes to the South. Maybe fly over Strangeways prison and then the famous Balti houses of Birmingham following the M6, before hitting London and the South East.
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next flight is a vaccine delivery mission from FEA to EG78. This airport in the OUT SKERRIES looks like one that was handcrafted for the UK & Ireland update, so I figured I'd visit. Hauling a load of cell phones to make a nice profit too!

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The Shetland Islands would be a great place to stick around at the start of a career, as there are a ton of small airfields within 10 miles of each other and this gives you a great opportunity to earn experience and make money farming the trading system. The tricky weather conditions make for some fun flying and it is a pretty area as well.

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What a pretty little lighthouse, this was a really useful indicator to guide my approach because this is another tiny landing strip that blends in well with the surrounding terrain.
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A cool little island that was obviously given some hand crafted touches including some fishing boats, the little ferry dock, and some better water masking.

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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next Flight is EG78 to EGPB to deliver more vaccines.
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35 know winds taking off from Out Skerries... this was tough.
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Along the way we will fly over the @Brick of Mousa, a preserved iron age tower, and one of the handcrafted scenery additions.

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I tried to create this shot, but the tower in the sim was a little small and the weather was shit.
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I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller...
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This was a cool landing coming in over the water, they had runway approach lights out in the bay!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Another vaccine distribution flight from EGPB to EGEN, but this time I've added a little something extra to the cargo, as we picked up some PILLZ! This is an illegal good, so we'll have to fly under 1,000 feet to avoid detection! Who knew Douglass could be swayed to take part in the seedy Shetland underworld?
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I don't really remember how to set the barometric pressure/altimeter, but "sea level" seems to be about 800 feet, so I set my autopilot to hold 1200 feet.
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Ran into a lot of wind and turbulence over the open ocean, which was a bit scary at 500ft but it looks like a sunny day over North Ronaldsay
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Another landing with a 35 knot wind, I'm definitely getting some good practice up here!
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Mission accomplished and I was able to offload the PILLZ for about $24k in profit! The vaccine distribution mission itself paid $6k. Some North Ronaldsay shepherd is gonna be ROLLIN while his unique local varient of sheep eat seaweed! Those sheep better watch out when he pops a couple pillz and puts the velcro gloves on!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
The next flight is from EGEN to EGPA with 2 passengers and some loose cigarettes!
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We took a short detour to show the passengers a cool looking tourist site on Wyre, the ruins of Cubby Roo's Castle (ruins on the right) and St Mary's Chapel (ruins on the left)
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Then we flew over Kirkwall before circling back around for a landing on runway 27 into the 30+ knot wind that is just part of life up here!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
This was a fun one... Thanks to my connections in the SHETLAND UNDERWORLD, I was contacted by a mysterious stranger who needed to fly from EGPA to EGPC in the middle of the night. We took off at 1am on my first night flight of the trip. The passenger stuck a gun to the back of Douglass' head and said "If you look at me I'm going to have to kill you." YIKES! Douglass also loaded up a couple pilsners for trading!
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It was a dreary night as well, so not much of an opportunity for sight seeing, but I'm excited to explore the Caithness area of Scotland in the daytime tomorrow. First glimpse of the Scottish mainland, I'm guessing those red lights are windmills or something? There were more of them out in the ocean!
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Here's a shot of the final approach, Douglass had never been more nervous coming in for a landing knowing a bullet was waiting for him if he made the slightest misstep!
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After Douglass landed, the mysterious passenger said "Hey pilot, remember what I said earlier? Don't look at me."
 
