PIREP Leg 62 – HLLM Mitiga to LIBC Crotone. Putinfelds last throw of the dice

[J G 927]

Chez moi at the end of Leg 58.

 

The end of my last leg, leg 58 saw Jas and I waiting for Kieran in a nomad’s tent in the middle of nowhere, otherwise known as Menaka.

 

Having passed the baton over to Kieran we bade out hospitable tribesmen goodbye and a hearty thank you for their kindness in putting us up for the few days we were there. 

 

Jas and I flew the A400M out of Menaka and on to Sicily and then to RAF Akrotiri. At last a destination where I would be safe under the RAF’s wing and a place where I could relax a little. It was Jas’s turn to drive, and as the 3,700 Km flight was slightly over the aircraft’s range we were to head north, north east to Sicily and refuel at Catania-Fontanarossa airport before continuing east to Akrotiri and Cyprus.

 

Sicily was not somewhere I had been before and so we agreed that we would have a 48 hour layover there and see the sites. I especially wanted to see Mt. Etna, having climbed Vesuvius and descended into its crater when I was a young man. Etna was a step up from Vesuvius in as much it was bigger and was a more active volcano, although Vesuvius has warmed up a bit since I was last on it.

 

Etna

 

In Sicily and therefore back in Europe I felt safe again.  Putinfeld’s mafia had failed in east Africa and now I was on home turf, and so felt quite relieved.

 

This was stupid. Just think about my last paragraph and the words used there in. One word should shout out trouble. I missed it so perhaps you have to, so let’s recap and draw attention to the word glossed over:

 

‘In Sicily and therefore back in Europe I felt safe again.  Putinfeld’s MAFIA had failed in east Africa and now I was on home turf, and so felt quite relieved.’

 

Next ask yourself where was the word mafia born?  The answer to this is Sicily, or should I say SICILY.

 

Now do you see the elephant in the room? Yes? Well I didn’t, and what a twat I was for not seeing it.  To be fair to Jas she didn’t see it coming either, and she is a lot cleverer than me and is probably a bit cleverer than you to. In our defence we didn’t have the advantage of bold capitalised test to point this correlation out to us. Oh yes, and it seems that various countries Mafiosi collaborate.

 

We booked in at the Hotel Metropole, very nice too, so much better than a tent in the desert. I decided to climb Etna in my free time, but Jas was less than keen. “You do know that it is a long hard trek to the top? She questioned.  I replied that I did but it would be worth it. She responded by saying “And you do realise that the fine ash on the cone will make you filthy? Again I told her that I had climbed Vesuvius and knew all about that as well. “Well you are on your own with that” She said, I am off the hotel Pool.

 

Hotel Metropole pool.

 

At the base of Etna there is a cable car that runs up to about 3,000 meters and then you can walk or take an all-terrain vehicle to the top. Well, not to the top but to the altitude that is permeable by the local authorities. Further up than this limit is considered too dangerous. 

 

I took the cable car up the first part of my climb.  It’s not cheap, but Mutley was paying so I could afford it. There were only few people in the cable car, I guess that this was because it was off season, but two of my companions were medics, complete with a stretcher. It looks like someone had done something silly up there.

 

Path up Etna (Cable car in red, walking in yellow)

 

I arrived at the cable car top station and from there I elected to walk up the rest of the way. It was good exercise and not to taxing as I would be following a path that, to a degree ran parallel to the vehicle path. Etna has several craters and so it was one of the lower ones smaller ones I headed for first.

 

Etna's Cable car

 

Everyone except the medics took the vehicle option.  I guess the injured party was on the same path as I was taking, strange as I would have expected them to take the vehicle option as far as they could go.

 

ETNA in 2014

 

I soon drew ahead of the medics on the main path, and continued on until taking a right hand path to climb the cone I was heading for. Scrambling up the cone was a slow and grubby job, the cone was covered in fine ash which slipped under foot, and soon covered most of me as in a layer fine red-grey filth.

 

Looking back towards the Cable Car Station on the path to the crater.

 

 

I reached the top of the crater rim and looked around me.  The views around me were stunning. I paused for a minute or two to take it all in, before looking behind me to gaze at Etna itself. It was then I saw the medics again. They were about two thirds up the cone I was standing on.  This meant only one thing, the unfortunate person that had to be stretchered out was in this very crater! I looked down into the crater but could not see anyone, so I started down into crater itself. 

 

The lip of the crater into which I descended.

 

I was about half way down and had still not seen anyone, when I heard a sound behind me.  I turned to see one of the medics on his own a few yards away. Where was the other one?

 

Suddenly there was sharp pain and black.

