If you live on the east coast of North America you’ve probably seen grey, skies, high winds, and maybe some heavy snow or rain… or both in the last weeke. That’s the kind of season it’s been so far. In all of that, last weekend, I decided to load up Microsoft Flight Simulator’s live weather and fly out of Boston headed to Chicago in the iniBuilds A300-600. The storm provided for some impressive visuals and a few piloting challenges. Here’s how it went!

Out of the storm

I’m preparing an early impressions review of iniBuilds A300-600 and I’ve been flying the aircraft quite a lot over the last few weeks. I decided to take the aircraft into some more serious weather conditions by flying out of the center of a major storm traveling up the eastern coast of North America.

I started out at Boston Logan International airport (KBOS) where I’d recently purchased some new scenery. Ironically, I haven’t really enjoyed it yet as you’ll see in the screenshots. Rain, snow, and extremely low visibility made for poor sightseeing possibilities. You could only sometimes make out the tower from where my aircraft was parked. Taxiing and takeoff was also done in similar conditions… not much to see out there but we were cleared for takeoff so TOGA it was an up into the murk.

First real chance to use the deicing system on the A300 which seemed to work well though, as you can see in the next batch of shots there was ice build-up on the nose. One of the things that I find really cool is the whole experience of going from zero visibility to into clearer skies revealing the structure of the clouds all around. We had a few brief peaks at some light for several minutes before finally we got above some of the clouds and we could see sun and the storm all around us.

We were finally leaving the storm behind as we cruised above New York State and crossed the border into Canadian airspace for a while. Thick clouds prevented spotting many landmarks but an open patch above Buffalo made that city visible for a brief time.

It took a while but we eventually crossed Ontario, then Michigan and then we were over Lake Michigan and descending to land. MSFS’ ATC (yes I still use it) brought me in fairly low over a dense layer of clouds. Other AI and player aircraft were in the mix too which made things interesting. Eventually I was lined up for landing.

I’m getting better with landings but this wasn’t on of the good ones. I struggled keeping the speed at the right levels and deployed flaps too late and then tried to bleed off some speed while staying below the maximum speed limit and above the stall. The result? I landed a bit hot and it wasn’t a pretty landing…

I taxied to the gate and shut the airplane down. But not before checking my brakes which were red hot! Cool graphical effect!

A Wild ride and very fun to do in a sim. Next time I’ll have to fly into rather than out of the storm.