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Douglass booked a VIP passenger flight of 3 from EGPC to EGPE.
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Douglass also convinced the VIP passengers to upgrade their flight to include a bit of sight seeing in Duncansby, the far northeast corner of the mainland. Having flown through the area at night, Douglass was eager for a daytime jaunt to see the Ducansby Head lighthouse and Duncansby stacks. Unfortunately, the VIPs were less than impressed with the sights in this version of the simulation and blamed Douglass for wasting their valuable time. No tip for Douglass today!
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Finally back whee we started the day and headed to Inverness
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Some cool looking firths in the area west of Findhorn Bay
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Might have been my nicest wind landing yet in the sim. Dead perfect on my target between 65 and 70 knots just like I planned and less than 100 fpm descent rate at touchdown

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hayvis

Will-Gnome Member
Just realised @Travis7401 - My trip that I mapped for you is literally a trip from the South Foreland Lighthouse to the North Foreland Lighthouse -

South Foreland Lighthouse - 51.140486572040125, 1.3711145442718984

Dover_cliffs%2C_South_Foreland_Lighthouse_%287961913220%29.jpg


North Foreland Lighthouse - 51.37511800281682, 1.4450350691463143

147291018.dIQ4zh2D.jpg
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Today Douglass took 3 passengers on a tourist flight from EGPE to EGPH. They wanted to see Loch Ness and a couple of castles before making their way to Edingburgh for a concert!
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Loch Ness
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We saw Loch End out the left window where Loch Ness ends and the river Ness continues to the sea.
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A gray and drizzly day greeted us as we flew down Loch Ness. The tourists watched intently out the windows, but no signs of Nessie. (Was an easter egg in the sim too much to ask for?)
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At Fort Augustus at the southwest end of Loch Ness we turned south to continue our trip and struggled to keep below the clouds and above the mountains!
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The Scottish Highlands are beautiful this time of year!
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Blair Castle
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We dropped down below the clouds to give the tourists a nice view of Blair Castle! Two of the passengers clamored "fly closer" so Douglass took a tight turn, causing the third passenger to lose his lunch in the air sickness bag! Douglass lost the passenger comfort bonus on this flight, the first bonus lost in his European tour... but it was worth it because the other two passengers were elated and gave Douglass pats on the back for helping them to achieve some superb photos of the castle!
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Further south, the clouds opened up and we were able to buzz the William Wallace National Monument!

William Wallace National Monument
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Flight Continued:

From the monument we swooped in low over the Stirling Castle, giving the passengers an amazing view
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The River Forth begins to really widen out into an estuary near Edinburgh, and at the mouth of the bay are three very large suspension bridges. Due to wind conditions I was able to give the tourists a nice view of these bridges before turning around for an approach to runway 24.
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Approach at sunset, making sure to get the passengers here on time for their concert tonight!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Took some tourists up for a flight around Edinburgh.... lots of sites to see!
17832

First we saw Murrayfield Stadium, the Largest stadium in Scottland:
17827

Next up, we saw the Edinburgh Castle, the tourists were particularly interested in the dog cemetery @Brick and the Mons Meg

17828

Here we have the Dynamic Earth exhibit in the foreground, Scottish Parliament is the truly odd shaped set of buildings, and the Holyrood Palace, the square castle looking structure off to the right, which is the official residence of the British Monarch in Scotland.

17830

Next up we flew over Calton Hill, which features a collection of monuments including he National Monument of Scotland (the flat one with the shadow arches) and the City Observatory. Calton Hill has also "traditionally been known as the place to go for homosexual sex in Edinburgh," according to centre councillor David Beckett. Across the street and just to the right of the wing strut is Calton OId Burial Ground where you can find a monument to the US Civil War and the tomb of David Hume, my 2nd favorite favorite thinker in the Scottish Enlightenment.
17831
 

bjc

Butt Naked Wonda
Even with some 4x SUPER SIM, that was a long flight and Douglass had a coupla drinks. This was definitely a drunk landing, lol. I was doing pretty well with my CRAB PEOPLE approach, but then I tried to do the thing @bjc described to me once where you dip a wing and counter with opposite rudder.... I did that, but I think I did it too early and ended up left of the runway! I corrected and floated back to the middle but didn't touch down until I was about 2/3rds of the way down the runway.


