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.
The next leg looked straight forward 500nm, the length of Java to Budiarto (WIRR) in the west of Jakarta. Along the way I had lots of sightseeing planned, both WU13 and Yokinono's fantastic Wonderful Indonesia package. The latter has some conflicts with the former and some issues with FS24's aggressive LOD system, but I found a "fix" from Snoopy7412 on Flightsim.to that (mostly) excludes the WU13 parts that conflict.
Loading up the little Piper at WADE. Its 300 500 miles to Chicago Jakarta, I have half full tanks of gas avgas, half a pack of cigarettes Garums, its dark sunny but I am wearing sunglasses.I started by backtracking to see what that the weather had denied me - the Ulun Danu Beratan temples and Garuda Wisnu statue.
Turning west, I found myself slogging into a 25 kt headwind which followed (preceded?) me for the rest of the flight. This burnt more fuel and took far longer than I had planned. What was on paper a 4 hour tour of temples, mosques and stadiums got abandoned before half distance but still took 5 and a half hours. There was still plenty of beautiful scenery to see, but I will have to come back to visit the sights of Central Java.
Apologies if the number of pics is also a bit of a slog.
Climbing from Bali I was overtaken by a Citilink A320 out of WADD before crossing the Bali Straight to Java. This is where I first started getting worried about time because my ground speed into the headwind was less than 140kts.
I dodged volcanoes to Surabaya which has a number of POIs to spot but the weather really started to come in. Questioning my life choices and remaining fuel, I abandoned my plan to visit the Monumen Simpang Lima at Kedri and circle south of Gunung Wilis with its string of temples in favour climbing above the weather and heading west to Surakata, Cimahi and fianlly, Jakarta. Even so, I still had to detour several times to go around thunderheads.
Looking ahead, I think I will try to break these flights and stop somewhere along the way because I really don't have the time for 5+ hour flights.
I back traced to have another shot at the POIs I missed due to weather.
Clearing the rim, I dropped into the caldera which contains three lakes. This is Danau Beratan and the town of Bedugul with its famous lakeside temple complex. Denpasar is in the distance
The Ulun Danu Temple complex.
Denpasar. The only taste of foreign culture that thousands of Aussies will ever have. Could definitely be worse. Descending to 2,000ft I aimed to overfly Bali International Airport (WADD)
Bali International reminded me of a song popular in Oz in 40 years ago. WADD was busy but I couldn't see any flying kangaroos.
The Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue is quite the landmark at 121m tall.
You've been to Paris and you've been to Boston,You've been to Fiji and you've been London
But you can't impress me 'Cause I've been to Bali too.
Crossing the Java coast, I turned to avoid Mt Raung, another active volcano.
Mt Raung / Gunung Raung stands nearly 11,000ft with a 2km wide, 500m deep caldera. Its first recorded eruption was 1586 and last 2015. Ongoing activity keeps the rim free of vegetation. I rounded its western flank into the valley headed for Surabaya
At the far end of that valley I passed Mt Argopuro / Gunung Argopuro and turned north east toward Surabaya. The cloud ahead doesn't bode well for my sight seeing.
Surabaya's Al-Akbar Mosque. The weather has become much less friendly.
I decided to cut short my sight seeing as I was behind schedule, had used half my fuel and only complete one third of my flight. I climbed back to an efficient cruise but the weather ahead did not look good.
Slipping through a gap in the clouds, I passed Gundung Wilis another volcano.
Another gap in the clouds and I passed over the saddle of Gunug Lawu marking the border of East and Central Java. This is considered one of the 18 sacred mountains of Central Java and the home of the mountain god, Parwatarajadewa
I turned over Cimahi to pass Gunung Pangrango, visible through the cloud at left, on its northern side.
Waduk Jatiluhur / Jatiluhur Reservoir and the city of Purwakara. The distant ridge is roughly my top-of-descent to Jakarta.
My first sight of Jakarta. The most populous city in the world at 42 million people and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in South East Asia. I wonder what those people from 400BC would make of their home now? My destination is Budiarto (WIRR) somewhere behind those nasty look clouds at left.
Clouds successfully skirted, I sighted my destination and got cleared straight in for RWY30.
Exiting RWY30 and looking for GA parking, a shower and a cold Bintang after a very long flight.Previous installment: GA Highway to Europe Project Leg 2
Next installment: GA Highway to Europe Project Leg 4
The start: GA Highway to Europe Project Prologue
