Flight Simulator: Hard Mode
Around the world in a Cessna 152
I'm using Microsoft Flight Simulator to visit every world capital* in the most basic and slowest aircraft in the game which isn't amphibious or designed for rough landings: The Cessna 152.
The Cessna 152 has a cruising speed of 107 knots and a range of 415 nautical miles. Those are not big numbers, so this will be hard and take a while.
Since I have only the most basic clue about how to fly a plane, this will be hard and take a while.
To make this harder/more realistic/fun, there are the following extra rules:
- No GPS (or any other tool or instrument that doesn't appear in the plane's cockpit).
- Maps that do not show the plane's location are allowed.
- No assistance turned on within Flight Simulator - with the exception of taxi ribbon**.
- No AI control allowed.
- Outside cockpit view can only be used for sightseeing/entertainment purposes - no manoeuvering while in this view.
- If I crash, the flight must restart from the last place I was safely on the ground.
- If I have to land outside an airfield, the next flight must start from the nearest airfield, land where I landed, and then resume.
- Each flight must begin where the last flight ended, with the aircraft's engine off.
- Did I mention I don't know how to fly a plane?
* What's a 'world capital'? Good question. It's not as simple as getting a list of all countries and getting their capital cities, because a) what's a country; b) some countries have no capital, some have multiple, some share a capital. Life is complicated. It's basically impossible to make a decision here without taking multiple political stances. Since I have even less of a clue about what stances to take than I do about how to fly a plane, I'm outsourcing it to Wikipedia and visiting every place listed here.
** Taxi ribbon is turned on because the alternative would be to load up and print out diagrams of every airport in the world that I intend to land at, and I'm trying to have some fun here.
You can watch me try to do this on Twitch. I'll announce upcoming streams on Twitter. Come chat with us between streams on Discord.