Thursday, 7 February 2013

Panama Rally 2013–Punta Cocos to Albrook

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This is the 4th leg of the Panama Virtual Air Rally 2013 I created for Virtual Pilots Association.

We would depart from Punta Cocos, Isla del Rey, Pearls Archipel in Panama (MP0H or MP26) to Marcos A. Gelabert in Panama city (MPMG).

Our virtual flight departed at 18:15 local time (UTC-5) from the southermost tip of El Rey island in my new Carenado Piper Seneca II (PA34-200). PA34-MP0H-MPMG-2013-feb-7-009

After departure we turned left parallel to the runway climbing to 4,500 feet. Here we would be intercept TBG inbound R-314 to BOMAK intersection, then along UV20 to TBG (110.00). For this I had tuned the Taboga VOR on NAV1, the Taboga NDB on the ADF and set the OBS1 to our radial (314).

Typical of the tropics and due to the late hour of departure (which was my arrival time from the previous leg from Jaque to Punta Cocos). The flight was peaceful without turbulence, at 4,500 ft. a lot of cloud coverage was encountered but visibility was still pretty good.

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Though the flight was filed VFR I flew it by instrument as I like to practice that. I kept the CDI centered on the inbound radial. Some miles out of TBG I started descent to 2,500 feet. Just prior to flying over Taboga we turned right heading 005 and continued descending toward the runway, it was already dark but the airport has lights and the runway was in sight. The illuminated Bridge of the Americas was on our left (Victor Brumley’s Panama city 3D scenery). Watch out for the hills flanking the final approach.

Landing was perfect and soft along the centerline at –233 feet per minute, after which taxied to the terminal for a total of 36 minutes of flight. I must say I am pretty much enjoying flying the Carenado Piper Seneca II.

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