Santa's Airport

Three nights in a row is really pushing it, but I bribed one of the older kids to watch the younger kids so here I am. Interestingly, I was doing some research on Post Mills airport, where I've been flying and found this link: http://www.flypmsc.org/Airport.htm The photo at the top of the page is of some Aeronca's like the one I'm flying.

Anyway, I decided to leave and head south to Massachusetts. The Champ only flies about 75 miles per hour, so I couldn't go far but I felt like I could make it across the border. Also, the Champ has no navigation equipment (or radios, or anything really). So I set the weather to nice and planned to follow the highway and river I'd seen yesterday, which turned out to be I-91 and the Connecticut River, which is the border between Vermont and New Hampshire. I also decided to try some low flying to try to get some pictures of those cars on the highway:

You still can't really see them, although I'm down to maybe 250 feet at this point. Still safely above the trees, although it sure didn't feel very safe. I've uploaded the full sized image, so maybe you can click on it and zoom it in where you can see the cars. I'll have to try a highway overflight somewhere with no trees next time so I can get lower.

Anyway, further south I flew past Mt. Ascutney, Vermont. It's interesting because it's just this one peak, not part of a range or anything. The base is at about 550 feet above sea level, but the peak is at almost 3000 feet. Most of my flight was in the 1500-2000 feet range, so I flew low over the eastern slope of the mountain.

Further south I slowly went, noticing that some of those cars on the highway were actually passing me! I was looking for a point where the river and highway would diverge, as that would indicate I was getting close to my destination. But much to my surprise, the Connecticut River in FSX just stops:

I circled around to make sure it was not an illusion, but there it is - end of the river. I was about an hour into the flight, running out of time, and freaked out by this development so when I noticed a little grass airport nearby, I decided to go ahead and land.

I did an OK job, although the Champ just doesn't seem to want to lose altitude. That's a good thing, I guess, but for this landing it meant that I floated over half the runway before finally getting some tires on the ground and then rolled off the end a bit before I got the plane stopped.

The airport turned out to be "Santa's Airport", still in Vermont. It's a private airport, and you're supposed to get prior permission to land there, but I guess that doesn't matter in a simulator.