Happy Anniversary, Bush Hooligans! Welcome back to the mountains of North Carolina where the Bush League Back Country Fly-In Series started. 2NC0 Mountain Air is where this idea was originally hatched, so we felt it appropriate to return to celebrate a four year’s worth of adventures and start on year five! Before we get into the details of BL #49, a few reminders.
Bush League Basics:
- Everyone is welcomed! Whether you’re an expert or beginner with flying simulators, radio communications, or navigation, etc., you’re invited! We’re a friendly bunch and enjoy learning from each other.
- All of the scenery elements and recommended aircraft are based on X-Plane 12.
- You can fly whatever aircraft you’d like, however, we’d like to suggest a small, STOL capable plane as some of the airstrips are very short. Helicopters are welcome too!
- Most of the pilots enjoy navigating via pilotage, i.e. “looking out the window” and comparing it to the sectional chart. Uncle Melvin’s Map is going to be VERY helpful!
- We encourage you to join the VATSIM network and use the CTAF frequency of 122.8 to announce positions. If there’s VATSIM ATC online, please be aware of the Class C airspace around Asheville. Several CSL files are available to correctly render other aircraft.
- We’ll also use the Downwindsim Discord voice channel for the pre-event briefing and during the flight for non-ATC related chit-chat.
- As always, the main goal of these flights is to have fun. The event is intended to be VFR, so you are free to configure your weather and time of day as you see fit (although we’ve been in and out of Mountain Air when the weather has not been favorable).
Flight Information:
The event takes place on Monday, November 6th. All pilots should plan to meet at Mountain Air (2NC0) for a short flight briefing at 8:00pm EST (0100z, Nov. 7) with departures immediately following. Mountain Air will be the starting and ending point for this event. You will be free to fly to the remaining airfields in whichever order you prefer. Be mindful of the elevation, terrain, and Asheville Class C airspace as you plan your routes.
Scenery Installation:
X-Plane 12 (Unzip and place in your “Custom Scenery” folder):
Custom airstrips for Bush League #49 including 2NC0 Mountain Air v4, 9A9 Shiflet Field, 56NC Wheat Field, 58NC Fox Haven Plantation, 82NR Big Sandy Landing (sim vacation home of Mike Styne), NC16 Brevard and NC67 Six Oaks are inside this linked .zip file. (Unzip and place in your X-Plane “Custom Scenery” folder). If you have old versions of these, please remove them. These have all been updated for XP12.
Pre-cooked Ortho Tiles +35-083 and +35-082 are needed. (Unzip and place these in your “Custom Scenery” folder). X-World scenery (free) and Global Forests v2 ($15) are highly recommended additions for the XP12 world.
Microsoft Flight Simulator:
Most of the above mentioned airstrips are available in the default simulator installation. The easter eggs and special adventures are (at this time) only available in X-Plane.
If you get stuck or have a question, drop a message on the DownwindSim Discord bush-flying text channel. We’ll be happy to help and we look forward to have you join us on this special edition of the Bush League Backcounty Fly-In Series!