 | .Floundering Around Pt 2: "Seven-Thirty-Samos" |
Background: Back in 2003 I started a Virtual Flying Club and the title "President and Founder" always seemed a bit too pretentious for my skill level - so I made a dyslexic play on the words and became known as the "Cub Flounder." In this new column I will host a feature flight for you all to try on your own time. This feature could take you anywhere; from rugged mountain flying in Alaska to flying big heavies in SE Asia, from commuter hops across Europe to amphibians around the Caribbean - one just never knows what we'll come across! You are certainly encouraged to use whatever add-ons you like but these are certainly not mandatory. I'd like to thank my flightsimming friend Hans Linde from Berlin, Germany for sharing this flight. 
This adventure is based on real-world flights from Central and Western Europe to the vacationing "hot spot" of Samos Island, Greece. Hans took an Air Berlin 738 for his vacation but I guess you can use any variant of the 737 or something from the A320 family (for those Thomas Cook fans out there, see screen shot left, below) to fly non-stop from Berlin to Samos.
Weather: Real Weather downloads (photo right, above).
Flight History: Yes, this is the same Samos, Greece with the infamously tough approach. Hans writes, "The 6600 feet runway is oriented in east-west direction. In the west you find high terrain which prohibits a direct approach to 09 and in the east there's Turkish airspace prohibiting a straight in approach to 27. So in both cases you have to approach from the south in a manually flown, tight circling approach to the active runway. When I saw the chart before boarding the 738 from Berlin to Samos I couldn't believe that it's possible to fly this pattern with a plane larger than a Baron. I was proved wrong. After touchdown I painfully got aware that I'm still as far from being a virtual airline pilot as my wife suspects that I am."
Downloads: The following FS2002 file was suggested by Hans in the information he submitted to me: GRAF2K2.ZIP. You can find airport charts, approach charts, SID and STARS for the Greek airfields with a web search.
Route Info: For my flight I departed Berlin as flight AB1476 at 10:05 AM with scheduled arrival at 13:55. I flew a VOR->VOR route as follows: initial heading of 166° - KLF (115.15) - HDO (115.00) - STO (113.00) - FMD (110.40) - BEO (112.30) - BLC (116.10) - FSK (116.40) - MES (117.6) - SAM (111.60) with a local NDB at 375 kHz.
Here's hoping that you have arrived safely in Samos, Greece and that you enjoy your time here. Please feel free to try this flight on your own time and write back with what happened along the way.
Thanking you for your support.
Ron Blehm
pretendpilot@yahoo.com