britfrog 180 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 A few years ago, when I were a nipper living in the Bahamas, my mother used to drag me back to the UK at least once a year (sometimes twice) for a holiday, and to see the relatives. In those days it was quite an event , flying in a Stratocruiser via New York, Gander or Goose Bay, Shannon to a very small airport which had just been renamed Heathrow whose terminal (nissun huts) then was on the A4. My grandad would collect us in his Standard car, and we would drive the short distance with rugs around our legs for warmth. A week or two later we retraced the route back, and it was always eventful, as we frequently arrived either in Goose Bay or New York on 3 engines. As years went on and the Stratocruisers were replaced by DC7C's and later on By Britannias, we no longer flew via Labrador, but direct to Bermuda. Now imagine if you will - these were days without INS or GPS; it was proper navigation and the mark one eyeball, sextants at dawn and all. So, finding Bermuda was akin to standing in a football stadium, taking a pound coin, throwing at far as you can and then finding it again. I well remember my first arrival there - we got closer and closer to the sea and still no sight of land, I was by now convinced we were ditching and the crew had contrived to say nothing, and then at the last second as I braced for the inevitable crash,a runway appeared about 20 feet below! Did I heave a sigh of relief as the wheels kissed the ground! So it was with these memories, and others, that I find myself standing on the tarmac once again waiting for the plane that is bringing the baton across those miles of open sea from the chilly climes of Europe. Amidst a deafening silence only broken by the squeal of seagulls which make me jump,I glance again at my watch, for what must be at least the tenth time in as many minutes. Where can he be? I have my portable emergency radio tuned to the approach frequency, and finally, after what seemed an eternity, I hear someone calling out for the airfield information. It must be the arriving baton at last! But I thought I heard him say DC6 , well that would explain the late arrival and weak radio strength. So as my contact made his way to the islands I climbed on board my Airbus which was going to carry the baton and myself further south to the Caribs, and started the prefight checks. Whilst doing this I had turned the radio on to the local volmet. By now it had started raining quite heavily, with the barometer dropping like a stone, heralding the arrival of the forecast tropical storm. I just hoped we could get out of here before it hit us. What seemed like an eternity later Dave's arrival was announced by the wet splashes as he negotiated the pools of water, and the odd curse as he slipped and grazed his shins on the slippery stairs. However without much further ado he handed me the baton and departed as quickly as he arrived with a cheery “ I am glad its not me flying off into that muck!” Well, I have never been one to waste time so as quickly as we possibly could we finished the checklists, got the engines turning and burning, and made for runway 12 with undue haste. The final checklists were done on the run, and I opened up the taps as soon as I was lined up. The first few thousand feet were quite lively, but despite being in the clag the flight settled down to the normal monotony, after all it was just a milk run south - one airway and 6 reporting points, a mere 800 odd miles,what could possibly go wrong? Flying flight MT666 should have given me some inkling but I was too tired to worry. We were just approaching our first reporting point at 37 thousand feet and I was lazily scanning the horizon when I noticed that, there was no horizon ! Weird !, I thought, there was one there a short while ago, but then I realised that the compass was not holding a steady direction , it was sort of spinning slowly as well, what is all that about then? I was rudely awakened by the autopilot dropping out with a clang, and the primary navigation also just disappeared. Without any delay I tried to call Bermuda and declare a mayday all I was met with was a crackling silence, 121.50 likewise gave no response. So what was the sitrep? 