Leg: 20

Take-off: Bhuj Airport (India) – ICAO: VABJ

No METAR or TAF available in the vicinity

Landing: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Intl Airport (Ahmadabad, India) – ICAO: VAAH

METAR VAAH 072100Z 00000KT 4000 HZ FEW080 18/11 Q1015 NOSIG (decode)

Distance: 170,4nm

Change of scenery

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman, Pakistan, we’ve seen a lot of desert landscapes, but I’ve got a feeling the tide is turning. India should give us more and more green and fertile lands. It’s our 20th leg and we have traveled over 4000 nautical miles (~ 7400 km, ~ 4600 miles). When I look at a map of the world, we’ve come a long way. Visually we’re half way across half way 😀

Don’t worry, this is just a temporary way of displaying the flown route. An improved interactive map is on its way, but between my daily job, flying this world tour and writing these reports, I like some family time too, so time management is of the essence. 😉

Anyway, we still got tons of enthusiasm left to continue, thanks to the positive feedback from you, as followers!

Rate my landing

India is the second-most populous country in the world. In our previous flight, we entered India in the west and our plan is to fly northeast in the direction of Nepal.

We won’t see the south of India, a region which is currently afflicted with heavy floods and sadly as a result also a lot casualties. Recent news reports state that Chennai International Airport (VOMM) was flooded and NOTAM reports (at moment of writing) confirm that news. My thoughts go to all Indian people who are currently affected and I hope the situation gets better very soon. The misery of these people is in high contrast with the banality of a virtual world tour, but the least I can do is putting this message up as support and reminder for other people to read and think about.

In our world tour, we had an IFR flight of approximately one hour scheduled, departing at runway 5 of Bhuj Airport. No METAR or TAF reports available, but we checked the regular weather reports and wind data and the outlook was good. Our cruising altitude was set at 5000ft. There wouldn’t be any significant terrain elevations for this flight. We flew over the city of Gandhidham across the Gulf of Kutch, an inlet of the Arabian Sea along the west coast of India. The deeper we went into the mainland of India, the greener the scenery became, finally. 🙂

Our last landing video resulted in a crash being rear ended by an AI airliner who was instructed by ATC to stay behind us during approach (actually crashing by wake turbulence at low altitude, since crash detection for other airplanes is disabled due to occasionally weird AI behavior in FSX). I wasn’t too eager to capture another approach/landing video, but I love watching flight simulation landing videos myself to learn from others. And I know this is probably risky, but what better way to learn than asking (more experienced) others (yes, you!) to rate my landing. Sometimes you need some input from others in order to improve yourself and I’m all open for (constructive) criticism. Please be nice… 😉

Well, here goes nothing, this was my approach and landing at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, near the city of Ahmadabad (watch in HD for best experience):

Oh, and why not, how do you rate my landing? 😛

I leave it up to you if I did good or not 😀 Next flight, we travel further northeast to the city of Jaipur!