Reward: Roasted Turkey Dinner
Difficulty: Expert
Estimated Time: 35 minutes
This reward is for completing the Yakutat Mail Run mission. Once you're given clearance, taxi to the runway directly ahead and turn right to taxi to the end. Set the pitot heat, de-ice, and approach flaps while you're taxiing. When you reach the end of the runway, turn around and give it full power. The runway is not very long. Once you're airborne you can set the autopilot and tell it to climb to 16,000 feet. Turn right to intercept the GPS course. This is the easy part. About 50 miles out, you should save the mission.
At 45 miles out, you'll lose the attitude indicator. Disconnect the autopilot to keep it from trying to follow the broken flight director. A few moments later, you find out that ATC just lost its radar coverage of your area. Just your luck huh? The real fun comes once you descend back into the clouds. Now without any outside reference, all of your attention should be focused on the compass, VSI, and altimeter. This would be much easier in a real plane because you would be able to feel which way the aircraft is pitching. With a joystick, I found that I would tend to overreact to changes in the compass or VSI, resulting in too much bank or pitch. (I think my joystick might have been set on the highest sensitivity setting). For me, this became so much of a problem that I had to descend below the clouds (about 300 feet AGL) to reference off the ground for most of the final approach. This was a huge risk in such limited visibility, but I was over the water most of the time. Hopefully nobody else should have this problem, just follow your copilot's directions.
On final, you'll lose the left engine. Hold the ILS course the best you can and pray that the runway lights appear right in front of you. Try to come in slightly high because there's a bear walking across the threshold. Set it down and come to a stop to complete the mission.