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TomJay


TomJay

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September 25th - Let's get started

 

So guys, welcome to my diary and on my planned round the World Trip :hi_s:

 

It all started today, on a quite normal and boring Monday. I came home from the airport, had some Pizza with my girlfriend and was couching on my couch ^_^ Mondays after a great weekend really are the most terrible of all days.... even for pilots! But then I noticed a new mail from a pilots club in my mailbox: "Around the world in 80 days...". Flying the route of Phileas Fogg from the famous novel by Jules Verne and getting a 20.000 Pound price when managing it within the same time? That looks like an adventure that has to be done B)

 

I immediately called up my friend and colleague F/O Sanni and told her about this idea. We already spent some 100 hours flying together, normally in the cockpit of a 737. But due to some great circumstances, we both have a type rating for the old Douglas DC-6 of our company, which is normally used for some museum- and other special flights. Well, what can I say? She is all for it!

 

So, we will meet up tomorrow, have some beer and discuss what we will need for this adventure. A route, some additional crew members... and for sure a plane? But I guess our boss won't be able to resist and will borrow us the DC-6 if we will ask him really really really very polite. (finally I hope so :D)

 

So far from now, I will get back to you tomorrow!

 

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September 30th - preparations finished

 

Crew.......checked

Plane.....checked

Route.....checked

 

Alright, now 5 days later, we have finished all preparations.

It wasn't a big problem to get together a great crew (as mentioned Sanni as first officer, a flight engineer, a cabin crew....). Also we could really borrow our company's DC-6. The deal was to take some passangers with us, use the tour for some company-marketing and to use the whole expected price of 20k Pounds for fuel and so on. So we finally could plan our route for the RTW-Trip. Here it is:

 

London Heathrow --> Paris Orly --> Nuremberg (tea time at home base) --> Brindisi --> Heraklion --> Cairo --> Mecca --> Abu Dhabi --> Karachi --> Bombay --> Calcutta --> Koh Samui (crew member's wish) --> Singapore --> Ho-Chi-Minh-City --> Hong Kong --> Shanghai --> Tokyo --> Chitose --> Petropawlowsk-Kamtschatski (what a wonderful name :D) --> Unalaska --> Anchorage --> Seattle --> San Francisco --> Las Vegas --> Denver --> Chicago Midway --> Newark --> Halifax --> Narsarsuaq --> Keflavik --> Dublin --> Liverpool --> London Heathrow

 

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(thanks to google maps for this overview B))

 

So we will mostly follow the route of Phileas Fogg. There is just a shortcut as we won't completely fly down the Red Sea (mainly for safety reasons, Eritrea, Yemen and Somalia are not the best places to strand at) and, of course, we won't be able to cross the oceans on the direct way.

Also our DC-6 has a range of more then 2500 nm, the assumption was that all legs are mostly shorter than 1000nm. So we expect the longest leg to be about 1300 nm long, the rest is between 500 and 1000 nm. Maybe we will combine two legs and fly it without a stop, but we will decide this spontaneously.

Total planned route length is about 22.500 nm (40.500 km), with an average speed of 250 kts this should be round about 90 flying hours.

 

So far for now, time to get my bags packed!

 

P.S. Here is our beauty for this trip:

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One can't argue about tastes ... but in this case we don't have to. I totally agree. The PMDG Cloudmaster is certainly a beauty, though not easy to handle. Perhaps we'll meet along the way.

 

Puk

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October 8th - End of period 1

 

So here we are, at the end of period 1 in Cairo (almost Suez :)). Time to update our diary.

I decided to keep the diary in a more or less table form, so it contains all relevant information without becoming a book with hundreds of pages <_<

 

Here are the dates of my first period flights...

 

Time: 8:50 hours flight time, October 3rd to October 8th

 

Legs: London Heathrow EGLL --> 220nm --> Paris Orly LFPO --> 381 nm --> Nuremberg EDDN --> 621 nm --> Brindisi LIBR --> 485 nm --> Heraklion LGIR --> 472 nm --> Cairo HECA

 

Countries: England, France, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Greece, Egypt

 

Weather conditions: Typical british weather at the beginning of our trip (rain, 12°C), Some stormy conditions via Europe and finally 33°C and lot of sunshine in Egypt

 

Onboard Catering to be mentioned: Captain's selfmade lemon cake

 

Special moments: Of course the very first takeoff, when we had still 23.000 nm in front of us; sunset over the austrian alps; sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea

 

Things we've learned and oops moments: Never forget to switch the fuel mixture from rich to low during cruise (Jesus, where is our fuel gone!?)

 

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The start point of our 23.000 nm trip: Runway 27L in Heathrow

 

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Sunset over the austrian alps (somewhere near Salzburg)

 

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Morning departure from Heraklion LGIR

 

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Sunrise over the Mediterranean Sea

 

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Hello Africa!

 

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And some sightseeing in Cairo after our arrival B)

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  • 3 weeks later...

October 23rd - End of period 2

 

Aaaaand "Namastē Mumbai!"... or Bombay, as this city with its round about 14.5 million inhabitants was called till 1996 ;) We have just finished the second period just in time, here are the facts and pics:

 

Time: 10.40h for the second period, about 19.30h flight time since our takeoff in London

 

Legs: Cairo HECA --> 676 nm --> Jeddah OEJN --> 954 nm --> Abu Dhabi OMAA --> 769 nm --> Karachi OPKC --> 565 nm --> Mumbai VABB

 

Countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Pakistan, India

 

Weather conditions: Well even if we have a quite warm autumn at home in Europe, it's nothing against our weather conditions in this part of the world. Cairo some clouds and 28°C, Jeddah 32°C, Abu Dhabi 34°C (dry and sandy), Karachi and Mumbai about 30°C with a lot of haze and a high humidity.

