DHC6 Twin Otter: Contadora Island to Marcos A. Gelabert

OK, it was pretty frustrating to lose my virtual aircraft earlier this day, I am referring to flying my PMDG BAe Jetstream 41 which is nearly fully simulated. I can’t finish the day with a failure! As I watched TV and thought about the unfortunate turn of events of my earlier simulated flight, a thunderstorm was in full force in Panama. That’s how I got the idea it would be nice to do another simulated flight in those conditions.

Flight Briefing
We would be flying my freeware DeHavilland Twin Otter for FSX as described in My Hangar. For those who haven’t read it, it is a freeware (not easy but not a full simulation either) is the –400 variant manufactured by Viking Air and sports a full glass cockpit.

I loaded up the flight plan from Contadora Island on the Pearl Archipel, via B510 airway to Taboga VOR (TBG 110.00) and then turn right to land at Marcos A. Gelabert airport in Albrook, Panama. This would be a flight under Instrument Meteorological Conditions with very bad weather. We would fly at 6000 ft. and rely strictly on instruments. The extra challenge here is that the panel of this freeware lacks panel lighting so it is very difficult to read the instruments without zooming in or popping up the 2D subpanel.

Departure – Contadora Island
Contadora Island (IATA: OTD) is a small island with a few hotels in the Pearl Archipelago in the Gulf of Panama. Its 17/35 runway goes from one end of the island to the other on the narrow side. It is not very long so only small single & double engine aircraft here. This route is served by AeroPerlas and Air Panama in real life using the Twin Otter because of its Short Take Off and Landing features (STOL).

I also loaded real weather with updates so as you can see it is raining cats and dogs. Departure time was 18:24, so in addition to the bad weather, poor visuals, a good instrument challenge!.

By the way, Contadora Island is not a default Microsoft Flight Simulator airport!, a pity indeed but luckily I am working on an add-on scenery for it which I will be using now. As you can see I have to improve it to get rid of the trees at the end of the runway (and several other things). Anyway, it has the correct location, heading, length and even the night lighting that is now available in the real life airport.

Climb & Cruise
I turned on both engines and after getting the clearance I lined up runway 17. I tuned the ADF to the Taboga (TBG: 311.000) NDB, the NAV1 radio to the Taboga VOR/DME (TBG: 110.00) and set both the heading bug and OBS to 288 degrees (airway B510).

Took off with very bad weather –as it was in real life- and after positive rate of climb I retracted flaps and turned left to intercept radial 288. We would be inbound to Taboga for about 37 nm.

I looked out the windows while monitoring my instruments during climb and settled into the B510 airway. Visibility was poor, there were lots of thunders in the vicinity (the realism enhanced by the real-life thunders) and the ride was very very bumpy! on the outside view you could see how the a/c was being jolted left and right, up and down with gusts of wind from the right. If I had been a real plane with me as passenger I would be very scared! especially above the sea!

The ride was bumpy and the thunders were in the distance and some even reflecting on the instrument panel. Finally the moment came when the VOR instrument indicated we were flying over Taboga on our radial. We filed an IFR flight to Marcos A. Gelabert (ICAO: MPMG, IATA: PAC) in Albrook rather than Howard (ICAO: MPHO) so we would need to turn right for another 11 nm before landing.

Approach

The weather wasn’t helping and the time of day either! but this was an instrument challenge so I then set the OBS to heading 004 degrees outbound TBG. This screenshot shows Veracruz on the left and Panama city on the far end near the Panama Canal entrance.

There is no ILS on Albrook, only approach lights but that should suffice. It was dark and rainy and I missed the beautiful Bridge of the America’s (no add-on for FSX). Tracking 4 degrees outbound TBG would take us straight to the runway. It was not bumpy anymore and the wind was not so strong, in any case we needed visual in order to properly align.

This time I kept flying this approach, I have done it several times on the simulator under good and bad conditions during day, dawn and dusk, so it almost feels as if I was flying for the real-life airline that does this route. The figure on the right shows the moment when I had airport in sight and the approach lights to guide me vertically.

And at last a beautiful picture (well, under these circumstances) while on finals to runway 36. As you can see the main defect of this panel is that even when you turn on the panel lights it is nearly impossible to read under low light conditions. This is something that diminishes the usability and enjoyment of this panel for this fantastic aircraft.

This time I finally found the (displaced) hotspots to tune the radios, yeehaa! I also found out that the knob to set the heading bug was actually operational (I missed that before!). Also found out that while there is no knob to set the course (OBS), one could focus the mouse pointer over the course digits on the Primary Flight Display, it has a hotspot there to set the course! Still, the lighting is a big let down for this panel.

I still have my eyes on the Twin Otter simulation from AeroSoft but it is a bit pricey. Unfortunately I read reviews stating that while the simulation is more complete than the freeware versions, it is not as deep that it would compare to a PMDG product. It also doesn’t offer the –400 variant, only –100 and –300 variants of the Twin Otter in floats, skys and tires. So there you have it, a successful instrument flight for the day only overshadowed by the unfortunate virtual accident of my previous blog post.