 

I came too in the back of an ambulance, strapped securely to a stretcher, or rather the stretcher, yes the one that the medics took up the volcano.  Well that was one mystery solved, the stretcher was for me. They had chosen their spot to bushwhack me carefully, in the crater I was well hidden from view unless you were standing on the lip of the thing.

 

 

The two “medics” were talking in what I guessed was Italian, It wasn’t Russian for sure. This could be good, that’s a relative good, as being abducted in the back of an ambulance was never good. What’s more the siren they use is very annoying.

 

Me on the way to ….where?

 

Suddenly the ambulance stopped and the rear doors were opened I was pushed out on my wheeled bed, strapped and gagged. I knew where we were, the airport, not so good.  My Italian chums handed me over to some new friends from a waiting aircraft.  I couldn’t be sure from my prone position but it looked like a Cessna 412C. My new friends spoke Russian, not good, not good at all.

 

My trip out of Italy. Guess where I will be, no not on the seats.

 

I was soon in the air and heading vaguely heading south and therefore out of Europe. Not good again.

One of my new Russian friends lent over me and smiled. “Good night my friend” he said and stuck me with a needle. What is it they say before an operation? Count backwards from t…

  

I was in a grubby room tied to a chair. I assumed it was grubby as it stank. I couldn’t see as I had a bag over my head. I felt like s**t. I listened very carefully. On my own it seemed. I had no idea where I was, what time it was and what day it was. I pondered these facts for a while and realised worrying about such things was a waste of time, so I set about thinking what I should be worrying about. It was hot, so I was in a hot country, not worth worrying about short term. My captors spoke Russian. That was worth worrying about, they were most probably Putinfeld’s men. Okay, that was a second thing to worry about.

 

At least I had all my clothes, but my wallet was gone and with it Mutley’s credit card.

 

 

Time passed. More time passed, and then some more as well.

 

Worrying about what to worry about.

 

I heard the sound of heavy bolts being drawn back and the jangle of keys in a lock. Someone was coming. Sure enough there followed the sound of a heavy door creaking as it was swung open.

 

I am not going to relate what happened next in any detail, save to say there were a lot of questions about the location of the baton, and the name of who had it.  The truth was that I didn’t know the answer to either question but the Russian voices didn’t believe me. So there came a period of hitting with me being the centre of attention, and obviously a lot of pain before the questions were asked again. As nobody had come in and whispered me the answers to the questions, I still didn’t know. So there followed another period of pain. And so it went on, for how long I don’t know.  Eventually my body surrendered to the beating and I passed out.

 

I came too feeling sore.  A quick infantry of my body parts told me that I had bad bruising, no bits broken or missing. I realised that something had woken me from my unconscious state, my senses were alerted by something different.

 

There was shouting and banging from beyond the door and then the sound of the bolts being drawn back and the sound of something heavy banging against the door. There was a slight pause and then a very loud bang and dust swirled up under my head bag. A hand grabbed my head bag and wrenched it off my head.  I found myself face to face with an alien standing in front of what used to be a metal door.

 

An Alien?

The alien said what sounded like “Target secured” in a muffled voice, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck as rammed me out the door, past my captors who were lying down, one I noted, with half his head missing. And then abruptly I was outside and noise of a helicopter was suddenly defining, I was hauled over the ground and bundled into it. A fraction of a second later we were airborne, and then I felt a sharp sting in my neck, not another jab! I drifted away into oblivion.

 

A light was in my eyes, bright and white, and then a voice. “Well you don’t half get into some scrapes don’t you” in a mocking tone.  I opened my eyes and saw Jas. What a relief that was!

 

To cut an even longer story short I was tucked up in bed in a safe house in Tripoli, Libya, badly bruised but with nothing much wrong with me aside from that. I had been rescued from an old desert fort in Algeria by the SAS no less.  Apparently Jas had put a tracker in the heal of my shoe way back at the start of ATWC when Putinfeld had started taking an unhealthy interest in me. I hadn’t come back from my Etna climb so I was tracked down using it to locate me. It seems as ATWC 6 came to a close, Putinfeld was becoming desperate.

 

I had lost a week as I had drifted or been forced in and out of consciousness, and on learning this my first concern was for the baton, had I missed a leg in the new section. “Relax” Jas said, I called Micke and made some arrangements. The baton will be coming into Mitiga airport here in Tripoli and I was to take it on to Crotone in Italy.

 

 

Hmmm, Italy. I didn’t mind if I never went back to that particular country, but Jas assured me that she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. Normally I would still be a bit worried with just a slip of a girl to protect me, but it was Jas and of course there was the silenced MP5 she was carrying as well.  I am sure I saw an alien with one of those …. Nah it must have been a dream.