You didn’t use enough bank. So you got blown left of center line. Lol
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Flying from EGPH to EGPF with a load of vaccines. Along the way I decided to take a short detour to Falkirk to see another cool tourist attraction that is kin to BLUCIFER.

17906

Live weather was really pretty today west of Edinburgh! Winds were only about 10 knots as well!
17901

Our tourist attraction for today is The Kelpies
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17902

Just west of The Kelpies we find the treatment plant clarifiers! Douglass snaps a picture for his hydraulic engineer friend/creator.
17903

Approaching Glasgow, still a beautiful day!
17905
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Express package delivery mission from EGPF to EGPK. A nice short flight down to Prestwich with no tourists this time. Someone ordered Amazon Prime delivery and I'm getting it there in 2 hours instead of 2 days!
17926

I also decided to try out the other default paint job for the 172. 17923

Leaving Glasgow
17924

Pretty countryside on a beautiful spring day with no wind or clouds! Somehow my settings on the xbox controller changed again on this mission, so when I tried to move the drone camera to snap this photo I almost crashed us! You can see the this on my flight tracking in that first deviation from the flightpath, lol. The second deviation from the direct path was just to setup for approach. I like the Wyoming color scheme better!
17925
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next up we booked a sight seeing tour group for a flight up the coast and then out to the Isle of Bute.

17944


Mouth of the River Garnock and River Irvine
17938

The little town of Seamill right before we enter the Firth of Clyde
17939

First we flew over the town of Largs where they have the Skelmorlie Aisle, a demolished church site with the mausoleum area remaining.
17934

The Mausoleum looks like a little cottage in THE SIM, but the graveyard is there.
17940



Next up is the Mount Stuart House, a castle on the Isle of Bute. I could see the bright orange color from about 10 miles out!
17933

We buzzed the tower, giving the passengers a thrill and scaring the heck out of some cricket players on the front lawn!
17941

Finally, we have the ruins of St Blane's chapel
17935

Someone rebuilt the church on the site of the ruins!
17942
 

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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next Flight is from EGPK to EGOY, on this one I tried out a new "Stack Mission" feature of Neofly and I accepted 2 small cargo missions for a total of 290 lbs and added about 150 lbs of medicine from the Trading Hub for little extra profit! West Freugh will be our last stop in Scotland before making our way to Ireland! West Freugh is a former RAF airfield, made famous by a UFO incident in April 1957. Who knows what manner of cargo Douglass has been tasked with delivering? COULD IT BE ALIEN ARTIFACTS? Probably not!
18053

Live weather.... looks rough!
18051

Barely any visibility at 800ft off the deck, 45 kt winds at this altitude. Thankfully the air temp is high enough that it's just rain instead of icing conditions.
18052

I'm glad I had all that bad weather/wind practice in the Shetland Islands, because this is becoming less stressful. I just followed an instrument approach until I popped through the fog at about 700ft and then just landed visually. Not a very scenic tour today, but it was fun! I should note that my drunk flying track was due to some indecision about which way I wanted to approach for a landing. The suggestion had me coming into runway 08, but as I got closer I realized the wind was going to look bad from that direction, so I turned and flew back across so that I could have an approach on runway 26. The 45 knot wind was slightly quartering, but still much better than it would have been on the initial approach I considered. This step probably could have been avoided if I had looked at the map/wind direction more thoroughly before taking off, lol.
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Flying across the sea from EGOY to EGAD with 140lbs of Vaccines and 350lbs of fresh fish!
18084

Weather is a lot better than yesterday, but still overcast and 25 knot winds.
18078

Leaving the land of my ancestors (the sheep):
18079

Flying into a bit of a storm!
18080

Through the fog I glimpse the land of my other ancestors (the leprechauns):
18081


Flying into Newtownards for a landing.... NARDS, lol.
18083
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next flight is a night flight for a SUSPICIOUS PASSENGER from EGAD to EGAC. Flying a suspicious traveler to GEORGE BEST/Belfast City airport! A lifelong goal of mine for so many reasons! Picked up a bunch of crates of old wine as well.

