After setting up the failures, making sure the flight plan was loaded I finally took-off for the first leg of the flight, 07/06/10 Monday evening.
The weather (real-time) was moderately cloudy.
Here's the Twin Star parked at Birrfeld. The sun is going down, but there is still light. The flight plan calls for a low-level (4000') flight except in two places: the first one, near the St. Gotthard where I will have to climb above 8000' to safely pass the Alps and the second one between the Italian regions of Piemonte and Liguria: again I will have to climb at approx. 6000' to avoid the "Appennino Ligure". The destination airport is Albenga, a rather small airport with a single runaway.
A few more words about the failures: I have set random failures within 600 minutes (10 hours), meaning that a 2 hours flight has a 20% possibility of experiencing one or more failures. Maybe it is too much, maybe not enough, let's see what happens. The flight plan is loaded in the Garmin 1000, so I can fly with the autopilot in NAV mode being steered by the GPS, it is great for taking pictures and looking around, but from time to time I will hand-fly the aircraft, and rely also on navigation aids such as VORs, NDBs and DMEs. The aircraft is ILS capable so it can land in adverse weather conditions, maybe it will happen!
Shortly after take-off, the aircraft is flying roughly SE toward Cham, at 4000':
The Transmission Tower near Kuessnacht is quite a good landmark. After passing the Tower, the aircraft will turn left, overfly a windy lake (where people enjoy sailboats and windsurfs).:
Flying South toward Altdorf, on the left side you can see a small village, that's Sisikon, and - you can't see it obviously :-) - there is a nasty speed-trap radar, that captures quite a few pictures of tourists and distract people driving faster than 50 km/hour. That road connects two main highways so it is often used:
I have reached the southern end of the lake and I am now overflying the A2/E35 highway that leads to the St. Gotthard tunnel and pass. It is a traffic choke-point as to move from South to North Switzerland there aren't many options: it is either the St. Gotthard or the St. Bernardino pass/tunnel:
I have followed the highway and at the same time climbed to approx. 7000', but now I have the Swiss Alps blocking the path: I will now turn first right (roughly SW), go straight for a while, then turn left (SE) to move over the Alps, moving on a kind of parallel path respect to the St. Gotthard tunnel:
Almost done. All I need is to clear that ridge and then I will find again the highway, right after the South tunnel entrance. The aircraft is now at 8500'. Immediately after clearing the ridge I will turn left, moving almost straight East:
Done! Now the Twin Star is turning left and, throttle at idle, slowing beginng to descend back to 4000'. That's the A2 highway again, and the small airport of Ambri' [LSPM] is visible. In winter the runaway is often covered by snow and ice, so people sometimes use it for special driving courses (e.g. driving on snow/ice/rain). It is quite cool. If you are wondering why I know those details, it is simple: I must have passed by -by car- a few hundred times...
Going farther ESE and following the highway. Here the highway is descending toward the plateau of Bellinzona, where I will leave the Swiss airspace. The weather is quite different, more cloudly. It is not uncommon to experience weather changes before/after the St. Gotthard, as the Swiss Alps act like a wall, blocking the cloud path one way or another, so you can enter the St. Gotthard tunnel with the sun and find out rain (or snow in winter!) at the other exit:
Okay. The "Y" you can see below is where the highway splits: to move to Northern Switzerland you can either go left, via the St. Bernardino pass/tunnel, or go straight (from where the aircraft is coming) and use the St. Gotthard pass/tunnel. On the right side, the plateau of Bellinzona:
Turning right (West), the aircraft is about to overfly the airport of Locarno and the Lago Maggiore, quite a big lake. After that, I will leave the Swiss airspace, tune Milan Center on the radio and enter Italy. The idea is to fly West, then South-West and South, leave the Lago Maggiore and keep going more or less South until the region of Liguria is reached.
The weather was even worse in Italy, so I took no pictures. Being bored, after a while I looked for alternative options and decided to land at Sestri [LIMJ] instead of Albenga [LIMG]. The picture shows the Garmin 1000 map, I am about to leave the original flight plan (the vertical magenta line) and fly using SES VOR as reference, tuning its frequency into NAV1.
Finally... My "first" in-flight failure. The aircraft, currently on autopilot and NAV mode, heading slaved to the SES VOR, suddenly begin to slowly turn left. After a few seconds, I realize also I do not hear anymore in the headphones the morse code of SES. Something is wrong here. A look at the panel confirms that NAV1 has failed and the aircraft has no guidance anymore. Not a big deal, I simply set NAV2 to the SES VOR frequency and kept flying, but it was fun anyway!
After passing the Appennino Ligure, flying more or less South, the airport of Genova Sestri [LIMJ] is on the left. I am approx. at 6000' so I will retard the throttle once again and begin a lazy 270 degrees turn to land on RWY 11: the landing light is already lit.
Looking good for the final...
Arrived! The aircraft is parked near to a Citation X and the NAV1 system is still offline. Time to rest, have the aircraft checked and proceed for the next leg.
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