Orbx are offering 20% off and a chance to win some prizes from the aircraft and scenery company for people who participate in their ‘Cross the Pond’ challenge happening together with Vatsim (although Vatsim is not required). I’m considering taking part in the challenge and I have a couple of ideas!

The contest

Participating virtual pilots who meet the contest criteria will be eligible to win 1 of 3 pries. The first place prize gets a cash prize of $100(AUD) and 5 Orbx products. Second place gets 3 Orbx products of choice. The third place gets 2 Orbx products of choice.

Here’s the criteria:

• Fly from any departing CTP airport to any arriving CTP airport
• The flight does NOT have to be flown on VATSIM
• Have that flight logged in to Volanta
• Start their flight after 2021-10-30 00:01Z, and end their flight before 2021-11-01 00:01Z
• Submit their entry before the competition ends on 2021-11-02 00:01Z
• Not use slew, and not attempt to exploit the system
• Click the specially marked “CTP” button that appears in the top-level navigation

In advance of this event, there is a 20% off sale on hand-picked airports for X-Plane 11, P3D and MSFS. The sale ends on November 2nd.

You can read about the contest here on the Orbx forums.

My two options

I’ve been considering two different options to take part in this challenge. Not having a ton of experience with airliners outside of a recent few flights and my cross Canada series earlier in the year, one challenge I may take on is trying to coax my still unstable MSFS install to allow me to do the complete flight across the ocean in an Airbus A320neo. I’m just capable enough with the default A320 to be able to give it a try.

That’s one idea. The upsides would be the smooth framerate, the beautiful scenery, clouds and lighting, and a very satisfying landing on the other side. The downside is of course the sometimes flaky autopilot which is mostly ok for me but over the course of a 5+ hour flight might cause me trouble when I’m not watching it.

The other option is to do the flight in X-Plane 11. The scenery would be less impressive, the framerate lower, but the challenge would be much more interesting and my X-Plane sim seems stable.

Why these options? Because I don’t have enough experience with the Zibo 737 to try it much less some of the other airliners so I would be doing it with a favourite of mine… the Phenom 300 from Aerobask. The Phenom 300 doesn’t have the range to do the flight completely so I would want to land and gas up at Gander Newfoundland before heading on. Even with that, the fuel reserves would be low coming in to land at my destination.

My route? One of the shortest options is Boston Logan International to Dublin Airport.

If I’m really adventurous I might even stream or live blog it. We’ll see how this comes together over the week.