Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'ATWC IV'.
Found 8 results
-
Well, here is the penultimate leg of this ATWC - doesn't seem to have taken that long this time! Anyway, I was sitting at home relaxing when Clem called. He'd arrived at Cork safely and that meant one thing - I had to take the baton to Dublin. Intensive planning was required, but the time to do that was on the train down the Cork. No problem - the 10:42 ex. Portlaoise is a nice Mark IV set with Wi-Fi, so everything should work out. Plan-G was loaded and the plan plotted. Feels like I've just gone past some of these places....... Yep - following the railway line! The
-
"Must be something important", Hal commented as we headed back towards the aircraft. Midge had started the engines after the local crew had finished their checks. "And in this weather, too". The mist had come down soon after we'd finished our mid-day meal in the mess - it had looked like chicken, but that's no guarantee - and now it was raining quite hard. Both Hal and Midge had accompanied me to the afternoon briefing with the station chief. I'd hoped for a less conspicuous aircraft, but the old An-2 was out of action. The Russian built bi-plane had been captured in South Vietnam, dismantled
-
Welcome to Leg 15 of our fourth Around The World Challenge. Today, we are flying from Chiang Mai Intl (VICC), in northern Thailand to Dien Bien Phu (VVDB), in northern Vietnam. Straightforward enough, here's the Flight Plan from Plan-G (Thanks, Tim!): "Ah", I hear you say "What's the intermediate stop for?". Well, read on... "How many hours?" Hal was shouting above the noise of the P.W.s. I tried to ignore him, but I was still trying to get comfortable. The FC-47 instruments were different to the Dakotas I'd flown in Burma, some were the same but in the wrong position. Hal had set the f
-
Are we sitting comfortably? Good, then let me tell you the "Tale of Two MiG's" Think back to a November afternoon, near Bukhara. The year is 1942. Although well away from the fighting, Bukhara is under threat. To counter this, a squadron of brand new MiG-1 (Российская самолетостроительная корпорация, or Mikoyan Gurevich 1) was posted to the city. Proud claims were made - "No enemy aircraft shall fly over this town!" Cheers went up around the town, as people returned to war-critical work. But for a young fighter pilot, Bukhara wasn't the place to be. Yuri Belyakov was a young, eager 18 year o
-
"Any minute" turned out to be a very flexible time frame in Kazakhstan. But as the clock started to close in on 16:00 local time, after a 6 hour wait in the airport V.I.P lounge, I got word that my flight for Bukhara was ready and waiting for me on the apron. Airport security turned up and offered my a ride, unfortunatly I had to ride in the back of a Police Van lacking windows so I didn't get a view of the aircraft before I opened the door and was greated by this sight. She looks rather beaten up I told the captain as we made a visual inspection of the aircraft. Captain: Well, looks c
-
One early morning in Atyrau I get a call to my hotel room. After trying my best to rub the sleep out of my eyes I reluctantly get out of bed to answer it. Airport Official: Hello Sir. I understand you are a qualified pilot that are planing to depart for Bukhara in a couple of hours. Is that correct? Since I pre-filed my flight plan before i got to bed last night I can't really claim I'm not, so I admit that his statement is true. Airport Official: Great, we have a bit of a situation here this morning, and as a last resort I'm turning to you to help us resolve it. By now I'm wide awake and
-
Finally it was time to bring the mysterious ATWC-baton back to Sweden. The last time it was here was way back in section 2 of the second ATWC! I had met up with Kasper and Sharon in the terminal of Fuhlsbüttel-Airport, the Baton was put straight away in to safe storage. I won't be trusting any security guards to look after it this time... Sadly Sharon informed me that she wouldn't join me on this flight. She said something about wanting to revisit the Reeperbahn before she got (and I quote here) "to old for such things"... My disappointment must have been very obvious, so she gave me a quic
-
Welcome to the first leg of our Around The World Challenge IV or “Ivy” as the fourth challenge is affectionately known as by the Mutley Crew. The good news is Sharon is here to keep me company on our 242 Nm journey to one of our favourite countries, the Netherlands, home of the FS Weekend at Lelystad. Sharon has been hanging around the tower for some time now she’s goes all gooey at the sight of a uniform! Well she’s on her way back now after successfully filing our flight plan. We’ve got no navigation equipment on the Seabee so I have plugged this into my sat nav. That’s about as techni
