789th fly-in: Nausori Int'l, Fiji (NFNA)

[Kumiankka]

link to fly-in index thread

Quote

With all these great destination suggestions coming in, we can hardly have time to visit all of them. But this Sunday, February 23rd let's reserve that weekly turn for @BottleRocketeer, who has recommended we visit Nausori International Airport (NFNA) in Viti Levu, Fiji. We have visited Fiji only once before, in 2008, and even then our destination was the larger Nadi Int'l (NFFN) on the other side of the island, used by international long haul flights. Nausori, on the other hand, has connections to various other Pacific islands closer by, and is located much closer to Fiji's capital city of Suva. The single runway at Nausori is only a little over 6000 feet long, so those flying long haul may wish to consider landing at Nadi Int'l first and then hopping over to Nausori in a light aircraft.

Have a good journey / vanuinui vinaka e nomu volau / शुभ यात्रा 

 

 

New pilots are always welcome, read the guide below by @bootsie to get started:

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Be considerate towards your fellow pilots, and above all, have fun!

 

For voice comms, join our Discord server at 

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 NOTAM: the X-Ivap text comms are currently not working, so use Discord text and/or voice instead! Also, don't be confused if you see an outdated fly-in banner with a different destination on the forum main page, as the web hosting login seems to be broken as well so I am currently unable to update the banner.

 

[BottleRocketeer]

Some Fiji Airways/ Air Pacific (Fiji Airways' name until 2013) liveries:

 

[ghun1]

there is a nice livery for the Toliss A319 too. Probably a better sized aircraft for the destination? Could not any relevant liveries for turboprops like the ATR-72 unfortunately.

 

[ostkamp]

Just for info, since there is not much 3D scenery around at the X-Plane gateway in this area:

I found an old Fiji Scenery pack 1.2 by B. Roberts originally created for X-Plane 9 which is still available at http://www.bnasroberts.net/XPlaneBaz/PACIS.html - check out the Fiji.zip file.

You might get a few more buildings at airports which otherwise have just 2D scenery, and also some additional seaports are included, see the description in the package.

If you want to use it, make sure that other more current 3D custom scenery like the one mentioned earlier in this thread for this fly-in, has higher priority in your scenery_packs.ini.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by ostkamp

[bootsie]

BIG trip for me this one. picking up from EGEW Westray.

Leg 1: EGEW Westray, Scotland to EGQS RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland - X-Trident Harrier

Quick re-positioning flight here to get me somewhere with a longer runway for the HUGE second leg.

Harrier STOL capabilities coming in handy

still pretty miserable weather around here

Leg 2: EGQS RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland to NVVV Port Vila Bauerfield Airport, Vanuatu - FlightFactor 777F

This was a mammoth 9,500nm 20-hour flight.  I didn't even know the 777F flew for that long!

Trip so big I couldn't take a screenshot of the route in LittleNavMap properly!

can you even see anything in these images?

NVVV has these curved approach lights, a little like Kai Tak

Wow, I need a break after that.

Leg 3 (Fly-In): NVVV Port Vila Bauerfield Airport, Vanuatu to NFNA Nausori International Airport, Fiji - IXEG 737 Classic

A relatively quick (by comparison to the last flight!) hope across into Fiji.

After landing I remembered I never got around to installing the custom scenery!

Here's hoping for a shorter trip next week!

[cyl8]

@bootsie how did you map the thrust nozzle? We had the same idea, I was trying the hawker. I could hover, but not able to move nozzle for forward flight. Mind share some pointers?  thanks !

[ostkamp]

Hello everybody,

following the suggestion of @ghun1 I found and downloaded the Fiji livery for my Toliss A319 and went again through the tutorial videos.

I settled up with Din05 at Bauerfield Airport, Port Vila, Vanuatu (NVVV) for some 600 nm flight to our destination. The airport had not much space for large aircraft, but could at least handle 2 at the same time.

Pushback was fortunately not necessary from that location, I got approx 26500 lbs fuel on board - I was shocked the aircraft could not take that much, but later learned that the Toliss menu is using kgs instead of lbs, so there was no real problem. I departed runway 29 and used some SID to BISUN.

