Travelogue: Day 1 - Sao Paolo, Brazil to Santa Cruz, Bolivia

As mentioned before, I figured I would try my hand at paying a visit to 100 of the world's busiest airports. After thinking it over for a while, I decided to do this using PMDG's 747-400X in the special Air Force One livery. With new leadership in the White House, perhaps it is a good time for the world to get reacquainted with the good ol' U.S. of A. once again. Plus, happiness is being able to set your cruise speed to Mach 0.910 at FL360 and rapidly zip along to your chosen destination.

We start off at Sao Paolo's Congonhas Airport (SBSP) for our global adventure. Congonhas was the only airport serving Sao Paolo until the mid-80s, when the much larger Guarulhos Airport was built. Guarulhos is now Brazil's principal international gateway, but Congonhas still remains rather successful as a domestic and regional hub for Brazil and her neighbors. Tragically, Congonhas was the site of the TAM Airlines Flight 3054 disaster on July 17, 2007, in which an Airbus A320 overshot the landing on a very slick, very short runway.

Anyway, don't ask me how we managed to jam a 747 into this airport -- it shall remain one of the great mysteries of Flight Simulator for the time being. We're heading out to Viru Viru Airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Our flight departs bright and early, at roughly 0600 local time. Alarmingly, the weather looks remarkably similar to the weather of the TAM crash: heavy rain and thunderstorms. Are we nuts? Sure, but this is only a simulation. If we screw up, we can always just reload and try it again. We configure for a Flaps 20 takeoff on 17R, due to the conditions. We will only take along about 1/3 of a tank full of fuel to keep our takeoff weight down. It's a good thing Viru Viru is only about two hours away. We're going to need all the help we can get for this.

Ugh, you can just tell this airport was not designed to handle a 747. I guess this is why they built Guarulhos. I am having to nimbly dodge both buildings and tons of TAM airplanes in this little rinky-dink airport:



And there are a lot of them, too. Mostly Airbus A320's, but there are a few Fokker F100's lurking about as well.

Without incident, we make our way to the runway, get cleared for takeoff, and go airborne with runway to spare. Not bad when you consider that Congonhas's Runway 17R is less then 7000' long! I honestly don't think anyone would be ballsy enough to try this in real life, but who knows? To be sure, most of Sao Paolo is probably cursing at the loud 747 flying low overhead at the moment. Pretty soon, we head west and northwest on our way to Viru Viru.

Once we get away from the weather and the bright lights of Sao Paolo, there isn't much to see as we fly over the lowlands of southern Brazil:



The good news is that it turns out to be a rather relaxing flight, with minimal turbulence. Before we know it, the sun comes up, and we find ourselves in Bolivian airspace, ready to touch down at Viru Viru:



Fortunately, touching down at Viru Viru is a rather straightforward assignment, even in our 747. The runway is well over 11,000' long, and the airport is situated in Bolivia's eastern lowlands, so the elevation is only around 1100' msl. (Don't worry, things will get much more interesting again tomorrow...)

We set down without incident, and notice something rather interesting waiting for us:



We see a DHL cargo plane (defunct in the U.S.) and several LAB Airlines planes. LAB (abbreviation for Lloyd Aero Boliviano) was Bolivia's flag carrier until it went bankrupt in 2007. Won't see these waiting for us anymore in real life these days!

Santa Cruz is a rather interesting city, in some ways. It is one of the wealthiest cities in what is basically one of South America's poorest countries. The population here tends to be of more European descent than in the Bolivian highlands. Much of Bolivia's wealth of natural resources in the form of natural gas deposits is located in this part of the country. These differences in ethnicity and wealth have created internal tensions within Bolivia, as Bolivian President Evo Morales has sought to implement policies to redistribute the mineral wealth to the poorer, more indigineous population. Many people in and around Santa Cruz have made no secret of their desire to break away from Bolivia, although this seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Bolivia, being a rather poor country, does not see a tremendous amount of air traffic. This gives airports like Viru Viru the appearance of being somewhat sleepy. While perhaps true, the presence of mineral wealth nearby makes it one of Bolivia's busier airports...although that is definitely a relative term.

Total flight time: 2:06.

Enjoy!

(By the way, AI traffic courtesy of Burkhard Renk's My Traffic X.)