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AFA1991 "Ms. Pontiac"


AFA1991

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Leg #22 VHHH-ZSHC

 

No sooner had we fueled and broke for Breakfast, we were off again this time towards China proper and the Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport.  While the departure was uneventful, the approach was bumpy due to the rain in the area.  Which didn't stop us from greasing the landing and getting out to enjoy the rain showers.

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Leg #23 ZSHC-RJFC

Onto Japan!  After affixing the collected flags, we continued onto the island of Yakushima.  Still November the 16th here as we had the goal of making it to Tokyo before the next morning. 
It was a relief to find the rain was left behind in China.  While the rain was pleasant for a time, it did have a habit of making a loud noise on the cabin of the plane while I was trying to take a nap.

 

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Leg #23 & 24  RJFC-RJBD-RJTT

 

Stretching for Tokyo on the 16th was the plan, so not much sight seeing was done, other than a quick dinner break in Wakayama, Japan before continuing to Tokyo to rest up for the long Pacific crossing ahead of us.  While we were on the ground in Wakayama, we confirmed with our ground team which has been working about a day or two ahead of our route, that our splimental oxygen bottles were going to be ready once we reached Tokyo.  They ensured they were, and we headed onto Tokyo.

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Leg #25 RJTT-PWAK

 

The longest leg of the trip thus far had us waking up before sunrise to beat the morning rush out of Tokyo.  With us was four sentimental oxygen systems for the three person crew that has been on this journey which would allow us to exceed 10,000ft for the duration of the flight in our unpressurized airframe.  This having two benefits, one being lower fuel burn and a smoother flight, but also gave us a chance to glide to a safe spot to land... (haha not really as there isn't much between these two points).  In addition to brimming the tanks, and the oxygen, a 1000lbs tank was fitted in the tail of the plane where luggage could go, as an emergency reserve, however the math on this plane says we shouldn't need it for any of our crossings.  Never hurts to be safe, plus the weight helped to balance the plane with more nose weight with the oxygen systems in place.

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Flying into Wake Island was a huge treat, and a great honor.  Upon arrival we spent sometime touring the small island with the man in charge who booked us our stay at the facilities there and we spent some time paying our respects to those who in WWII fought to defend this tiny speck of sand in the ocean.  During this stretch over the Pacific, it makes me wonder more about the airframe we fly, what its origins may have been prior to its Turbo conversion.

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Leg #26 PWAK-PMDY

 

Island hopping now, we loaded the fuel on, recharged the oxygen system and off we went just before sun up.  We caught a great moon and sunrise as we climbed to a cruising altitude of 21000.  An uneventful flight lead to a smooth landing on the short field runway at Midway.  Again we spent the day there and relaxed a little before making our next hop to Hawaii 

 

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Leg # 27  PMDY-PHNL

 

Once again starting just before sunup, we loaded back into Ms. Pontiac for the hop to Honolulu.  Enroute we experienced some high altitude rain which cleared before reaching the islands.  We touched down and taxied in, for the first time back on in a US state since first taking delivery of Ms. Pontiac in Oshkosh in September.

 

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Leg #28 PHNL-PHTO

 

While this leg seems like very little progress, not knowing the aircraft upon making the trip routing, I wanted to shave every mile off the island hop to mainland that I could.  Also it was a great chance to fly around the islands of Hawaii for a bit.  Smooth and beautiful was the story from this morning flight.  We arrived on the big island with a fuel truck already waiting for us so we could top the tanks and head for California.

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Leg #29 PHTO-KSFO

 

After having a few long hops under our belts, and looking to shave a day off our plans to San Fran, we decided to alter our original arrival plan, and go to SFO instead of the intermediate stop first.  So after topping the tanks, grabbing some food and checking the oxygen system which we had filled in Honolulu, we were off again.  Once reaching altitude, we were greeted by a helpful tailwind which only helped our fuel burn enroute.  We arrive in San Francisco, November 20th.  We were back in the hunt!

 

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Myself and my two cremates went on to the hotel and collapsed having just done a 5 day sprint across the Pacific.  We at this point each bought flights home for the Thanksgiving holiday and agreed to return by the end of the month.

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Leg #30 KSFO-KSAN

 

Getting a head start I think will be needed with the demands of work coming up, plus I have a special trip to San Diego to make for my Grandfather's ashes.  So we came back together on November 30th, loaded up our things after the holiday and flew down the coast of California.  Departing from SFO was met with traffic on our way out but once we were up, we had a gorgeous view of the coastline, and a great look down on the Los Angeles airport.