18352

A mysterious takeoff from Runway 21:
18346

Belfast lights:
18348

Maybe that's where George Best learned to play FOOTBALL?!?! Probably not!
18351
 

Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
We're taking a tourist flight from Belfast City airport! First we visit the King WIlliam III statue in Carrickfergus. AKA William of Orange, Carrickfergus is where his forces landed and laid siege to some Jacobites. The statue is life sized, and visitors proclaim he was a very small man and is "covered in poo" from seagulls! The Jacobites (apparently different from Jacobins) said King William III was a homosexual! As an American, Douglass couldn't care less about the sexual preferences of long dead royalty, but he does need to fly this plane to the poo covered statue of small stature. This was not modeled as a POI in the sim, so it is even smaller in stature! The adjacent castle doesn't look great either!
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Next up are Samson and Goliath, a pair of the largest shipbuilding gantry cranes we'll ever see! They are an iconic part of the Belfast skyline, so they were a great addition to the sim as a POI. Unfortunately for fans of mega construction equipment, it looks like this shipbuilding facility went into administration last year. At least the cranes will forever live in Douglass' memory!
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Douglass wows the passengers with a pass underneath Samson and Goliath!

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Finally, we visit Titanic Belfast, which is "the worlds leading tourist attraction in Belfast," which is an odd description... "world leading" and then a qualifier, reminds me of the Will Rodgers World Airport in Oklahoma City! This is where the Titanic was built, hence the name, and your tour ticket secures you access to the SS Nomadic, one of the Titanic's tugs and the last remaining vessel of the White Star Line. It is a dramatic structure, and I'm glad it was added as a POI!
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Titanic Belfast with Samson and Goliath in the background!

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I'm a bit rusty with my flight simming, so taking this langing image actually caused me to "crash." I took a screen cap without pausing and it took me out of the game for long enough that sim decided my plane stalled and dived into the lake short of the runway? Kind of a bummer because I basically had perfect flight scores until this point and was on course for a nice landing. It took me about 5-10 seconds to take the screenshot, and you can see my airspeed had already fallen from 70 knots to 57 knots. I'm guessing it dropped some more and I stalled by the time I was finished capturing the screenshot.
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WOOF. Thankfully it was a low speed and we skipped up off the lake and onto the runway, just damaging the landing gear. Douglass lives to fly another day with his ego bruised and vowing to use the true pause button for future screenshots!

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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Damage to the plane was more extensive than Douglass originally expected and was going to cost about $140,000 and several weeks to repair. Instead of waiting for the repair, Douglass decided to sell the damaged Cessna 172 and buy a new Kenmore Air Cessna 172 with functional landing struts! The net cost to me was about $200k, but we're good to start flying again.

Douglass decided to take another vaccine distribution from EGAC to EGGA, a skydiving airport located east of Garvagh, a small town in Northern Ireland that was heavily affected during The Troubles.
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We said goodbye to our friends Samson and Goliath on the away out of town!
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Belfast in the rearview, I'll always remember this city because I had to spend nearly half the money I've made so far to swap planes after damaging my landing gear in a wreck!
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We flew into some stormy weather and saw a DOUBLE RAINBOW ALL THE WAY! While taking this photo the autopilot either malfunctioned or I had some issue with my Xbox controller, because I took a sharp bank to the right and lost the comfort bonus for the flight. Ugh. Maybe I should try flying sober instead?
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I had to circle the runway a couple of times because visibility was low and it was a short landing strip with no lighting. The third approach looked ok, and I managed to get the plane on the ground without breaking the vaccines. I did something right!

