Welcome to a new feature on the EHM Forum, where we will explore an interesting city or region every week or so. These are randomly generated, and I hope they'll inspire you to visit places in the simulated world that you've never explored before.
Week 1: Quito, Ecuador
This week, I invite you to fly to Quito in Ecuador, South America.
The Republic of Ecuador lies between Colombia, Peru and the Pacific Ocean, in the north-western region of South America. Its territory also includes the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of the mainland in the Pacific.
It is a democratic presidential republic with Spanish as the official language. Our destination city this week is Quito, the capital city, which is only 25 miles south of the Equator. Quito is the most populous city in Ecuador with roughly 2.8 million inhabitants, and is situated on the eastern slopes of an active stratovolcano, called Pichincha. At an elevation of 9,350 feet, Quito is the second highest capital city in the world, after La Paz in Bolivia.
The main airport is Mariscal Sucre International Airport, with the current ICAO code of SEQM. In 2013, this new airport replaced the previous airport of the same name, which had the ICAO code of SEQU. The old airport was right in the middle of the city, among high-rise buildings, surrounded by mountains and was known as a really challenging approach for pilots.
The old approach into SEQU
Here is a fantastic YouTube video demonstrating the old SEQU approach, courtesy of PilotsEye.TV: -
https://youtu.be/2gnSWCfPF3kSEQU had been operating there since 1960 but its location meant it could not expand any further to accommodate larger aircraft, so the new airport was built 11 miles east of the old one, to provide safer & more modern facilities to the city. The old airport was closed and has now been turned into an urban park, although some local aviation still takes place there.
The new airport SEQM is 11 miles east of the city, and is at a lower altitude of 7,874 ft, making it slightly less challenging for the aircraft landing and taking off there. There are however mountain ranges to the west and east of the airfield, so IFR approach plates are essential in poor weather – these are easily accessible from a Google search for “SEQM charts”.
SEQM is not a default airport in FS2004, FSX or X-Plane but it is available by default in MSFS2020. Add-on sceneries for FS2004 & FSX are available for SEQM at
https://www.freewarescenery.com/ or for X-Plane at
https://forums.x-plane.org/. The old airport SEQU is an airport available by default in all sims plus there are add-on scenery files available to enhance the old airport at the same download locations if you want to try your hand at the really challenging historic approach shown on the YouTube video!
Our flight database only currently recognises the old ICAO code of SEQU (as this was the ICAO code in FS2004), but the Flight Logger will accept any flight to SEQM as landing at the correct airport even though your flight is planned to land at SEQU on the dispatch page, as they are close enough to each other. So you can fly to either of these airports, depending on how daring you feel at the time!
EHM has a number of flights available to SEQU in the timetable, some direct from Europe, but also a brand new Class 5 route we have just opened from KATL to SEQU (SEQM) and then on to La Paz, Bolivia SLLP (the highest city in the world) and then to Buenos Aires, Argentina SAEZ.
So, why not type SEQU into your Dispatch page and assign yourself a flight to adventure?
Ecuador flag and location map from Wikipedia; Approach photo into SEQU courtesy of http://www.thejabberwocky.net/viewtopic.php?t=1318