 

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Leg #31  KSAN-KLAS

 

With the jump to the south, my routing across the US will change accordingly.  With the next stop now Vegas, it only seemed fitting that we should run into our first in flight problem.  While about 40 minutes out from Vegas, we developed a fuel leak in the right main tank.  The unfortunate thing about this is the starboard engine only draws from that tank.  All the other tanks pump into that tank or the left main tanks.  So we stopped pumping fuel into the tanks while in flight, and ultimately had to shut the engine down and feather the prop.  We were able to land safely in Vegas and taxi to our parking location.  Our plans for a second leg today have probably been lost while the mechanic sorts out what went wrong.

 

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I was surprised at how capable she was still only on one engine.  While slower, and in need of some extra trim, ultimately a smooth and appropriate landing was possible on the one engine without much fight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Leg #32  KLAS-KEGE

 

After being down for about 3 days we got the fuel system sorted out and our oxygen refilled, off we wen to Eagle Colorado for a week of skiing

 

Having to work remotely from my home system, so best I can do is attached the pictures for now.  I will get them in the post once I return to my home system

 

 

2017-12-4_16-28-54-485.BMP

2017-12-4_17-36-45-43.BMP

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Leg #33  KEGE-KCID

 

After a week on the slopes. it took myself and the crew a while to warm Ms. Pontiac up, but we got her fired up again and ready to depart.  While on the slopes we decided to alter out routing across America to allow for a stop in Pontiac Michigan, the town with her name sake.  So next stop was now Cedar Rapids

 

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Leg #34 KCID-KPTK

 

A quick stop for fuel and luch is all that was in store for us in Cedar Rapids as we were now a day behind arriving in New York and we still had to make it to Pontiac

 

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Our arrival into Pontiac was delayed due to heavy snow which gave a very Star Wars feel of light speed.  Man if only I had that speed choice in this bird at times haha.   We eventually were able to land after about an hour of circling the area

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(Its hard to see in this posted shot, but the snow was intense enough to create the white streak effect)

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Leg #35 KPTK-KFRG

 

The next day we awoke to fine a shoveling project to reach the aircraft and prep her for the hop to New York.  Once clean we hopped south to overfly the company's main hub in Detroit for a photoshoot before continuing onto New York and linking back up with the journey's schedule 

 

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Leg #36 KFRG-CYQY

 

No rest for the weary as our landing in New York was only long enough for dinner and our checkpoint check-in.  We saddled up for Canada next, our first new flag in month, we wanted to collect it before shutting down for a few days rest over the weekend.

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Leg #37 CYQY-LPPD

 

Yesterday we gathered our oxygen tanks for one last high altitude run for this tour, fueled up and headed for the island of  São Miguel, where we collected another flag and began our trend of flying in the dark again as we chased the time clocks east once more.  No time was wasted getting to bed once we arrived in an attempt to be ready for the next hop to Dubin as we knew time on our 80 days was running short, we once again started making alternate routing plans to allow for an ontime finish to the tour.

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Leg #38 LPPD-EIDW

 

Today we departed for Dublin.  This was by far the most challenging flight as once we got into the air, the winds caused for a very uncomfortable ride and a hard to control aircraft.  We descended a bit and were greeted with even bumpier air.  We eventually settled on flying around 9000' for the last 3 hours of the journey as we did not have supplemental oxygen with us anymore.  We landed in Dublin in the weeeee hours of the morning.  We shut down and went to bed right away after updating our flight reports.  We could almost taste the beer that awaits us tomorrow upon our arrival in London.  For now though we must rest.

Our media person on this journey scrambled today to start organizing what needed to be published once we landed in London.  He said he's been working on a video, so we shall see what come of it.  Hopefully he didn't catch my bad side 

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Leg #39 EIDW-EGGW

 

The final leg.  The final jump.  The flight started off with rain in Dublin but we soon climbed out of the rain and were flying with the clouds most of the way to London.  London greeted us without much fanfare (Granted we landed at about 2:30am), and a soupy layer of fog blanketing the region.  We rolled up to the same parking spot we had departed, shutdown the engines and popped open some beers in the back.  We've done it.  For our 39 flight legs which we ultimately flew, from the time we fired the engines the first time on our great journey, to the moment of final shutdown, our adventure lasted 77 days, 10 hours, 11 minutes.  We flew over 27,000 miles, logged over 140 hours and visited 20 countries.