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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Time to leave this piddle dick skydiving airport I never should have landed at and go fly to an actual landing strip! Honestly this is probably the smallest airstrip I've landed at since my Alaska bush trip!
Flying EGGA to EGAE, City of Derry airport.
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The City of Derry AKA Londonderry is a border city with a long history of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. On a lighter note, it is also the setting for Derry Girls, one of the best Netflix shows I've seen! HIGHLY ENTERTAINED!


Still an overcast day in Northern Ireland, with bits of sun shining through
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Found another rainbow as I made the turn on final. We can see the end of this Rainbow... so who all see the Leprechaun say Yay!
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Pretty view coming in for a landing on one of the shorter runways that probably isn't active, but makes for a more fun landing for me! Had a really nice flight this time and made a picture perfect landing to finish it off. I also confirmed that the Xbox controller was re-bound to flight controls after the last update, which explains my problem on the last flight. It isn't an issue when in the "Showcase" camera, but when I switch back to cockpit camera, the controller was actively in control of flight surfaces and it wasn't registering as "Centered" so it kept trying to launch me into a turn. I'll have to re-map controls again so that the controller never had any flight surfaces bound to it.

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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next flight from EGAE to EIDL to check out one of the sim's custom airports at Donegal!

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A little foggy over Derry as we near the border from Northern Ireland to Ireland
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I imagine a world where Ireland is no longer divided... by this seam in the aerial photography
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Beautiful country up here, with my xbox controller no longer controlling flight surfaces, I felt much safer!
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Another really pretty view, I'm glad the fog burned off most of the countryside.
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Flying through Glenveagh National Park with Errigal Mountain off to the north, with live weather making sight seeing a gamble at times (missed all of the Scottish Highlands) I felt #BLESSED to have these great views today!
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Donegal airport is on the windswept coastline
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Final approach to Donnegal, heavy crosswind off the ocean
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next mission is another vaccine flight from EIDL to EISG, also carrying a load of navy blue pants to make some profit!
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Weather is super soggy today boys!
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Breathtaking!
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Watched the rain beading and running off the side windows. It's an amazing game!

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Thankfully the clouds were a little higher at Sligo airfield, because being able to fly a visual approach was really nice since there was a 25 knot wind coming in quartering off the ocean. I actually flew a short left hand pattern to land into the wind!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Flying some VIPs from EISG to EIKN. Sticking with these 30 mile flights for weeknights and have to stay up late to do it! Wish I was a better sim time traveler. Some might think it is an accomplishment to catch a Rockies game in Colorado in the morning, work a full day at my jerb, Make arbitration deals in 2090 North Dakota, and then pick up a flight in Ireland... but I feel like I should be accomplishing more with my sim capabilities.
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A nicer looking day, but that sea still looks cold and gray.... or is it grey?
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Sure is some pretty countryside:
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Crabbin like a mofo thanks to a 20+ knot wind. I was looking for the Leprechaun again when I noticed someone put a BIG FUCKING BUILDING RIGHT IN THE GLIDE SLOPE! Had to add some power to clear that fucker and land further down the runway. The VIPs were thankful that I delivered them safely, and I touched down with around -100 fpm for a nice soft landing.
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Tonight's flight takes me from EIKN to EICM. We're carrying a load of vaccines and some flowers for Steve Earle's version of the Galway Girl
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The same Rainbow as yesterday greets us at takeoff!
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Even more rainbows! Truly a lucky day!
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I also downloaded something called "Bush Talk Radio" which gives audio tours of a ton of POIs when you fly within a certain proximity. Galway has an audio tour and I adjusted the flight plan to add a couple more as well! I think this add on will add a lot to my virtual tour. Looking stuff up on Wikipedia before a flight is great, but there's something I love about Audiotours. Here's a vidya example of a couple of POIs.


