I guess most operators of flightsim servers put a hop list for pilots to uhhhh...enjoy...lol. Here on flightsim.com there is a list of hops designed for small aircraft. I use the default 172 and 182. Hopping involves flying online from one apt to another. There is no ATC. It is up to the pilot to decide how to get to the next destination. The most basic way to fly this set of hops is to jump up and fly the heading it says to fly. Some airports have ILS runways but most have nothing at all. For an extra challenge some airports are buried in mountain valleys. So far I have had two airports on this list to kick my but as far as finding them and then figuring out how to get on final for landing. One apt (09ID) really gave me fits. It took me several attempts just to get a visual on the thing. I took the wrong runway for the landing and ran off the end and did a half dounut before stopping. I enjoyed every min of it! Hopping is a great way to quickly learn navigation on your own terms.

Update November 21, 2012......WOW. Ok I've done this in the past so bear with me. I started the hops on this server earlier this year. Like anything with FS I tend to fly for a while then stop. However there is a thing about finishing all the hops by my birthday. So with November 18 coming up I started back with the flights. I've said it before in this blog that I you aren't too sure of your flying skills then by the time you fly these hops, you will be an expert navigator. There are airports hidden in those hills. They are really fun to fly into and to call them a challange is an understatement. My online call is NKKC18. I chose that because KKC are my initials and N18 is my birthday(November 18). So on the Flightsim.com server they list the pilot and what hop they are on and the date. At the top the pilots that fly all the hops are listed and I wanted my name listed on November 18. A few days before the 18 I think I was up to flight 30 out of 37. After 30 flights or so I finally figured out the trick to flying in the mountains. Since the next destination's heading is known, I figured out that the easiest way to find the airport is to follow the road that is headed in the same direction as the airport.

March 2013...mean, mean list of hops...lol