The descent was a bit steep, since I started the procedures for programming the FMC mid flight to late. With the A319 you have to enter QNH, temp etc. of the destination airport at a late time. Anyway I got down in time with help of full spoilers and cutting back on throttle.

Had to go around one time because I was too high and too fast on first time, but 2nd try got us down even if the landing was a bit hard.

Later I switched to a Pipistrel Panthera and went out for Nadi International Airport (NFFN) on the other side of the island.

From there I switched aircraft again and took the Eclipse 550 NG for the next leg to Labasa (NFNL).

Unfortunately I got full cloud coverage, when I spotted the airport I had to fly an extra pattern and in the end was too fast, and overshoot the runway. Came to a final halt outside of the airport. 😞 Din05 was flying some verticopter like aircraft and Surf was also following and landed ok.

From there on I tried to fly to Savusavu (NFNS) but due to some hickup with the weather settings, the airport was completely in clouds even at 300 ft AGL, so I had to abort landing and continue back to Nausori Intl. (NFNA), our original destination where I landed ok using official procedures.

After landing I waited for @surfintucson to show up, who had a short break or touch and go at Bureta (NFNB) before continuing.
This shows his approach to Nausori in his Twin Otter:

and he got parked in front of the airport next to my Eclipse.

There I called it a day.

Hope to see you again next week. 😀

Edited February 23, 2020 by ostkamp

[cyl8]

I've largely forgotten to take pics as I was trying a number of things and helping out a p1 that team had trouble with, but still managed 2 legs of flights today so it's all cool.

Took off Mousori Intl NFNA in a Mig29... I was trying to take off in the Hawker P1127-4. I could hover but not moving the thrust nozzle for forward flight. Switched to mig29 and forgot to check destination runway length... Thats a disaster expected to happen. I then passed Ostkamp, Dino5, Surf while they were near Savusavu and lined myself up for Labasa NFNL ray 31. Things were a bit hazy but I spotted runway and touched down at about 170... I think that might have been below touch down speed, bounced a little but largely wasn't able to stop with full brake, ran off the end of runway, past thru a creek, skipped over water and stopped onshore of river bank...

After rematerialized on apron back at NFNL, I took a break while figuring out what to do next. Surf, Ostkamp were on the way back toward NFNA I think, or was it NFFN Nadi?

This time I took a more conservative approach to fly the leg with a more familiar craft, Epic Victory. It was drama-less until I came in slightly fast for NFNA runway 28, bounced a little, and then applied my drifting skill to scrub off the speed and turned off the runway quickly

and parked safely with the mechanic to check out the craft... he didn't seem to be too pleased...

ps ignore that translucent building shell that's covering part of terminal building and chopped airliner in half. 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by cyl8

[bootsie]

1 hour ago, cyl8 said:

@bootsie how did you map the thrust nozzle? We had the same idea, I was trying the hawker. I could hover, but not able to move nozzle for forward flight. Mind share some pointers?  thanks !

@cyl8 I have a Saitek Throttle Quadrant, so I map the Thrust Vector axis to my mixture control.  You can use keys too (though I can't remember what they are) - it's just a little more messy to control.

[BottleRocketeer]

Today, I don't have too many screenshots, as this was all happening at night and all you could see for most of the flight was just the tail, which was lit up by the logo light. I departed from Pago Pago (NSTU) in American Samoa for a 1 hour, 45 minute flight to Nausori (NFNA) in the amazing Zibo 738. The flight was mostly pretty smooth with a bit of turbulence in some places. I ended up landing after everyone else had departed from NFNA as I departed last and had to leave the sim running for a bit during the approach, which resulted in an extremely dangerous uncomfortable approach.

Edited February 23, 2020 by BottleRocketeer

[ghun1]

I should have stuck to my original idea of flying from Tonga to Fiji in a Fiji Airways A330 - a real life flight that often happens (not sure of its daily or not). A short hop for an A330 so I decided to make a longer flight as I actually had some time this Sunday, having missed last week completely. I like flying the A319 (as it seems does Ostkamp) so flew that in (fictitiouis) Fiji Airlines colours from New Caladonie, La Tontouta Airport (NWWW) to Fiji via a dogleg past Vanuatu. There is an odd kind of connection between new caledonia and Malta as the architect Renzo Piano designed buildings at each. Just thought I'd mention it. After passing Vanuatu however, X-Plane crashed on me and I needed to start again so I went back to Venuatu (Bauerfield NVVV) and set off for the second time.