37000 feet , mid ocean , and virtually no idea where we are going, well at least the engines are running!. I should have known better to think out loud ! Looking back at the engines made me jump, all the intakes were flashing with St Elmo's fire, and there was a weird discharge smell starting to invade the cabin. Taking stock I knew it was 10 ish (at least my watch still worked), so decided to take a heading leaving the sun on the left wing; this would give us a westerly heading which must enable us to make a landfall somewhere in the lower 49 , all we could do was hope that sooner or later something would right itself, Bob my PNH was busily changing radio frequencies and trying to reprogram the mcdu without much luck so far. Is this the famous triangle? are we going to see a flight of US airforce planes appearing out of the haze? Or the odd ship slowly ghosting past? The ring piece tightened. Happily after what seemed an eternity , in fact about 45 minutes, the outside view seemed to have less haze and a more defined horizon, and Bob managed to get the flight computer to see a reporting point. Quite soon afterwards he managed to establish our location, which was about two hundred miles off course. We now didnt have enough fuel to continue to our destination of Queen Juliana so had to divert, and as we were deciding where to divert to, all of a sudden the clouds cleared and we could see loads of islands in a turquoise sea. I recognised them immediately for what they were, The Bahamas, so I had Bob draw up a diversion for Nassau, which was duly programmed. Not long after that, the computers told us to start our descent over what I recognised as Eleuthera ,and we finally managed to make radio contact with Miami to alert them to our problem and diversion. The remaining flight and subsequent ILS into Nassau was event free and we parked up next to a BA 767 full of charbroiled holidaymakers going back to the UK. “hey mon, lobsters on south beach! “ I shouted out of my window at them as they boarded. I was relieved to be on the ground. Maintenance issues on the Airbus meant that if I was going to make my rendezvous at Queen Juliana I would have to find some alternative transport, so telephoned my old pal Jorge who could only offer me a Cessna 172, but he had heard of a 737 stuck in Exuma where the pilot had gone down with delhi belly, so if I extracted my digit, I had a flight from there to San Juan ! Well at least that was in the right direction! 15 minutes later, I found myself wilting from the heat and humidity, and desperately trying to find any kind of shade to hide under whilst I made my way to the hanger where I was told I would find the 172. Jorge had warned me not to expect too much, but at least it was airworthy and especially as Herr Lawford (our skinflint boss) was paying, it had to be cheap already! Rounding the corner of the hanger I was pleasantly surprised to see a 172 recently painted in celebration colours. I had been expecting an old clunker but this looked the dogs doo dahs. One look inside dispelled any ideas of grandeur though, it had the original cessna radio fit and they were worse than useless. Ah well! beggars can't be choosers, and after all I did have my Icon hand held radio with me, so there should be no need to go out and buy semaphore flags. I quickly busied myself draining the water out of the tanks, checking the oil and kicking the tyres when my old mate Jorge arrived , so without further ado we filed a flight plan on the phone, and prepared to set off. There is nothing like taxiing a small aircraft at a busy airport, threading oneself in and out of large airliners that seem hell bent in either running you over, or at least blowing you onto your back, but we managed to make it without a major calamity to the runway, where we took off and set course in a southerly direction using the mark one eyeball, as I had no faith at all in the spurious indications handed out by the nav radio. Initially we climbed to two thousand feet but the heat of the day made the turbulence a bit too much to take so I then climbed up to five thousand feet and set course. The Bahamas, ever since its discovery by Columbus, and probably before, has been home to roving teams of criminals, in sailing days there were pirates to avoid and in the twenties there were rum runners to beat prohibition , then there were the gun runners to Fidel Castro's opposition. In recent years they have in turn been replaced by drug runners, flying their cargo from South America to the U.S. Many of these flights would stop off at some deserted airfield in the Bahamas to tranship their cargo to very fast speedboats, evading the balloon based radar over southern Florida, or just to change planes for the onward flight. Many airfields in the Bahamas now have large chains stretched across the runway to dissuade any nocturnal visitors, and many unmanned islands have a runway cut out of the bush which are only discovered years later, and in the course of this flight we see a few. Jorge is busy with his camera, I am just drinking in the hundreds of beaches without a soul on them, and the odd one with girls sunning themselves “au natural” and remembering my youth as we poodled along at little more than 110 knots . Exuma International may well conjure up ideas of a large international airport, but nothing could be further from the truth. The terminal building is about the size of a countryside railway station. However, the Island is the destination for holiday makers from many U.S. Destinations who arrive in aircraft up to 757 in size, and as we hove into sight of the airport we could see our forlorn 757 sitting on the tarmac. As time