Hello everyone,
As mentioned above, I'm posting the following document and link as a potential candidate for the expansion version of the alphabet challenge. Others may have a totally different set of flights that might work out better than what I have put together. Or, maybe combining it with the work of others will create a nice set of routes to fly
The goals I considered while assembling these routes where the following:
- 1. Try to sample as much of the expansion region as possible over the 35 flights.
2. Try to vary the types of terrain experienced during the flights.
3. Avoid using the same airport twice.
4. Avoid plotting any routes that double back on themselves (this was a limitation of the confined space in the ZLA area).
5. Any routes that run parallel should do so for the shortest length possible.
6. Try to keep the leg lengths reasonable, with the expectation that they will be longer due to the significantly larger coverage area.
I think it's off to a decent start. I feel this set of routes provide a good sampling of most of the region. There is definitely varying terrain among much of the routing, from lower level flat areas, to mountainous areas, to the higher elevation flat regions. The majority of routes run far enough away from one another (and at angles) so that the scenery should look different on every flight. The criss-crossing routes are perpendicular enough that the new angle one flies over it at should give a new perpective of that area. The longest leg was from Y to Z, but should be more than manageable in a light twin. Of course, any planned flights will not follow these lines directly anyway.
The letters Q, X, Y, and Z, among others proved to make the routing quite challenging. However, thankfully Justin Snapp (JSnapp1982) worked his magic and created an excellent set of easy to read maps that filtered the airports (link below) by certain naming and coding criteria. This allowed me to open up several tabs, and provided a visualization of where the airports lay in relation to one another.
The total straight line distances added up to 7,045.1 NM.
Even if these routes are not used, they should make for a fun set of flights... I look forward to everyone's feedback!
See the attached PDF with the airports.
Skyvector link:
https://tinyurl.com/zrcuvh8
JSnapp1982's maps:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7cywem9gdoek ... Pekpa?dl=0
