35th leg: Sunday, May 8, 2005
SSMJ to SSKG. Maracaju to Campo Grande, Brazil
Airport: Santa Maria
1.6 hours
I dusted off my plane and got back in the saddle again, finally! Actually, my plane had some modifications made while I was living in Maracaju. I have a newer version of the flight sim and that gave me a different kind of GPS. Plus I just bought a different joystick. I'm not sure if it was either of those things but I had a hard time with this flight. My plane wanted to fly nose up the whole time. Trimming my plane has traditionally been something I struggle with but I'd thought I was beyond that. NO! 

I figured out how to use the newer GPS but I forgot how to use the autopilot, which was too bad because I downloaded the real weather for the area and encountered some wind that kept bumping me off course.
 


I got too low too early (but still nose up!) but that let me check out the scenery close up. There's a cute little church.

There was a row of trees planted in front of the runway. Dumb place for trees. I didn't hit them though.

Some pictures of Campo Grande. I didn't see any city but this airport is probably in an outlying area. There were other airports further along. Maybe I'll see the city when I fly out.
36th leg: Tuesday, May 10, 2005
SSKG to SSBE, Campo Grande to Camapua, Brazil
airport:  Camapua
.7 hours

It was kind of foggy. I didn't see a city for Campo Grande but I was busy gaining altitude and checking the map and GPS for where I should be going. No problem with the trim this time, but then I had also looked up how to set the autopilot again. Oh yeah! Now I remember.
This is what the GPS looks like. The pink line is the course from the point where I set it straight to the airport. So it looks like I'm not really on course but I was doing that on purpose because of the way the runway was lined up.


 37th leg: Wednesday, May 11, 2005
SSBE to SDXJ, Camapua to Costa Rica, Brazil
Airport: Costa Rica
.8 hours

It was foggy again down on the ground but once I got above about 3700 feet I was out of the murk. I stayed up there for a while but then it got kind of turbulent so I went down into the soup, although it was still bumpy down lower too.


I knew the airport was coming up but didn't see it -- just this hill coming up. Then I realized the runway must be on top of the hill. Not a bad place for it but better if you know about it ahead of time and aren't already trying to get low enough to land in front of the hill.


But no problem. I'm usually too high anyway so this time it worked out.
Costa Rica Brazil wasn't on my map that shows my route so I had to get the coordinates of the airport from information in the sim and plug them in to make the waypoint for this leg.
 38th leg: Thursday, May 12, 2005
SDXJ to SWME, Costa Rica to Mineiros, Brazil
airport: Mineiros
.8 hours

It was a nice clear day to start out.

But later there were some big clouds that went all the way down to the ground. The nearest one in this shot was partially hiding another hill, and the runway I was looking for was somewhere behind it. I didn't see the runway until I was flying right over it. It was just a little grass strip. I circled around twice and then just dove for it because I'm impatient. It was a very bouncy rough landing. Plus I nearly tipped my plane over again turning around on the grass.