was of the essence, we plopped the poor old 172 on the ground as quickly as we could, and taxied as closely as possible to the plane that I was about to take to its delayed destination in Puerto Rico. Imagine if you will around two hundred passengers, all sweating profusely all trying to buy drinks from a bar that would grace a village hall, even though it was manned by several “volunteers” who had been roped in to help out. I approached the gaggle with some trepidation and announced in a weak voice, as the tannoy didnt work, that those wishing to go to San Juan could form an orderly queue at the gate as our departure was imminent. Well there was a big cheer and a few slapped me on the back. Leaving the crowd to the care of the stewies , Jock the first officer and I walked out to prepare the plane for flight. I had first met Jock when flying for Iberia on buses – sadly, although he had lots of seniority, he was one of the first to suffer from the the companies struggle against the unions, but he is a good pilot and deserves better and so we both put our heads down and prepared the plane.The flight to San Juan would be some 680 miles which we would cover by climbing to 37000 feet and passsing over Grand Turk, one of the most powerful VOR's in the west. We fired up the engines and started the long backtrack down the runway, a quick 180 and we were off . An early left turn took us toward Long Island, where we had an airways join at EVETS, and we climbed up to our assigned height over Mayaguana. The weather was at least being kind and we could see the northern shores of the Dominican Republic in our two o'clock. Happily the flight was event free, and as the mountains of Puerto Rico appeared in the distance we commenced our descent. It became apparent, after quite a few minutes, that there was a problem with the flight computer, because it was giving us a descent rate of 1300fppm but the increasingly closer point of SHMUU had been assigned as 16000 ft by ATC; some quick mental arithmetic reinforced my fears, and we dialled in a descent rate of 3200 fpm to get us down to the cleared height with the boards fully deployed to avoid an overspeed. It was close, but we just made it without busting altitude and as the speed bled off at 3000 feet we lined up nicely and captured the ILS for runway 10. Flying low over San Juan and the docks is not unlike the old days flying into Kai Tak, but by now we were too busy to really take notice and the wheels made hardly a squeal as they touched down on the hot runway. As we make our way to the gate, it becomes immediately apparent that San Juan is the cross roads of where North America meets South; the terminal was full of modern airliners from both regions but it seemed in every nook and cranny around the airport were dozens of old propliners in various states of decay, that somehow managed to still be utilised. Well here we are finally at the gate - the door opens and that lovely fragrant smell of the tropics mixed with paraffin pervades the aircraft . The passengers start to deplane and quite a few call out a cheery thank you in our general direction as they get to the door. Still there is no time to waste, as I now have to find a lift to my destination to hand over the baton. Twenty minutes later I am running around the booking hall looking for the next flight to QJ, gawping up at the departure boards, when I literally walked slap bang into Marge, a big fellow who I hadn't seen for a coons' age. He shook my hand in his own inimitable way , with such strength that your whole body shook, and between gasps of breath he managed to ask what brought me to such a hell hole. However before I could utter a word is response he added “you are just the man we want - are you free for the next couple of hours?” to which I mumbled “Well yes, but I do need to get to QJ”. Well, to cut a long story short, the local ops manager had received a call from QJ, informing him that a flight there had gone tech and they needed a replacement plane with a couple of mechanics, like yesterday. So without further ado, Marge hustled me along the corridors with my feet hardly touching the ground to the airlines office, where we were given the weather, a flight plan and a short introduction to the girls flying in the back to replace those that had gone out of hours in QJ. A few minutes later and someone has pulled up in a golf cart that was going to take us to our ride, a virtually new 737-800 with winglets , standing at the bottom of the stairs one had to pause and gawp, this baby has wow factor! I carried out the pre-flight and kicked the tyres as Marge programmed the FMC, so by the time I had finished the walk around and closed the door, all was ready to start. A long taxi took us to the threshold of 08, where I let Marge take the controls for the flight to QJ. ATC in the Caribbean is not like the more civilised regions of the world; it is quite leisurely, so Marge had us lined up and was pumping the