Microsoft Flight Simulator Bush Trips Guide - How to Change Plane

By default, you may find yourself drawn to Microsoft Flight Simulator’s world map. You can fly literally anywhere you want, after all. Decision paralysis is a real thing though, so thankfully, for folks like me, Asobo has included premade bush trips. These multi-leg trips are excellent and highly recommended for players who are new to the game and need lots of short flights to get their experience levels up.

What Are Bush Trips?

In the real world, bush runs involve flying planes in relatively remote locations where there aren’t proper runways to land on. In theory, you’d frequently land in empty fields or on water. In Microsoft Flight Simulator, they’re simply sightseeing expeditions. You’ll travel a relatively long distance taking some detours along the way to catch some good views. Each bush trip takes up to ten hours in total, but is split up into multiple legs. Rather than flying all nine hours at once, you’ll be making shorter expeditions anywhere between ten minutes and a bit over an hour.

What Bush Trips Are Available?

There are currently nine bush trips in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Flight time varies pretty greatly depending on if it’s a true bush trip or a discovery tour. In total, it’s about 50 hours worth of flying!

It’s worth noting that each bush trip has a plane assigned to it by default. You cannot change this plane without going into the game files on your PC, but we’ll show you how to do that later.

• Rijeka, Croatia to Santorini, Greece
  • 950 NM, 7:50 flight time, 16 legs
• Tolhuin, Argentina to Cochrane, Chile
  • 875 NM, 7:11 flight time, 14 legs
• Brekenridge Airport, California, USA to Mariposa-Yosimite, California, USA
  • 856 NM, 9:36 flight time, 25 legs
• Los Cerros, Argentina to Cochrane, Chile
  • 875 NM, 7:07 flight time, 14 legs
• Discover Denmark (Kastrup, Denmark to Aalborg, Denmark)
  • 369 NM, 3:16 flight time, 6 legs
• Discover Finland (Lappeenranta, Finland to Rovaniemi, Finland)
  • 425 NM, 3:27 flight time, 9 legs
• Discover Iceland (Heimaey Island, Iceland to Reykjavík, Iceland)
  • 728 NM, 3:54 flight time, 8 legs
• Discover Norway (Oslo, Norway to Sørkjosen, Norway)
  • 1,205 NM, 7:00 flight time, 14 legs
• Discover Sweden (Märsta, Sweden to Svedala, Sweden)
  • 420 NM, 3:26 flight time, 5 legs

What’s So Special About Bush Trips?

The biggest departure from normal trips is that you’re flying purely on visual instructions. You’re given descriptions for each different heading you need at the start of the flight including direction, how long you should be flying in that direction, and landmarks to look out for. Frequently they’ll have you look for towns, cities, roads, rivers, and more.

You also don’t get to choose your plane for these trips on console. We recommend the Croatia to Greece bush trip because it’s in a Cessna 172 which comes equipped with a G1000 navigation system. That means you’ll have a full dashboard complete with a VFR map. This particular plane also comes with a fleshed out autopilot system which can keep you locked on certain headings and has the directions programmed into the system. Just turn on Autopilot and click the NAV button! If you’d rather not “cheat”, a purple arrow will constantly show you which direction you should be going in and it will even display how far off course you are. (For those unaware, that’s when the purple arrow becomes separated)

The California trip comes with no advanced GPS system so you’ll be flying purely on visuals and timing. We recommend saving that one for last.

Tip: While the VFR map in the cockpit won’t display your location, the map you can bring up with the “V” key will!

How to Change the Plane

Unfortunately for console users, you don’t have direct access to the game files and therefore can’t change your plane. On PC, the process is relatively simple. The hardest part is finding out where your files are located. To know where yours are follow this process:

1. Boot up Flight Simulator.
2. Navigate to Options > General Options > Developers
3. Turn Developer Mode on.
4. With the navigation bar at the top click Tools > Virtual File System.
5. Expand Watched Bases.
6. You should see three folders here. The one you want mentions Official and not Community.
7. Mine was something like this: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator\LocalCache\Packages\Official\OneStore
   1. Note: Your AppData folder may be hidden. To unhide it search for File Explorer Options and check Show hidden files, folders, and drives.

Once you’ve discovered the file locations, open if in a file explorer. You should see a whole lot of content here. What we’re looking for are the ones that start with “Asobo-Bushtrip.” Now select the bush trip you’re looking to modify and follow these steps.

A few warnings to start though: You can’t modify a bush trip in progress. You must delete your progress and start over again if you want to change the plane. Also, while you can fly jets through these bush trips when changing the plane, we don’t recommend it since they often deal with short and grass runways.

1. Open Missions > Asobo > BushTrips > BUSHTRIPNAME > BUSHTRIPNAME.FLT
2. Open this FLT file in Notepad or another relevant text editor.
3. Do a search for “[Sim.0]”
4. Underneath this you’ll see “Sim=DA40-NG Asobo” or something similar.
5. Replace this with your preferred aircraft:

• Airbus A320 (Good Luck): Sim=Airbus A320 Neo Asobo
• Aviat Pitts Special S2S: Sim=Pitts Asobo
• Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental: Sim=Boeing 747-8i Asobo
• Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner: Sim=Boeing 787-10 Asobo
• Cirrus SR22: Sim=SR22 Asobo
• Cub Crafter X Cub: Sim=Asobo XCub
• Daher TBM 930: Sim=TBM 930 Asobo
• Diamond Aircraft DA40 TDI: Sim=DA40 TDI Asobo
• Diamond Aircraft DA40NG: Sim=DA40-NG Asobo
• Diamond Aircraft DA62: Sim=DA62 Asobo
• Diamond Aircraft DV20: Sim=DV20 Asobo
• Extra 330LT: Sim=Extra 330 Asobo
• Flight Design CTSL: Sim=FlightDesignCT Asobo
• ICON A5: Sim=Icon A5 Asobo
• JBM Aircraft VL-3: Sim=VL3 Asobo
• Pipistrel Virus SW121: Sim=Pipisteral Alpha Electro Asobo
• Robin Cap10: Sim=Mudry Cap 10 C
• Robin DR400/100 Cadet: Sim=DR400 Asobo
• Textron Aviation Beechcraft Baron G58: Sim=Asobo Baron G58
• Textron Aviation Beechcraft Bonanza G26: Sim=Bonanza G36 Asobo
• Textron Aviation Beechcraft King Air 350i: Sim=Beechcraft King Air 350i Asobo
• Textron Aviation Cessna 152: Sim=Cessna 152 Asobo
• Textron Aviation Cessna 152 Acrobat: Sim=Cessna 150 Aero Asobo
• Textron Aviation Cessna 172 Skyhawk: Sim=Cessna Skyhawk Asobo
• Textron Aviation Cessna 172 Skyhawk (G1000): Sim=Cessna Skyhawk G1000 Asobo
• Textron Aviation Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan EX: Sim=Cessna 208B Grand Caravan EX
• Textron Aviation Cessna Citation CJ4: Sim=Cessna CJ4 Citation Asobo
• Textron Aviation Cessna Citation Longitude: Sim=Cessna Longitude Asobo
• Zlin Aviation Savage Cub: Sim=Asobo Savage Cub
• Zlin Aviation Shock Ultra: Sim=Savage Shock Ultra Asobo

If you want to use a third party plane, load into a flight and save the flight plan. Quit out, navigate to your folder with all the flight plans and find the same Sim.0 area to see what the game calls that plane.