When Chris was going through his initial F18 quals with VMFAT-101 he told me about doing a low altitude run on VR-289. I plugged it into FSX as best I could and gave it a shot; 500 ft and 300 kts. I didn't find it particularly difficult and mentioned that to Chris. He just laughed and said "Dude, you have it backwards. It's 300 ft at 500 kts". Well, color me embarrassed. Needless to say, 300 ft at 500 kts makes it significantly more challenging.
This past week I got my hands on an old copy of an AP/1B with the actual coordinates for all the turn points on the route and have created an FSX flight plan for it. In a nutshell the flight departs Miramar, via the LAKEE-ONE departure Julian Transition to Julian, Goffs, VR-289, then back to Julian which sets you up for the published ILS Rwy 24R approach. I'm attaching the description of the route from the AP/1B along with the FSX flight plan. If you like it I can upload some more. I have already done VR-296 which is another route in the Southern California desert and VR-1355 which starts at Whidby Island NAS and runs through the Cascades.
Mike (Snake 54)