 

that is me passing Venuatu - little did I know I would be back so soon ;-(

 

Anyway, a quick flight plan and loading schedule, and I was off. My only problem was the scenery at destination was doubled up (again) this time due to the well-intentioned adition of fiji scenery from Ostkamp. I see from the above screenshots I was not the only one. Without it, all looks well.

thats Kumi taking off and you can see the big green building covering up others.

t

without the fiji scenery add-on it looks better.

Another fascinating place to visit - I enjoy reading about these places as much as I enjoy flying to them during the fly-ins.

see you next time

Gary

 

 

[ostkamp]

On 2/23/2020 at 7:30 PM, cyl8 said:

This time I took a more conservative approach to fly the leg with a more familiar craft, Epic Victory. It was drama-less until I came in slightly fast for NFNA runway 28, bounced a little, and then applied my drifting skill to scrub off the speed and turned off the runway quickly

@cyl8 That´s the only problem I constantly have with the Aerobask aircraft (Victory and Eclipse 550 NG) - the brakes are always quite ineffective and there isn´t any spoiler or reverser. I am now always applying max braking power instead of regular braking power, but even this is sometimes insufficient if you come in with over 100 kts speed. You have to get it down to nearly stall speed at full flaps before touching down which is anything but easy if you have a huge descent angle. The ViperJet has at least spoilers that help to decelerate while still airborne.

Edited February 24, 2020 by ostkamp

[ostkamp]

3 hours ago, ghun1 said:

Anyway, a quick flight plan and loading schedule, and I was off. My only problem was the scenery at destination was doubled up (again) this time due to the well-intentioned adition of fiji scenery from Ostkamp. I see from the above screenshots I was not the only one. Without it, all looks well.

@ghun1 Sorry for that trouble, Gary. Probably the scenery authors of the newer airport package which should reside on higher priority above the old Fiji scenery package forgot to add exclusions for objects and other stuff to their airport scenery area. I believe if exclusions had existed it would have caused lower level stuff to become hidden instead of shining through.

Edited February 24, 2020 by ostkamp

[Kumiankka]

Congratulations for making the epic journey @bootsie! I think you probably just set the distance and endurance record for these fly-ins!

 

My own starting point was much closer by, in Apia, Samoa.

 

I must have gotten lucky with the timing of my arrival, as there was a patch of clear sky around the airport despite low clouds almost everywhere else.

 

Managed to stop just before reaching the second turnoff, avoiding any need for backtracking.

 

After I returned from a coffee break, @ostkamp and @surfintucson were just departing for Nadi Int'l on the other side of the island. I decided to follow them in an ATR-72.

 

The cloud deck was dangerously close to the mountaintops, with some of the highest peaks even extending into the clouds.

 

The weather wasn't so bad for me on the western side of the island, and I was able to land without incident.

 

I then took off again for a tour of the various smaller islands in an F-5E Tiger II. As Fiji doesn't have its own air force, I opted for a fictional Ace Combat livery of my own making.

 

Didn't take that long to visit most of the larger islands, zooming around at Mach 1.4. The view was limited to what little was visible through breaks in the clouds though.

 

I then returned towards Nausori Int'l where I was planning on a visual approach, but got disoriented in the clouds and crashed into the ocean at Mach 1 instead.

[surfintucson]

Greetings, Pilots!

Agree that @bootsie BOOTSIE set some sort of fly-in distance record. Wow.

My flights were nowhere near as ambitious. I'd decided to start out from NFTF - Fua'amotu International Airport in the trusty 777 for what I calculated to be about 400nm. Set the sim for real weather but advanced time to dawn. Still early morning when I looked out the airport hotel window to see that my crew had brought the 777 around. Walked over to airside and preflighted:

CHASER was taking off from there as well as I started the big plane's systems. Takeoff was routine as the sun was rising and settles into cruise at FL310:

A bit of quiet time in the cockpit as the 777 moved along; not much chatter on the radio either as a lot of us seemed to be in the cruise portion of flight at the same time.

