Musings from a Budget Airline Captain

For the past couple of days I have taken a semi-break from my latest crack addiction Cities Skylines to revisit some older tried and true titles to provide some gaming balance. One of those go to games is Microsoft Flight Simulator X where I love to pilot (from takeoff to landing) a virtual Boeing 737-800. My go to route is Jacksonville to Daytona because it is an easy and short flight that covers all of the bases of navigation.

This evening I decided to change that up a bit and fly from Miami to Grand Bahama International (MYGF), a single strip airport with ILS only on one side (runway 6). The result was a scary decision to make a grass landing in clear weather because I lack the necessary skillset to manhandle a passenger airliner to the left a few feet.

Taking off from Miami was somewhat eventful in its own right due to the steep bank on my fly out to a cruising altitude of 5,000 feet.

Here I am cleared for an ILS approach to runway 6.

At this point everything seemed to be moving right along according to plan.

Here I am clearly not aligned properly with the only runway in front of me. At this point I should have moved the airframe over or declared a missed approach. Being captain of a budget airline where every drop of simulated aviation fuel counts somewhere, I decided to mow the grass instead.

At 500 feet I disable autopilot and auto thrust to float the plane down to the fairway.

After a soft grass landing I aim for the runway in a lame bid to avoid detection but the tower is having none of it.

Had this occurred in real life I am sure my pilot’s license would have been suspended and there would be an official inquiry.