rudder pedals with impatience when our clearance finally came through, He opened the taps and the ngx leaped forward and in no time at all became unstuck due to its low weight. Marge kept the nose much lower than the normal 15 degrees as we screamed out over the beaches along the coast making hardly any attempt to climb out in the usual sense, and we were very quickly up to our 250kt maximum and throttling back but had barely climbed above 1500 feet it was then that I recalled how Marge had got his name, his flying was always a bit marginal and as a consequence he was destined to forever fill only the right hand seat. ATC broke the spell of my thoughts asking whether we intended to continue our submarine flight or follow more conventional lines and report over St Thomas at 18000 feet. In order to keep the powers to be happy, I engaged the autopilot much to Marge's chagrin. “Awwww you sure know how to spoil a man's day!” he retorted. I duly reported over St Thomas as requested, and couldn't help wonder about the differences in the islands below. A good school friend of mine has run the largest hotel on St Thomas for many years, and he tells of a terrible murder rate, some say the highest in the world, being an American protectorate they are allowed guns, yet 2 miles from St John is Tortola, a British protectorate, and their murder and Gun crime are almost unknown, go figure! A few minutes later and we have approached our point of descent and some 10 minutes later we are turning inbound at 3000feet for the approach to runway 10. The speed bleeds off as we coast in over the beach full of nutters, waiving arms and jumping up and down , what causes this reaction? Are they trying to hitch a lift? Are they affected by the heat? Or is it just the affinity of the bar at the end of the beach? Who knows, it is funny to see. The wheels kiss the tarmac, reverse thrust is engaged, drowning out all other noises,and we perform a 180 and backtrack toward the terminal. My, how things have changed since I was last here; the old terminal building is gone, replaced by more parking areas, there are more hotels, and even the bar on the beach appears to have had a lick of paint. Ah well, time and tide wait for no man , so as soon as the passengers have disembarked I do the same, and pass the still ticking engines in search of the person who must now run with the baton, who hopefully awaits in the arrivals lounge. Link to post Share on other sites
stu7708 244 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Now Nigel.. that was an epic trip Four beautiful planes, an emergency and a well told story... We can't ask for any more from a ATWC newcomer... Kieran should be en route to pick up the baton. Hope you enjoyed the experience and are rearing to come back for more in the later sections. Link to post Share on other sites
DaveLeafNiles 0 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 A lively adventure well told! I enjoyed the read Kind regards, Dave Link to post Share on other sites
rosariomanzo 545 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 What a flight! Great reading and superb shots! Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Great adventure, a pleasure to read, The baton marches on! Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Nicely done - good story. I enjoyed reading that. John Link to post Share on other sites
needles 1,010 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Excellent first ATWC PIREP BF. Great read, beautiful shots and nice choice of aircraft. Cheers Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 En route now in an aircraft that should amke some of the older members who like old jets very happy! Stunning shots and story there Nigel! Link to post Share on other sites
Andrew Godden 934 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 A great adventure and story worthy of the ATWC. Cheers Andrew Link to post Share on other sites
rob16584 42 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Superb PIREP, loved reading it Link to post Share on other sites
Kasper 14 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 A great story of adventure accompanied by equally great shots. Good show! Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,487 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 You are a classic story teller Nigel, but then you have so many many vivid memories drawn from the real world there's a challenge in itself with your experiences! You are truly suited for the ATWC, Thanks for a superb PIREP. /Mut Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted October 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Thanks for all the kind words guys, I am glad you all enjoyed it. Link to post Share on other sites
