To begin year number five, the Bush Hooligans are venturing to someplace new. New Mexico to be specific. We think you will enjoy the many airstrip gems found in the mountains just Southwest of Albuquerque. We’ve even managed to locate a fire watch tower for you rotorheads. Don’t forget to print out a copy of the latest density altitude reports to include with your sectional for this month’s event. We’ll see you on Monday!
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 something that can handle high altitude airfields. 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. All airstrips are marked on the sectional, including the location of the Fire Lookout Tower on Bearwollow Mountain.
- We encourage you to join the VATSIM network and use the CTAF frequency of 122.8 to announce positions.
- 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, December 4th. All pilots should plan to meet at Reserve (T16) for a short flight briefing at 8:00pm EST (0100z, Dec. 5) with departures immediately following. Reserve 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.
Scenery Installation:
X-Plane 12 (Unzip and place in your “Custom Scenery” folder):
Custom airstrips for Bush League #50 are: 0NM7 Negrito, 1NM0 Me-Own, 13NM Beaverhead, BM01 Bearwollow Mountain Outlook, E94 Glenwood, NM16 Sacaton, NM54 Rainy Mesa and T16 Reserve. These 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 are needed, +33-108 and +33-109. (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.
If you don’t know where any of these airstrips are, here’s the trusty Uncle Melvin Map #50.
Microsoft Flight Simulator:
With the exception of Bearwollow, the above mentioned airstrips are available in the default simulator installation.
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 the start of year #5 for the Bush League Backcounty Fly-In Series!