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 year’s worth of adventures. Before we get into the details of BLBC #13, 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 11.50.
- 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. The sectional charts available from www.skyvector.com will be very helpful.
- We encourage you to join the VATSIM network and use the CTAF frequency of 122.8 to announce positions. 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.
Flight Information:
The event takes place on Monday, November 2nd. All pilots should plan to meet at Mountain Air (2NC0) for a short flight briefing at 8:05pm EST (0105z, Nov. 3) with departures immediately following. The airfields included in this event are (in no particular order):
9A9 Shiflet Field
58NC Fox Haven Plantation
NC16 Brevard
56NC Wheat Field
NC67 Six Oaks
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.
Here’s a link to a round-robin flight plan on skyvector.com.
As is becoming tradition to the BLBC Fly-ins, there is a game within the game. This time it centers around the ever-popular Bush League Food Truck. Many of you are already aware that this truck has been a fixture in many of our events, criss-crossing a good portion of North America as a result. The question is, how many miles has the food truck traveled when it joined our monthly events? DownwindSim has done the math and there will be a contest to see who can come the closest. Hint: The food truck began its journey at DownwindSim’s home airport (KALN) and then traveled, via road, and boat when necessary, to it’s first appearance in the Bush League Backcountry Fly-In Series. It then traveled from event to event via road, and boat when necessary, and did not return home. It did venture off the exact route a random amount for hotel, fuel and food stops. Post your official guess in the DownwindSim discord.
Scenery Addons:
For those of you flying in X-Plane, we highly recommend Ortho4XP scenery for the +35-083 tile. We have the best luck in this area using Bing imagery, Zoom level 16, with NED 1/3″ for DEM. We also have this osm file for you to add prior to cooking your orthotile. This Bush League November zip contains all the custom airfields, an airport osm file, and installation instructions.
A special Bush League Backcountry Fly-In edition of the 2NC0 Mountain Air Private Airstrip is also available at this link. This scenery is based on and meant to replace any previous version of Mountain Air by by Peter Borovszky alias hapet, from x-plane.org.
If you are flying in MSF, all the airstrips are well rendered and need no additional adjustments. Please note, you will not see the iconic Bush League Food Truck in MFS.
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!