 

“What are we going to fly there in?” I asked, “I am not fit enough to fly a fast jet at the moment”. Its covered was the reply, we are going to take a little nostalgic trip. I got out of bed and dressed quickly as Jas took a call on the mobile.

 

“The baton has arrived, we need to get to the airport said Jas as she finished her call. We went down stairs and into a hire car Jas had in the car park. As we drove to the airport I told Jas how I had come to be kidnapped and thanked her for the rescue. She waved it away and said “we need to talk about the whole Putin thing. Have you any idea why he should be so interested in you?” I admitted I had not and Jas continued with “this last time we almost had him on a kidnap charge, but unfortunately only one of your captors survived the rescue and he took cyanide shortly after his capture. We just have no evidence on him.  So I go where you go from now on.”

 

We arrived at the airport and met up with Kiran in the pilots lounge and the baton was passed over, but not before Kiran took a look at me and exclaimed “what on earth happened to you?” A brief explanation was given and we parted company. Passing through customs and passport control was a bit weird as nobody questioned Jas’s MP5 which was just treated as hand luggage, wheels in high places and all that. Oddly it was scanned along with all our luggage. But I guess rules are rules and it was lucky we hadn’t concealed any contraband in the barrel or in the full magazines. As they say in the USA: Go figure?

 

Our Ride, a de Havilland DH 104 Sea Devon

 

Formalities done, we went out on to the black stuff to our waiting aircraft. What a beauty she was. It was a DH 104 Sea Devon, all shiny and ready to go. She even had her own contingent of Royal Marines guarding it. “These guys and I are coming with you this time.” Said Jas. I wasn’t going to argue with that. Although there was something a bit disappointing, having battled my way around the globe in RAF aircraft, the Royal Navy was to be my final sponsor.

 

I followed Jas up the ladder into the aircraft’s rear, but as I did so I dropped the baton. It fell the six feet or so the ground and, horror of horrors it broke.

 

 

What’s that? A microchip? How did that get in there?

 

The end came off, and something spilled out. It was a microchip. Jas darted down and retrieved it, and got back into the aircraft to look at it more carefully. Her jaw dropped and she whispered to herself “so that was why the baton was being hunted so vehemently, this is what they wanted. She was on the phone at once and issuing orders. “At last we have the evidence we need- there is now an international warrant out for Putinfeld and his gang.”  Jas pocketed the microchip and we gaffer taped up the baton before set about prepping the aircraft. Meanwhile the Marines made themselves comfortable in the back.   

 

The office for this last solo leg

 

I settled into the left seat and Jas climbed into the right. She gave me a quick tutorial on the instrumentation and the numbers, and then we went through to checklists.

 

On stand at Mitaga

 

Soon the right engine was turning and a minute later so was the left. While we waited for taxi clearance, I went through the instruments again to make sure I had everything right. These old aircraft are nowhere as complex at modern aircraft and so it didn’t take me too long to know what was what.

 

The sun glints off the rudder as we taxi out to the runway

 

I configured the aircraft for take-off after which we had a short wait until taxi Clearance given, we then set off to the active runway. I had the cockpit window open and was glad of the breeze as the Devon’s cockpit had a Perspex roof.  Great for all round visibility, but a bugger in the hot sun. 

 

Line up and wait

 

At the threshold we were told to line up and wait, but only for a minute or so. I was soon pushing the throttles forward for out take-off run.

 

87 knots, rotate, positive climb and wheels up.

 

The take-off run seems to take forever in the Devon, speed creeps up to the required 87 knots, after which the aircraft gently responds to backward pressure on the stick and floats into the sky. 

 

 

Leaving Mitiga and a last sight of Africa

 

The climb rate is, to say the least not spectacular. The old bird climbs gracefully into the air at her own pace, which seems right somehow, as she is from an era when the pace of life itself was slower. 

 

Don’t you just love this analogue cockpit?

 

By now I was fully up to speed with the instrumentation and starting to really enjoy flying this aircraft. Although slow and only able to make the kindest of manoeuvres the old bird was stable and a real pleasure to fly.

Which is just as well as our flight time to Crotone was to be two and a half hours, longer as we were stopping off the unload our Royal Marines at Malta.

 

Over the Mediterranean in fine weather.

 

The fine weather and the almost glassy sea below made for a smooth run to Malta.  Soon we were on finals and then parked up on the stand.

 

On stand in Malta

 

Our Royal Marines departed, and we prepared to leave Malta. Before we could go a man in a high-viz jacket over a suit rushed across the concrete and into the aircraft. He showed us his ID that stated he was from the British High Commission here in Malta and asked to speak with Jas in private. They disappeared into the back of the aircraft for a chin-wag and five minutes or so later Jas came back forward and I saw the High Commission chap scuttling away back to the terminal.