Ashford Castle:
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Galway! European Capital of Culture for 2020!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Flying from EICM to EINN with a load of burner phones! This is how we make the big bucks! I'll be enjoying a couple audio tours of POI along the way as well!
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Not a bad day leaving Galway:
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First POI is The Burren, "a region of environmental interest dominated by glaciated karst landscape," OH MY! The name means "great rock," and from altitude we can see why. It is definitely distinctive looking landscape from the air.
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The next POI is for the small town of Ennis, which makes me think of the great Turkey Footballer! It is a historically important market town, with weekly markets still offered! It is also a center for Irish traditional music. It is considered a major regional hub for County Clare.
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
The next flight takes us from EINN to EIKY... SHANNON to KERRY sounds like the most Irish thing I can imagine! I've always wanted to visit County Kerry, because I appreciates their butter. It is the 5th largest county by area, but only the 15th by population. It is a popular tourist destination, especially the town of Killarney and the Lakes of Killarney. Adding bush talk has been great for making my flight paths a little less Point A to Point B. I take some detours to see interesting stuff!
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Look at the clear skies today!
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Along the way we will visit Adare Manor, which I believe was later anglicized to ADAIR, which means "to harvest red sulfur with shotgun." It has 365 windows and contains the Michelin Star Oak Room Restaurant.
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Perfect Depiction in the sim!!
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All this green is how I pictured Ireland! I can picture some black and white cows munching all that green grass in order to make me some delicious butter!
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Later we crossed over the Munster Blackwater, which sounds like a really crazy TV show where a monster family fights a battle near Kings Landing? It is notable for being one of the best salmon fishing rivers in the country. Salmon fishing in Ireland has been rough due to declining salmon populations, but the country placed a ban on commercial salmon fishing near the Irish coast in 2006 to try to improve populations. The Blackwater Estuary is very important wetland and bird habitat.
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Next flight is from EIKY to EICK, delivering some Amazon Prime packages for 2 day delivery along with a few hundred pounds of Caviar! This is the first time I've scored a rare trade deal, and I made a really nice profit of about $70k!
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Took a short detour to see the Lakes of Kilarney! This was a really pretty area that I'd love to see in real life. Just after this screenshot I kept flying south to a river inlet coming down out of the mountains and it would be such a cool area to explore with kayaks.
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Turned east toward Cork and encountered some really pretty mountains. No bushtalk radio to tell me about this, but I'm guessing it's another glacial formation by the scars on the rocks.
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Next up we visited Blarney Castle! The current castle was built in the 1440s, but there were fortifications on the site dating back to the 1200s. The castle is now a partial ruin, as depicted in the sim, but it has some areas that are accesible to tourists, including the Blarney Stone that tourists can kiss for the "gift of eloquence." In order to kiss the stone you have to hang upside down over a shear drop and accept the herpes virus into your life! The castle grounds have some really cool gardens including a poison garden where visitors are urged not to smell, touch, or eat plants and must keep their chlrn at hand!
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Just turning toward my final approach to the airport with Cork off to my east.
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Booked a cargo mission from EICK to EIDW, a long flight with a couple of POIs along the way. I was 6 drinks in when I started this one, so drunk flying was expected!

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Took off at sunrise from Cork:
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Rock of Cashel, also known as Cashel of the Kings and St. Patricks Rock. St Patrick banished Satan from a cave and somehow the Rock ended up here. The castle is one of the best examples of Celtic architecture around!
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Curragh Racecourse is one of the most important horse racing tracks in Ireland, home of the Irish Derby! I assume this is like the Kentucky Derby of Ireland. I doubt they drink mint Juleps, probably prefer something stereotypically Irish to drink instead! The name "Curragh" means place of the running horses or something, how literal! I'm not actually sure this is the horse track, but it was in the right area and it looks kinda track like, but it seems like that straightaway would be several miles long, so I'm not sure.
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My first view of Dublin, home of my 4th favorite WBL Baseball team! Notable players include Moritz Norman, who is also a space CPTN and Randy Creswell, who is a GOAT!
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Flew in close over Dublin Castle, it was originally built as a defensive fortification. It was host to the first inauguration for a president of Ireland in 1938 and it has held that ceremony ever since. It was originally placed at the strategic Black Pool of the Poddle River, the river was later diverted through/underneath the castle.