 

The final updated flight map, including the route modifications over the US and into Europe.

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With the darkness of the airport, the final media photos are set to be taken during the day after we apply the last flag from the trip, the British flag.

1Aac-1o7Tq2IkYKAEkcANg.png

 

I'd like to end this journey log by thanking those who took the chance to read through it, I know I'm not the best writer, and my reports were far from interesting when compared to others her, especially after I lost my grandfather.  After losing him I wasn't even sure I would finish this grand adventure, but in a way it was him that inspired me to finish it as I symbolically retrieved his ashes in California and transported them with me the rest of the way on my journey.  The adventure for Ms. Pontiac continues from here; after the media attention wanes, my copilot and photographer will saddle up again and head towards Latvia to deliver his ashes as promised.  And at some point, I would like to collect flags from every country with Ms. Pontiac, so many adventures are still ahead.

 

Finishing with a quote from an inspiring person, and being in London I know of no better person to quote.

 

"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

-- Winston S. Churchill

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I appreciate it, I'll never turn down a free drink!

 

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After the sun came up we took this picture.   Our media rep guy said he's patching together a video to sum up the adventure.
 

Noticed this after the fact, but the Easy Jet Scotland livery was behind us at the time we snapped this photo

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  • 2 weeks later...

Nice Flight!

 

Very enjoyable!!

 

Which brings up the next question.  What are we as a group going to attempt next!!??  I know Mathijs and his folks are probably weary of flights they sponsored.  But we who like to fly should be able to find an enjoyable goal and post it in this club area without burdening Aerosoft.  I know there are limits on how much data Aerosoft can or should support.  I'm perfectly happy to cancel out all my data from this trip to allow space for the next one!

 

Ideas Please!!

 

Rupert

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Congrats on the completion of the journey AFA1991, love the upgraded Dakota.

 

 

QUOTE

Which brings up the next question.  What are we as a group going to attempt next!!??  I know Mathijs and his folks are probably weary of flights they sponsored.  But we who like to fly should be able to find an enjoyable goal and post it in this club area without burdening Aerosoft.  I know there are limits on how much data Aerosoft can or should support.  I'm perfectly happy to cancel out all my data from this trip to allow space for the next one!

 

Ideas Please!!

 

Rupert

 

 

 

maybe its not flyable, but I've always wanted to retrace the route of the milestone movie "Easy Rider"

https://www.mrzip66.com/2009/04/20/route-from-the-movie-easy-rider-map/

my two cents' worth.

 

 

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5 hours ago, kalizzi said:

Congrats on the completion of the journey AFA1991, love the upgraded Dakota.

 

 

QUOTE

Which brings up the next question.  What are we as a group going to attempt next!!??  I know Mathijs and his folks are probably weary of flights they sponsored.  But we who like to fly should be able to find an enjoyable goal and post it in this club area without burdening Aerosoft.  I know there are limits on how much data Aerosoft can or should support.  I'm perfectly happy to cancel out all my data from this trip to allow space for the next one!

 

Ideas Please!!

 

Rupert

 

 

 

maybe its not flyable, but I've always wanted to retrace the route of the milestone movie "Easy Rider"

https://www.mrzip66.com/2009/04/20/route-from-the-movie-easy-rider-map/

my two cents' worth.

 

 

Kalizzi!! 

 

Obviously weird minds have similar weird thoughts!!  I lived some of that life when I chose to leave the Marine Corps when I could no longer pass a flight physical and had no desire to be a desk warier!!  I raced motorcycles on flat tracks 1/8 to 2 miles.  I rode or drove motocross, endurance racing, sports car racing, Baja racing, etc!  I was always trying to feel that adrenaline high I felt when people were shooting at me, and even better missing me, in Vietnam!  While I was flying various missions including night Med-Evacs. 

 

People exactly like me who missed their combat adrenaline highs after WWII are who originally started the Sports Car Club of America, American Motorcycle Racing, Baja, etc. 

 

Perhaps we could do this event limiting aircraft to low powered single engine aircraft from the Pre-Korean war era.  My first thought of course would be to limit it to the Triumph, BSA, Indian, Norton, Harley, Royal Enfield, Matchless, etc.bikes of that era.  Or maybe MG TCS, TDS, TR 3s, Austin Healey 100s, etc.  But I'm not aware of any sims that simulate those experiences!  Perhaps a Love-Bug Beetle is out there but that really isn't what we used.

 

Rupert

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