Cessna 208B : Chitré to Albrook, Panama

I wanted another IFR flight relying with little or no GPS so I loaded my FSX with the default Cessna 208B Grand Caravan (ICAO: C208). The conditions were set for real time weather and departure time 16:15 local time so it is getting dark. We will do an internal flight in the Republic of Panama.

Departure
Our departure airport is Augusto Valderrama in the town of Chitré, Herrera (ICAO: MPCE, FSX: PX06, IATA: CTD). The stock airport is rather boring so I made an FSX add-on that recreates to some extent the real airport using standard scenery objects based on several visits I have made there. In real life (and my add-on) the airport has runway lights but in the stock airport it has neither lights nor the CHE NDB. Loaded 100 gals. of fuel although the flight should use around 20 gals. Better safe than sorry. Obviously at some point the Low Fuel warning lights will light up but we have more than sufficient.

We filed an IFR flight plan (it is going to be dark soon) for a northeast departure from runway 01. Tuned the ADF on the CHE (Chitre) NDB at 440.00 KHz, and NAV1 on the Taboga (TBG) VOR at 110.00 MHz. Also set the OBS to track the 048 radial to Taboga as we would be flying over Victor airway V15 straight to the VOR.

Cruise
Soon after we reached our cruise altitude of 5000 ft. with our Fed Ex aircraft ready to deliver post to Panama. On the photo Chitré on the right wing and Boca de Parita and Sarigua under the left wing (pilot’s perspective).

At this stage I set the autopilot to maintain 5000 ft and the heading (048) now that I was on track. This would let me go “outside” and enjoy some of the scenery. At some point almost midway we passed Rio Hato on our left, distriguished by the large boulder on the small island off the coast (again, add-on scenery made by me to reflect the real airport).

Later on we passed Punta Chame on our left which is easily distinguished because it was not totally dark yet. At some point you might as well tune the ADF to TBG NDB (311.00 KHz).

Approach
We were a few nautical miles inbound Taboga VOR tracked on both NAV1 and ADF radios and on this screenshot we see Howard AFB on our left (ICAO: MPHO). I was having a lot of text messages with the MPTO_TWR controller and that required constant context switches (IvAp-FSX-Win7 compatibility issues) and that caused my FSX to crash to desktop :’( I had to reload everything and set myself on the same point (120 knots, heading 005, radios, etc.) to do my approach again.

Just prior to reaching Taboga we initiate a turn to the left heading 005. This would take us towards the Pacific entrance of the Panama canal (horribly depicted in FS) and the Bridge of the Americas (not present in FS) with Calzada Amador a.k.a. “The Causeway” on our right. By now we would be around 2500 ft. and should have the Marcos A. Gelabert (ICAO: MPMG, IATA: PAC).  approach lights in sight. The ATIS indicated winds 120º at 06 knots, yet we were going for runway 36. Unfortunately the MPTO_TWR ATC kept on texting me over and over, which given my system limitations caused me to “declare” a missed approach. Now I think in real life the charts say you go to MADEN intersection and wait for instructions. There was no ATC at MPMG and no traffic so I applied full throttle, retracted flaps accordingly and then made a left circuit to finally land on runway 36. Due to the FSX system crash I was not able to see how much fuel was actually consumed. It is sad that Microsoft never stabilized FSX and we must live with these annoying “crash to desktop” problems.