At 17,500 feet you level off and have the co-pilot set cruise power. Everyone flies the same power setting for cruise, which generates more or less the same TAS, depending on how heavy each airplane is and how badly it has been twisted and beat up. There is a C-46 ten minutes ahead of you at this altitude and another 10 minutes behind. Even with some discrepancies in cruise speed, it has proven to be adequate separation.

The next NDB is over 100 miles ahead, so you will track outbound from Moran for some time before tuning in the next and proceeding to track it inbound. You consider heading something to be held within a degree or so, as only a very few degrees of error can put you into the rocks. You have become a master of mental arithmetic when tracking to or from an NDB, while somehow accounting for the erratic needle swings due to lightning. The science of navigation sometimes becomes art, but Dave Hertel and others on the Hump can conduct this symphony as well as any instrument pilot in the world.

Past the boomers the ride smoothes out and you emerge from the side of the last cumulonimbus to look down on a solid stratus deck. In the moonlight the haunting vision of rocky peaks appear to each side of you, many going far above your altitude and you wonder if anyone will ever climb that peak well to the northwest of you called Everest, which you know is over 28,000 feet high.

Approaching Kunming you let down to 10,000 feet and report the beacon outbound to Kunming tower. You then get cleared for the approach, descending to about 9,000 feet before starting the procedure turn. You'll need to get down to 7,500 feet on the way back to the beacon, and be ready to lose the last 500 feet in the roughly 2.5 miles to the airport. You don't wonder why they didn't put the beacon on the airport; in fact, you can't imagine such a thing. You've know that you need a solid final approach fix within a few miles of the airport so that you know precisely where you are before letting down, briefly, yes, briefly, to the minimum descent altitude.