jaydor 345 Posted October 23, 2013 Report Share Posted October 23, 2013 Yes BF fully enjoyed the story.. Brilliant, it has the factor.. Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted October 24, 2013 Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 Super reading! Love all those aircraft - the 737 was one of my favourites a while back - now I have a liking to the Airbus too. Then it's the classic trainer 172 once again one of my fav's! You have all three in there so in my opinion you have good taste Nice shots - and great story telling - excellent mate! Take Care Jim Link to post Share on other sites
DaveLeafNiles 0 Posted October 24, 2013 Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 I really like the look of that chart system. I'm a complete novice to computerized charts (I'm a pencil and paper, compass, ruler type navigator with a good dollop of TLAR) and would like to know the program you use. I'd love to be able to include some maps in my next PIREP. Thanks in advance, Kind regards, Dave Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted October 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 I really like the look of that chart system. I'm a complete novice to computerized charts (I'm a pencil and paper, compass, ruler type navigator with a good dollop of TLAR) and would like to know the program you use. I'd love to be able to include some maps in my next PIREP. Thanks in advance, Kind regards, Dave Dave there are a million flight planners out there from the latest PFP X which copies the professional scene very closely it just about wipes your ass to the less complicated. I have 2 in my p.c. not counting those that come in weather progs. I have seen lots of people using aivlasoft which is quite good it has many bells and whistles and lots of flash stuff. however it has a lot of shortcomings, the program i use for 80% of my planning is flight sim commander 9 which now updates freely to 9.3 . I am currently reviewing it for mutleys and am a bit behind schedule but in short the reason i like it is: it is easy and logical to use, it does planning equally as good as the more expensive progs, it is fast, it is customisable, But for me there are 2 reasons it is better than aivlasoft one is that when you start off and put in your departure point and destination it is immediately on the map no faffing about like in aivla you can easily add your sids and stars but what is the deal breaker for me is you can see not guess where to add the flight plan quite frequently in aivla the sid will not end at a reporting point in its library so you have to guess it, this is EASY . but not as flashy. the other reason i like FSC is the actual routes, with aivla they rely on 2 third party companies to supply the routes (one of which is totally useless) but the problem with their main supplier is a huge amount of routes are guessed at or created by simmers, so they send you the wrong way down one way airways and the like , with FSC i find the routes are much more accurate to what we pilots are given and use. in the end it boils down to you pays your money and takes your choice FSC is not expensive but it should not be overlooked. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted October 24, 2013 Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 Getting in here a bit late, sorry. What a great PIREP Nigel, kudos for an entertaining story, a well written commentary and well placed accompanying pictures. An enjoyable read, well done sir. I was surprised that you actually knew how to write properly. Looking forward to the next one. Link to post Share on other sites
britfrog 180 Posted October 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 I was surprised that you actually knew how to write properly. Bloody cheek, the next story will involve you so look out Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,285 Posted October 24, 2013 Report Share Posted October 24, 2013 Oh oh....... Link to post Share on other sites
DaveLeafNiles 0 Posted October 26, 2013 Report Share Posted October 26, 2013 Thanks for that Nigel, I will have a look at FSC Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted October 27, 2013 Report Share Posted October 27, 2013 @ DaveLeafNiles - Don't overlook Plan-G either - it's free and does most things pretty well. One other thing to keep in mind - FSC and some of the other add-on planners use RW data from the AIRACs, files of RW data published (not free) by international aviation authorities. While it's very realistic you're going to run into a lot of discrepancies between its data and what's in FSX. Remember that FSX is the world circa 2006. Airways, waypoints, intersections, runways, taxiways, STARs, DPs, IAPs, navaids, radio frequencies and all sorts of things are changing in the real world every month. Plan-G imports its data from FSX and can be updated easily each time you add something to FSX. That to me is a very important distinction and I don't know of any other planner that does that. FS Navigator, an FS9-only classic did so but I don't know of anything since. John Link to post Share on other sites
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