 

 

Taxying to the active shows just how far airliners have come in 50 years.

 

We were given taxi clearance and we set off to the active runway.  I asked Jas what he wanted and she replied that he had taken the microchip, and came bearing the news that Putinfeld’s gang had been rounded up with the notable exception of the man himself, who had escaped to Russia.

 

This news, whilst bring me a sigh of relief, was a bit unnerving as Putinfeld had survived. I wondered just how long it would take him to rebuild his organisation.   

 

Banking to our required course with Valletta harbour in the distance.

 

I put these thought to the back of my mind and concentrated on the task in hand.  Soon we were airborne and turning onto to out course. We passed over Valetta harbour and caught sight of one of her Majesty’s ships docked there. Presumably home to our Royal Marine chums.

 

Sicily to the left, and the region of Calabria ahead.

 

Soon mainland Europe was in sight, first the southern coast of Sicily and then the straights of Messina and Italian mainland ahead. The air became more turbulent as we passed Sicily and through the thermals created by Mount Etna, not so much as a direct result of Volcanic action, but rather from the heat radiating from the sun warmed ashes and cinder that made up her surface.

 

Sunset over the Ionian Sea

 

Meanwhile the sun had been getting lower and soon it started to dip below the horizon. It was almost dark when we sighted the runway at Crotone.

 

 

Runway in sight

 

Crotone is not a busy airport at this time of day and so we were given clearance to land straight away after asking for it and were soon on finals.

 

On finals

 

Lined up, I lowered the flaps, slowed the aircraft to approach speed and then lowered the undercarriage and took the flaps down to their lowest position.

 

A second or two away from a perfect three point landing.

 

I made a perfect three point landing and bought the aircraft to a walking pace.  It took much less room to land this aircraft than it did take off in it.

 

Taxying to the stand at Crotone

 

I cleaned up the aircraft as we taxied to the stand going through the post landing checklist with Jas.

Cold and dark at Crotone. AWTC 6 all but over for me.

 

On stand we closed down the aircraft and disembarked on to European soil for the first time in a very long time.  I enjoyed flying this aircraft and would always look on it affectionately from now on.

 

Sentimental moment over, we set off to the bar to find Mick, hand over a slightly worse for wear baton, drink to the downfall of Putinfeld and a safe return to Europe.

 

Oh God did I get drunk that night.

 

Aircraft                      Just Flight's Dh 104 Dove/Devon

• Op System                Windows 7
• CPU                            Intel Core i7 6700K Skylake Processor 4.00 GHz (Overclocked to up to 4.6GHz)
• GPU                            Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB
• Ram                           16GB Corsair/Crucial DDR4 2133MHz Memory
• Mother Board           Asus Z170-A Motherboard
• Hard Disks                500GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive
  1000GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive

 

 

[brett 2,315]

You broke the baton=Fail

 

Another well done up PIREP JG,  check your closets when you get home, Putinfield doesn't like to lose.

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Excellent story and leg as per normal John - what will you do next year?

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

I always suspected there might be something in the baton..it just felt a bit "off" for a blue pvc pipe and caps. Pat Moran seemed like he was more than passingly curious about it too. Wonder what is on that chip...could it have been collecting data enroute or something like that...have you dogs involved me in an international conspiracy to data mine airport sec

 

maa;lkr

get off of me.

 

aakk

 

halp1!j1

[stu7708 244]

Oh my John.. for the first time in 6 trips around the world someone have managed to brake the baton... It's been lost, stolen and suffered emergency landings on both solid ground and in water.. but no one has managed to break it!!

 

This I'm afraid will be a permanent point on your ATWC record. Now make sure you fix that thing up with something more classy on less obvious than Gaffer tape before I come pick it up, we don't want to upset Joe now do we 

 

And considering Putinfeld is still on the lose I'm sure he will have manged to get his crew back up and running again by the time ATWC 7 comes around, so be warned 

 

Great PRIEP mate, see you in Italy soonish!!

[J G 927]

Micke, A touch of Locktight and you would have never known it was damaged.  Its all fixed and ready to be picked up.

 

I am more worried about Mutley's credit card.  I never did get that, or my wallet back

[stu7708 244]

Nag dang it John.. how am I now supposed to pay for my rental plane!!!

[mutley 4,498]

Interesting PIREP JG, you'll wanna hope Putinfeld does get you before John Allard (who crafted it) does, or even worse, his wife Pam who did the sign writing! 

 

Great fun, thanks for your tireless contributions to the Challenge 

 

Back in Europe, hooray!