 

Onboard Catering to be mentioned: Cheeseburgers with BBQ-Fries :ph34r:

 

Special moments: We have reached the third continent on this route (or at least subcontinent :rolleyes:) and we have reached the Indian Ocean, a part of the world where we were never flying to before.  It's the first time that this tour get's a kind of a "adventure spirit" as we have left the well known airspaces of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea behind us. We now start to realized how far this tour will take us and even how big our Earth really is when you're flying hours and hours and only move for some centimeters on the world map.

 

Things we've learned and oops moments: None! B) Everything works fine, our old but reliable lady doesn't make any problems up to now!

 

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Bye Bye Cairo, next stop: Jeddah

 

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The Red Sea, somewhere south of Sharm-el-Sheikh. It's getting hot, it's getting dry..

 

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...and it's getting dark as we start our approach into Jeddah

 

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Next day, leg Jeddah to Abu Dhabi. Did you know that the world's biggest sand desert can be found here, between Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia?

 

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Shorty after the departure from Abu Dhabi, we already could spot the two "palms" of Dubai, which is only about 80 km next to Abu Dhabi

 

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Some minutes later: The Persian Gulf on the left and the Indian Ocean in front of us

 

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And finally our approach into Mumbai this evening with poor visibility due to haze and smog

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October 31st - End of period 3 and 1st part of period 4

 

Sawasdi, today from paradise island Koh Samui, Thailand B)

 

 

Time: 27.30 hours total flight time since our takeoff in London

 

Legs: Bombay VABB --> 903 nm --> Calcutta VECC --> 1143 nm --> Koh Samui VTSM

 

Countries: India, Bangladesh, Birma, Thailand

 

Weather conditions: some 25°C with nearly no visibility in India (they really should think about their pollution!) about 30°C down here at Koh Samui, sadly with lots of haze (see picture below)

 

Onboard Catering to be mentioned: nothing special, but we will have dinner in a great restaurant here at Maenam (called Poom's Place)

 

Special moments: Passing over India, Bangkok from above and the approach into Koh Samui

 

Things we've learned and oops moments: Back to the roots, we've made some oldschool navigation from Bombay to Calcutta, only VORs and NDBs. Everything worked fine, without the luxury of GPS navigation :)

 

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Somewhere over India

 

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Navigation without GPS, right between two VORs

 

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Dusk over India

 

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Calcutta

 

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Reaching the Indian Ocean again

 

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Somewhere over Birma

 

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Turning over Bangkok

 

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And final approach into Koh Samui

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  • 2 weeks later...

November 8th - end of period 4-2

 

Once more, just in time, we arrived at Hong Kong. And (shame on me), we had to make a shortcut as we left out the legs to and from Shanghai! Therefore we had some really nice holiday time at Koh Samui B)

 

 

Time: 32.38 hours total flight time since our takeoff in London

 

Legs: Koh Samui VTSM ---> 445 nm --> Hoh Chi Minh City VVTS --> 1030 nm --> Hong Kong VHHH

 

Countries: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China

 

Weather conditions: Sadly the weather at Koh Samui was so bad, that you couldn't even spot the neighbour island Koh Phangan -_- After that, we had a cloud covered sky until reaching the chinese coastline, so we could't spot very much of Cambodia and Vietnam as well

 

Onboard Catering to be mentioned: 6 courses gala dinner at our wellness hotel at Koh Samui :wub:

 

Special moments: well, none... as we didn't see very much due to the weather conditions

 

Things we've learned and oops moments: Flying 1000 nm at 260 kts groundspeed can be veeeeery looooong and boooooring

 

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Takeoff from Koh Samui.... check out the poor weather!

 

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Reaching the coastline of Cambodia

 

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Some miles without clouds, somewhere over Vietnam

 

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The typical weather and view during this period :wacko:

 

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Starting the approach into Hong Kong

 

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Without words

 

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Final approach into Hong Kong

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  • 4 weeks later...

December 5th - End of period 5, leaving Asia and start passing the Pacific Ocean

 

Okay guys, shame on me, I haven't done an update here for quite a long time. The last days in real life were just too busy to keep on flying this tour -_- So I am quite a lot behind the timeline now and I think I won't make up for lost time.... but however, I'll go on flying, at least I have flown almost half of the routing, so half around the world, up to now B)

 

Here is a short report of period 5 and the start of period 6

 

Time: 40:28 hours since our takeoff from London

 

Legs: Hong Kong VHHH --> 778 nm --> Shanghai Pudong ZSPD --> 967 nm --> Tokyo RJTT --> 458 nm --> Sapporo RJCC

 

Countries: China and Japan

 

Weather conditions: Well as we start flying continously northbound, it's getting colder. Aaaaand we had the first snow when arriving at Sapporo (see picture below!)

 

Onboard Catering to be mentioned: Brownies and Cookies, baked by our purserette Carina :wub:

 

Special moments: Leaving Hong Kong in the first daylight, Flying over Tokyo with Mount Fuji behind aaaand the first snow on this routing

 

Things we've learned and oops moments: According to P3D, Shanghai is not a big city, it's a small village with some sweet farms around

 

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Early morning departure from Hong Kong

 

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Mount Fuji, Japan

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First snow in Sapporo

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