WINDWARD STOL Challenge: flight 2c - St. Eustatius-St. Maarten (SXM-SAB-EUX-SXM)

Note: You may print out these flight instructions, or consult them in-flight (press F10). This flight assumes familiarity with FS2004 (FS9), its ATC, and the add-on Winair Twin Otter.

About the flight: Winair flight 505 makes a round trip in 3 legs from 08:30 to 09:40, as a storm builds. Its third leg from St. Eustatius approaches St. Maarten's airport over its hills.

All 3 legs - Time: about 1h 10min. Length: 80-100 nm.
This leg - Time: 20-25 min. Length: 40-50 nm. Load: 19% fuel, 20 passengers (100% of max.).

Weather: Building storms. Winds from 240° at 05 kt. To make the (artificial) weather change during the round trip, set its rate of change to extreme: press Alt-W, then W, then under Dynamic weather push the slider all the way to the right, then press OK.

Airport and Navaid information:
- St. Maarten: elevation 13', runway 09/27 (no ILS), VOR/DME PJM 113.0, NDB PJM 308
- Saba: elevation 138', runway 12/30 (no ILS), 1300 ft long
- St. Eustatius: elevation 129', runway 06/24 (no ILS), NDB PJE 235

St. Eustatius-St. Maarten: The flight begins with the Winair Twin Otter on the ramp at St. Eustatius, at the scheduled time of departure: 09:20 on Feb. 1, 2004. The engines are off, the avionics are on, most radio and autopilot settings are preset, and the flight plan is loaded.

Unpause, press S to jump into the cockpit. If desired, contact ATC for IFR clearance. Start the engines (to autostart press Ctrl-E). After engine start, make sure the generators GEN1 and GEN2 are ON. Also click the right gray button on the RMI (toward bottom left of panel) to link the green needle to the NDB PJM at St. Maarten (you can magnify the RMI by clicking on it).

With ATC permission, taxi northeast along the runway (06) to runway 24.

Take off and head straight out, climbing at 105 kt. Contact ATC after take-off. Cruise at 3000 ft and 135 kt.

If the radio heading indicator (RMI) stops turning with the plane (FS2004 will warn you), switch GEN1 and GEN2 to ON.

If you follow ATC's instructions (which guide you on a long detour to the east), do this:
- when asked to "Report runway in sight", look for runway 27 beyond the hills of the island of St. Maarten;
- land on runway 27.


If you do not use ATC, do this:
- after take-off, turn right to heading 030°;
- join the 180/360 radial of VOR/DME PJM on course 360°;
- about 5 nm before VOR/DME PJM, prepare to line up with runway 27;
- land on runway 27.


Exit the runway to the right, and stop near the flags. Shut down the engines (press Ctrl-Shift-F1) and open the doors (Shift-E and Shift-E | 2). The scheduled arrival time is 09:40.

Press ESC to end the flight. For the next round-trip flight in this Challenge, load flight Win3a-SXMramp-AXA-SXM.

Further documentation: Read the Word file FS2004 MV challenge - Windward STOL.doc, located in the folder C:\My Documents\Flight Simulator Files\Windward STOL (or similar path).

Copyright 2004 Michael Vone