u/CptDropbear

Updating this play through.

To-do list:

Pressurised hab
Autolathe
Electronics fab
Pipe bender
Furnace
Station battery
Tracking solar
Water dispenser
Temperature control
Hydoponics
Cooking
Small fridge
Tool Priner
Rocket manufactory
Ice crushers and fuel mixer
Mission control room
Rocket deepminer region scan
Shower / toilet
Oxygen filler / swap-and-go
Make a shed load of steel
Swap water and oxygen tanks to make pipework simpler
Add safety valve to oxygen system
Build a third dorm room for another mate
Build a rover garage and a rover to put in it.

The deep miner scan is underway!

Getting a rocket up is easily within the realm of early game. Without distractions and screwups, I think it would be doable within the first 30 days. If you were determined, you could probably manage it before doing hydro and oxygen but you'd need a bottle filler for water. I have two boxes of muesli bars and one of water left from the initial setup.

I'm a bit annoyed with myself for not getting any pics of the rocket internals. Its four batteries arranged around a central 200 litre inline tank. A wiring harness runs around the bottom to a right angle umbilical. Another harness runs around the top to feed the avionics, downlink and scanner. The fuel filler is above the top harness at the same level as the avionics and downlink.

My only annoyance is you have to cut one of the charging harness cables to connect the engine before launch. If I removed one battery it wouldn't be an issue but this is a single use vehicle so who cares.

The batteries were charged using a direct feed from the solar array. That took three days because I choked this to 2.5kw with a transformer to make sure we didn't run out of power overnight. Go on, ask me how I know that is an issue...

Fuel was a crude mix from crushed ice. I pressurised to 15MPa but I reckon ten would be enough for a one way flight to orbit.

Now I have some tidy up jobs to do while I wait for the scan to complete enough to show me where my mining base should be. There are already promising candidates both north and south of me to investigate on foot.

I vacated my Moon base for sunnier dustier redder climes (for sale or rent: one unfinished moon base, reliable power, climate control, automated mining, own launchpad, close to facilities, etc).

Some mates showed an interest in giving this a run but no one showed up for today, not that I told anyone prior to starting (oops!). Its probably for the best as I got a chance to build out some basic facilities without getting distracted.

To Do List:

Pressurised hab
Autolathe
Electronics fab
Pipe bender
Furnace
Station battery
Tracking solar
Water dispenser
Oxygen filler / swap-and-go
Hydoponics
Cooking
Shower / toilet
Make a shed load of steel
Rocket deepminer region scan

Once I get a map of the deepminer resources, I will decide on the next plan. While waiting for that, I will enclose the base and maybe add a rover garage to help with surveying and a probable move.

I skipped fooling with logic to control the panels this time and went straight to IC10. That required a day prospecting to find lead and building more infrastructure, but I think its the better strategy.

I launched my first survey rocket.

I also got nVidia screen cap thing to record the event which was, to be brutally honest, harder.

the story so far:

Early this year I found CoolGunS GA Highway Project - a route from Australia to Europe in GA friendly hops for which he is creating custom airports.

To get to the start line at Derby (YDBY), I flew from Parafield (YPPF) via Alice Spring (YBAS). Then across the Timor Sea to Rote Island and DC Saudale (WATR) and on to Letkol Wisnu / Lt Colonel Wisnu (WADE) at the western end of Bali. Next I slogged into a 25kt headwind the length of Java to Budiarto (WIRR) at the western edge of Jakarta. Due to time constraints, I stopped at Silampari (WIPB) before heading on to Raja Haji Abdulla south of Singapore on Great Karimun Island.

Next I flew the length of Malaysia to Kawthoung (VYKT) at the southern tip of Myanmar and then to Loiklaw (VYLK). From Loiklaw, I crossed some mountains I didn't realise existed to Bangladesh and on to Durgapur (VEDG) in West Bengal. From a very hazy Durgapur, I headed across the length of the North Indian Plain to a stormy Pantnagar Nainital (VIPT).

From Nainital (VIPT) I flew to Moenjo Daro (OPMJ) via New Delhi and Jaipur.

Now read on...

With the situation in Iran I decided on the southern route via the Arabian Peninsula. This leg is ~800nm which I did not have the time for in one sitting. I decided fly south toward Karachi to avoid a restricted military area and break the flight at Gwadar (OPGD) on the Baluchistan coast. I bought a scenery for this years ago and I remember being underwhelmed - let's see if its any better in FS2024.

Departing Moenjo Daro I turned south and took one last look at the archaeological site before beginning my climb to 12.000ft. I followed the Indus for about 15nm until I passedd the eastern corner of the Paf Masroor restriced zone and turned toward Karachi and the coast. This took me over the Karthir Range which runs south from the western Hindy Kush, separating the Iranian Plateau from the Indian Subcontinent. As expected it looked hot, dry and rocky.

I didn't see Karachi but I couldn't miss the smog haze that seems to accompany every south asian city. Twenty miles out, at the BADUL waypoint, I turned west to fly along the Baluchistan coast. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't the huge lagoons, mangrove forests and nature reserves home to endangered dolphins and turtles. Another feature is a rocky ridge that is mostly eroded by the sea but has left some spectacular hammerhead peninsulas. One these was my halfway break at Gwadar.

I understand Alexander the Great stopped along here somewhere on his way back from India.

I bought a scenery for OPGD this some years ago when I was following a You Tuber's flight. Even at around 10 dollarydoos, it was one of the few left me disappointed. I suspect might have been a bit disappointing in real life. Its hard to find any pics of the old airport because its been replaced with a modern one built by the Chinese and which seems to have become a bit of a scandal in Pakistan.