I intended to land at NFFN - Nadi on its 10K-foot runway, then take a smaller plane over the island to NFNA - Nausori. As I was approaching the island of Fiji, though, I noticed that a few pilots had arrived at Nausori. I checked wind at Nadi then made the command decision to alter my flight path to overfly Nausori and approach Nadi from the north.  Descended through some scattered clouds down to 4400 feet. KUMI was on approach as I overflew at midfield. Here's the airport below, with CHASER on the runway and CHAS and MERLIN on the apron:

Circled around the north side of Fiji to set up for approach to Nadi runway 20. Alas, the ILS at Nadi is only for 02; and I was in the soup. I hadn't briefed the rw20 approach and was wondering about terrain, seeing as how the interior of the island had looked pretty mountainous a few moments before. Kept descending to get VFR under the cloud deck, watching the radioaltimeter all the way, which put me rather close to a ridge north of the field. Prudent airmanship paid off and I was able to maneuver around terrain and configure properly for an un-rushed landing. Taxied up to the jetway an parked:

The walk from the jet terminal to the GA ramp took a bit of time. I noticed MRMAC had been taking off while I was moving to my other aircraft. Fired up the Twin Otter and expedited departure on runway 09:

MRMAC was flying a Cessna 172 and I quickly caught up. One thing I like about the fly-in is other traffic in the skies and other people to fly with. The point, I suppose. So I took the opportunity to work on my skills at speed matching. Mostly off MRMAC's starboard quarter, once I'd settled down on the throttle:

About mid-island the air corridor between NFFN and NFNA was busy, as DINO5, GAO001 and KUMI were headed west as we were headed east:

West may have been better. As we continued east the clouds continued to build and the ceiling got lower and lower:

I recall looking for some phrase to describe the situation where the cloud bottoms meet the mountain tops. Some phrase beyond profanity or "Controlled Flight Into Terrain". RAFISH suggested "cumulus granitis". Not exactly what I was hoping for. As it turns out, we were able to just pick our way through the weather and the topography and landed uneventfully at NFNA. Here parked in front of the nice terminal with MRMAC's Cessna on my left:

After a short break I heard DINO5 and GAO001 setting out from Nadi for NFNL to the north. I decided to join. Speed matching again an issue--this time because my Twin Otter was the much slower airplane. Managed to arrive at about the same time. Not much to see at NFNL in my scenery. I rolled out long on the short runway. Here's @ostkamp GAO001 in the grass, and then taking off over me as I was fiddling with the Grrrrmin GPS and didn't want him to have to wait on a backtaxi:

I forget exactly what our plan was; but I do remember it took us to NFNS - Savusavu airport. I remember partly because it is cool to say "Savusavu" but also because with whatever scenery mesh I was using the strip looked more like Lukla:

Definitely my mesh as GAO001 saw it flat, and photos online show a nicely flat strip of asphalt. Well, one lands with the mesh one is given! So I turned final for 32 and brought the Twin Otter in. If one is going to land at a field like this, the Twin Otter is the plane for it. Drifted long, and really made contact on the uphill section. The rise and brakes bled off speed pretty well, but the abrupt level change at the top of the hill still had me do a little bounce over the crest before settling back down:

Not much to do there so after a quick visual inspection of the landing gear I took off again. Had to apply a bit of throttle to get up to the lip of the runway and then tipped over like a roller-coaster:

Gained speed rapidly on the downhill and managed to get airborne before bottoming out. Flew back, with maybe a tough-and-go diversion or two, to Nausori where I parked up next to GAO001, who logged off shortly after.

It was at some point during my Savusavu-Lukla adventure that XPCYL8 logged on; and that @Kumiankka KUMI was zipping around at like 1700 knots in his fighter jet.

Most pilots were logged off by then so I took the Twin Otter back across the island to NFFN and reclaimed my 777. Fueled up and took it on a longish flight up to PHNL Honolulu for repositioning. I've flown it in and out of PHNL a fair bit but this time was a bit more fun with a night landing for runway 26--including the offset ILS approach to avoid Diamond Head and downtown:

All in all an enjoyable day of flying--both big iron and hand flying the Twin Otter.

Until next time, Pilot,
Surf, out.

--

 

Edited February 26, 2020 by surfintucson