40. Miyazaki to Kagoshima - 10 July 2004

	Leaving Miyazaki
	Approaching Kagoshima Bay, with Cherry Blossom Is. on left
	Parked at Kagoshima

And so it ends, as dusk falls on the third day of virtual flying. Little to report, just golden screenshots.

Flew out to a VOR on the shore of the bay, having begun my descent, and turned toward the airport. Obtained clearance for straight-in approach and used the ILS to line up and modulate descent rate. Crosswind correction could have been better, but landing was smooth nonetheless.

I began this tour on 19 May 2004. In the real world, almost seven weeks have passed; in the virtual, only three days. Over the course of that period, I made a number of changes in the sim. I populated my airports and skies with Markus Brunner's GA-Traffic utility, switched from a joystick to a yoke and pedals, and increased the density of autogen, which not only makes cities more interesting but also easier to identify as cities from the air. Toward the end of the tour, I adopted a new set of cloud textures, making for denser clouds and more translucent fog layers. More importantly, I got a better handle on flying the Mooney from descent to landing, internalized a lot of Japanese geography, and got interested in plate tectonics.

Most important of all, I was able to get out into the world: even if it was only a virtual representation of that world, it was someone else's world, not mine.