Some dude named the Earl of Arran loathed the site and described the Castle as "the worst castle in the worst situation in Christendom". GAUNTLET THREWN!
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From Dublin Castle, I caught a view of the Dublin Airport and was tempted to approach on runway 34, but I had a 25+ knot tailwind. Drunk Douglass almost just went for it because he was tired of flying, but decided to do a left hand pattern into runway 16 instead.

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Douglass typically prefers to eschew all ATC protocols and fly a straight in approach, but this time around he requested a landing on runway 16 and was directed in via a left hand approach.
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On the glideslope, looking to end this cargo mission. Douglass had a couple additional drinks during the flight and was happy to keep the plane between the ditches!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
EIDW to EGNS. Hauling a load of Cell Phones for the ISLE OF MAN MEN! Couldn't actually find a normal mission to the Island, so just did this as a trading mission.
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Swords Castle was along the way, just a quick detour slightly north from our takeoff on runway 28L from Dublin. I think this is the first castle I have visited that wasn't originally constructed for a millitary purpose. It was constructed as the manorial residence of Archbishop of Dublin John Comyn in approximately 1200. It was eventually purchased by Fingal County Council and restoration commenced in 1996. The castle was used as a film location for The Tudors starting in spring 2010, and is now open to the public five days a week.

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Hmmm, not very well captured in the sim!
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Next up we ventured further north and checked out Newgrange, a prehistoric monument! This one is actually a custom POI from the UK/Ireland update, so it looks much cooler! It was built in approximately 3200 BC, making it older than stonhenge or the great pyramids. It's the most famous of the Neolithic tomb mounds and one of the most important prehistoric structures in the world!
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Saying goodbye to the Ireland and beginning our windyevening crossing of the Irish Sea!
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The Isle of Man is best known as the home of a beloved WBL minor league franchise. It is a self-governing British Crown dependency. I don't even know what that means! At one point it was ruled by Norway, then became part of Scotland before falling under feudal lordship of the English Crown in 1399, though it never officially became part of Great Britain or the United Kingdom. It is also not a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, somehow. I read the Wikipedia article 3 times and still don't understand how it functions politically! It's basically part of the UK for defense purposes, the denizens of MAN are considered British citizens, but it was never part of the EU, so I guess these were like the first Brexiters? Online gambling generates 17% of the GNP! I can't stop laughing about this little Island off the south end of the Isle of Man being named the Calf of Man. Landing was tough with a 25 knot crosswind coming at 90 degrees to my runway from south to north. I think the best part about my UK/Ireland travels has been all the practice it has given me at windy landings!
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Travis7401

Douglass Tagg
Community Liaison
Douglass spent the night in the town of Douglas and lamented the lack of an additional S. The next flight from EGNS to EGNL with 225lbs of vaccines and some laptops.
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Headed across the Irish sea on a pretty good weather day with light wind:
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WTF? These crazy bastards built a wind farm in the ocean! The sim actually got this one right, lol!
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Landing on Walney Island, the largest English island in the Irish Sea. Jubilee Bridge was constructed to connect the Island to the mainland in 1908, prompted by industrial growth of the town of Barrow-in-Furness. Inhabitants of Walney Island now makes up about 1/5th of the population of the town. I recognized that distinctive triangle shape airfield and it turns out this was originally RAF Walney, constructed in 1940 and was used as the No. 10 Air gunnery school to train gunners in bomber crews. They were trained in aircraft identification, shooting clay pigeons, and shooting .303/.50 cal machine guns and 20mm cannons. I'm not sure if they shot the clay pigeons with machineguns, but that's what I choose to believe. I'm gonna go ahead and tag @worst2first with that history fuckshit! RAF Walney was closed in 1955.
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