But the old town with its peninsula, port and cliffs looked nice as I departed. I did see one of the few live traffic flights the sim injected as I climbed out.

I took the most direct route across the Gulf of Oman because, frankly, long flights over water are tedious. On the far side its all rugged mountains. Not what I think of when I imagine Arabia, but this range stretches from the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula around to the Straits of Hormuz and separates the sand desert from the sea. If you like rugged mountains, which I do, its very nice.

Less hospitable is the climate. The town of Qurayyat on this coast recorded the highest ever minimum daily temperature of 42.6˚C. To be totally clear, it never got below 42.6˚ for 24 hours. That appears to be its only claim to fame but it has a nice looking harbour.

Passing Muscat I couldn't help but notice the absence of pollution haze. Hopefully I have left that particular hazard behind.

I followed the course of the wonderfully named Wadi al Jizzi through the mountains to the UAE. A historical caravan route, apparently there are any number of archaeologically significant sites along its route.

And so to Abu Dhabi and Al Bateen Executive Airport. The scenery by Victoren69 is very nice and deserving of more attention than I have space to give it. Its a welcome alternative to the commercial airports while being big enough to accommodate jets. If you do fly in, FederFlyer's Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque scenery is worth adding as it dominates the approach to rwy 31.

This is as far as CoolGunS has completed to date. Until the next leg is done, I shall put my feet up and amid the joys of Abu Dhabi.

Previous installment: GA Highway to Europe Project Leg 9

The start: GA Highway to Europe Project Prologue

After two months (where'd that go?) I'm back on the road. CoolGunS has resolved his Iran problem, or at least worked around it (ask your IT guy about the difference between a work around and a fix, kids) and we have viable route to Europe again. Without further ado, the story so far:

Early this year I found CoolGunS GA Highway Project - a route from Australia to Europe in GA friendly hops for which he is creating custom airports.

To get to the start line at Derby (YDBY), I flew from Parafield (YPPF) via Alice Spring (YBAS). Then across the Timor Sea to Rote Island and DC Saudale (WATR) and on to Letkol Wisnu / Lt Colonel Wisnu (WADE) at the western end of Bali. Next I slogged into a 25kt headwind the length of Java to Budiarto (WIRR) at the western edge of Jakarta. Due to time constraints, I stopped at Silampari (WIPB) before heading on to Raja Haji Abdulla south of Singapore on Great Karimun Island. Next I flew the length of Malaysia to Kawthoung (VYKT) at the southern tip of Myanmar and then to Loiklaw (VYLK). From Loiklaw, I crossed some mountains I didn't realise existed to Bangladesh and on to Durgapur (VEDG) in West Bengal. From a very hazy Durgapur, I headed across the length of the North Indian Plain to a stormy Pantnagar Nainital (VIPT).

Now read on...

With my onward route confirmed, I fueled up, marked some POIs to break the flight up and departed. My final destination was south west in Pakistan, but first I wanted to check out Droide's Devasthal Observatory located to the northwest 8,000ft up in the Kumaon Himalayas. The site is home to India's largest optical telescope, the 3.5m Deasthal Optical Telescope, the 4m International Liquid Mirror Telescope and a number of smaller devices. Don't astronomer has such a way with names. Devasthal translates as "abode of God" (according to Wackypedia) and flying over, I can see why.

After a couple of circles, I turned my nose south west, back to the haze of the North Indian Plain and New Delhi. Half an hour saw me crossing the Ganges and starting my descent into the haze of New Delhi for some landmark spotting. Asobo gives us the Baha'i Lotus Temple, Droide New Delhi Observatory (Jantar Mantar) and Viks the India Gate. The first two were lost in the haze but the last, a memorial to India's 75,000 soldiers who fell in WWI, I found easily. That's because its 40m tall and stands in a circle at the end of Delhi's main processional road.

Continuing south east, I crossed over Indira Gandhi International, sadly empty without FSLTL's live traffic and climbed out of the soup toward Jaipur, captial of Rajasthan. The country quickly becomes rocky and hilly in stark contrast to the flat Ganges plain. Approaching Jaipur, I passed by the Amber Fort and over the Man Sagar Lake with its water palace, the Jal Mahal. The lake is artificial, created in 1610 by damming the Dravyavati River.

I turned west over Jaipur, taking the opportunity to spot Droide's Jaipur Observatory (Yantra Mandir). Like Jaipur itself, this was built for Maharaja Jai Singh II in the early 18th century. It houses 19 instruments including the world's biggest stone sundial.

And thus we come to my final leg, a 400nm slog across the Thar Desert to Pakistan. I climbed to 13,000ft hoping to catch favourable winds. Turning west the 10kt crosswind became a quartering headwind but higher up and 50nm on it swung around to a much nicer quartering tail wind.

A couple of hours of not much to see at all brought me in sight of the Indus River. The Indus is one of the worlds great rivers, it rises in Tibet, flows north west into Kashmir before turning south past Gilgit and down to the Arabian Sea at Karachi. More names from my boyhood adventure stories. It's water makes Pakistan possible. Flying over, you can see how it makes the otherwise arid landscape green and fertile.

Crossing the eastern arm of the Indus, I began descending to my destination: Moenjodaro (OMPJ) on the far bank of the western arm. This is particularly exciting to me because Moenjodaro is a major urban centre for the Indus Valley Civilisation of about 3,000BC. Looking at the map, it appears the archaeological site is just across the road from the airport. Sweet!

Previous installment: GA Highway to Europe Project Leg 8

The start: GA Highway to Europe Project Prologue