This flight picks up where the previous New Zealand Local Series: Glentanner to Cascade Station flight left off. Having just arrived at a remote station on the South Westland Coast, and dropping off the trampers, you now have an empty airplane to position back to base at Queenstown Airport.
As luck would have it, the farmers that run Cascade Station have some AirBNB guests who were going to hitchhike to Queenstown, so seeing an opportunity, you offer them a discounted rate for seats in the aircraft, seeing as you are heading in that direction anyway!
Line up and use full length of runway 29 for departure, making a wide climbing righthand turn across the width of the valley to reach a minimum of 5000 feet before overheading the airfield and setting heading for waypoint 4.
Continue climbing to reach 8500 feet as you track south east, the required altitude to cross the Olivine Range up ahead which will offer some spectacular views thanks to the crisp high resolution textures and terrain DEM in the sim. Buzz past the summits of Mount Edward and Headlong Peak before commencing a gentle descent to follow the topography below as the landscape opens up to reveal the spectacular Lake Lochnager.
Continue descending, down as low as 3500 feet, following the gorge cut by the Shotover River as it passes through Skipper Canyon, and winds its way towards the shores of Lake Wakatipu. Break right at Waypoint 12, to leave the valley and arrive into the wider basin that surrounds Queenstown Airport. The GPS guidance sets you up for a right base on runway 23, which is the duty runway with the southerly wind conditions if you are using the Alpine Anticyclone preset.