Ometepe to Sirena Aerodrome, Costa Rica

Bomber_12th

Bomber_12th

SOH-CM-2023
Today I flew from the volcanic island of Ometepe in Nicaragua down to Sirena Aerodrome, located within the Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica. It definitely was not the best day for the trip, as there were some pretty significant storms on the way and over the destination. I skirted around and over most of it, topping out at 10,000 ft during part of the route, but I ended up having to divert quite a bit from my original flight plan so that I got myself over the coast rather than try flying over the mountains. Hopefully the weather is better in the coming week, as I hope to do some flying around Costa Rica before continuing to head farther south. The many rain showers and sunshine did provide a lot of rainbows along the way. Descending through the storms, with the turbulence and updated effects to the flight dynamics, it was both fun and frightening. Approaching Sirena, it was also the first time I really counted on the synthetic vision of the G1000.











 
I'm always using the showcase/drone camera for the vast majority of my screenshots (sometimes for the cockpit shots too), which is selected by using the "Insert" key to flip back and forth between the regular camera mode and the showcase/drone camera mode (or by going to the camera selection window). I have an Xbox One controller which I use just for the showcase/drone camera (and slew, when needed), which by default is all pre-programed in the sim for use with the showcase/drone camera and its wide-array of functions (without an Xbox controller, you'll have to spend time assigning the functions to something else). Within the showcase/drone camera settings, you can also adjust different settings as well, such as the camera focus, to create a background/foreground focused and blurred effect.

BTW, as a follow-up to what I originally posted at the start of this thread, I checked the weather for the area in Costa Rica and there is an 80-100% chance of thunderstorms every day for as long as the extended forecast goes (through at least next Monday)! I may just keep "N6787J" parked at Sirena for a while.
 
My wife and I spent a week in that area on a nature photo trip. We flew from San Jose to Puerto Jimenez in a Cessna 208, which seems to be the ubiquitous airport hopper in Central and South America. From Puerto Jimenez we drove the one road to our base camp just outside Parque Nacional Corcovado. The weather and scenery in you screen shots is much as I remember the trip.
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Hey you choose some great routes and take some striking screen shots. Would you consider including your flight plan in your threads? I'd like to reproduce some of your adventures...
 
Thank you Boez, I will try to remember to do that from now on.

On this particular near month-long journey with N6787J, I've put about 9 hrs on the aircraft so-far, flying from Key West, Florida (KEYW), to Rafael Cabrera Airport, Cuba (MUNG), to Cancun Intl, Mexico (MMUN), to Cozumel Intl, Mexico (MMCZ), to Chichen-Itza, Mexico (MMCT), to Mundo Maya Intl, Guatemala (MGMM), to Toncontin Intl, Honduras (MHTG), to Ometepe, Nicaragua (MNLP), and to Sirena Station Airport, Costa Rica (MRSN). Today I added another hour of flight time to N6787J, by flying from Sirena to Juan Santamaria Intl, Costa Rica (MROC), where I will be keeping the airplane until hopefully there is a break in the rain/thunderstorms sometime soon in the next week or two, but that's not looking likely.

So-far, I've only been doing a little pre-planning before the flights. If there is weather/mountains I don't want to contend with I've been doing IFR, but most of the time just sticking to VFR so that I can divert from the flight plan at times along the way. As I get into South America, a whole lot more planning is going to be required to see which route I will take to cover most of the continent and places I really want to see. A lot of area to cover, which I'm excited about.
 
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