Low & Slow Over Italy
By Joe Thompson (14 April 2007)
"Traveling is almost like talking with men of
other centuries." -- René Descartes
"The journey not the arrival matters."
-- T. S. Eliot
Preface
Previous Mercator VA
(http://www.flymercator.com/index.htm)
adventures have carried us from the jungles of Thailand
in a DC-6 to a cargo run from Osaka
to Moscow aboard a C-130 Hercules. Later we flew around the Canadian Maritime
Provinces in an NAMC YS-11 turboprop and more recently we’ve flown over the
frozen tundra of Russia’s
Siberia in an Ilyushin 76TD aircraft. It’s now time for a change of pace and this
adventure definitely does just that.
Last fall I toured Italy
using a Beechcraft D18S, one of the most celebrated ‘round engined’ aircraft produced
in the late 1930’s. This aircraft can
still be found flying today in many corners of the world. The Beech 18 is a joy to fly and transports
its occupants not only from one place to another but also from the present to
the past. So meet us out by the aircraft
and get ready for another Mercator adventure.
DAY
ONE
Milan
– Verona – Bolzano
– Trieste – Asiago – Bergamo
– Genoa – Pisa
– Rome
My
good friend Mauro, a B767/757 Captain with Air Italy
based in Milan, was gracious enough
to pick Byron and I up in the early morning hours and give us a lift to the north
terminal of Milan’s Malpensa
Airport (LIMC/MXP).
“Signori di buona mattina” (Good Morning gentlemen) he said as we entered
his car. “Not a very nice morning but
it will burn off shortly.” He was referring to the pewter colored hazy that
had enveloped the airport in the night and now cut visibility dramatically. “It
will be nice before you pass Bergamo
mio amico (my friend).” Byron and I were leaving Milan
this morning on a round-robin circuit of Italy
flying our companies old Beechcraft D18S. Byron is my company's Vice President of Route
Management. He and his team had worked with the Italian authorities
for over a year to secure additional short-haul cargo and passenger routes
within Italy
for our company. That hard work had
finally come to fruition and in celebration I had invited Byron to Italy
from our Phoenix corporate
headquarters to ride along on a low and slow junket around the country. I had
ferried one of our companies’ old, stalwart Beech 18 aircraft down from Norway
several days before to be used as a short haul charter platform. We had 3 days
available before the aircraft would be pressed into service so I decided to see
Italy from the
air; from the Alps in the North to the slopes of Sicily’s
Mount Etna in the south and from the island
of Sardinia in the western Tyrrhenian
Sea to the Adriatic Sea in the east.
Mauro pulled up to the curb in
front of the T2 Terminal and we disembarked. When the idea for this trip
originally came to me I had asked Mauro if he was interested in accompanying us
as our Italian tour guide. Although he
was thrilled at the prospect he had to decline due to a scheduled trip. In fact as Mauro sped away from the curb he
was headed to the west side of the airport to take command of a B757, which he
would be piloting down to Zanzibar
and Mozambique
in a couple hours.
We grabbed our bags and entered
the terminal and after some ‘dead-reckoning’ I found the dispatch office. After the paperwork was completed we made our
way to the shuttle van stand for transport out to the aircraft. Since Byron was not a pilot I would be doing
all the flying which was great because the Beech 18 was probably one of my
favorite aircraft. As we stepped outside
the whoosh of jet engines and whine of turboprops shattered the morning silence
as the airport began to shake off the inactivity of night for another day of
work. Service vehicles darted around the
parked aircraft preparing them for another day in the sky. As we hauled our baggage out of the shuttle
van our Beechcraft, N18MC, sat silently in the early morning fog. Its nose pointed majestically skyward, as if
she were pointing to where she wanted to go. Every time I see a Beechcraft D18 I think of
that old 1950’s television classic “Sky King”, even though the aircraft in that
series was a Cessna Bobcat. The similarities are enough from a distance to
invoke such reflections. I also think
about the thousands of military personnel who had trained in this type
aircraft. I grew up in a Marine Corp aviation family. During the 1950’s I lived on Cherry Point Marine
Corp Air Station in North Carolina
and I still recall, vividly, the old C45 Expeditor SNB’s
sitting out on the flightline, glistening in the coastal sun. Their Marine pilots fondly referred to them as
“Bug Smashers.”
On January 15, 1937, the Beechcraft Model 18 made its
first demonstration flight at the factory in Wichita, Kansas, and it continued in production for
thirty-two years. This low-wing, all-metal, twin-engine monoplane was
originally intended as a six-to-eight-passenger executive or feeder airline
transport. As the years passed, however, the Model 18 was adapted to many uses
and, in all; thirty-two different versions were produced.
When production began there was
virtually no market for the airplane in the United States. In January, 1939, Beech began
negotiations with the U.S. government on a contract for a
photo reconnaissance version of the 18.
World War II brought more orders for military versions of the Beech 18S
from the United States and foreign governments for a wide range of uses. Almost
90% of the USAF navigators and bombardiers received their training on AT-7s and
AT-11s respectively. The U.S. Navy SNB-1 was similar to the AT-11, the SNB-2 to the AT-7.
With the end of the war came the end
of military production, although many of these aircraft remained in service for
years. By October 1945 Beech was back into full commercial aircraft production.
The first aircraft off the line was the newest model, the D18S, which
incorporated a number of improvements. Structural modifications allowed for an
increase in maximum weight and new landing gear, brakes, and tires were
installed. Two 450-hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp, Jr., engines with Hamilton
Standard constant speed propellers powered the D18S. It was the premier
executive transport among businessmen and it was also used by the new local
service airlines that emerged after the end of World War II.
Postwar, large numbers of C45s entered
civil service, while Beech resumed production of the C18S. Progressive
development resulted in the D18S of 1946, the Continental powered D18C of 1947,
the E18S of 1954, the G18S. On December 10, 1953, the prototype of the Super 18, the
last version of the Beech 18, made its first flight. The last three production
aircraft were delivered in November 1969. More than 9,000 Model 18s were
produced and in 1970 more than 2,000 were still being flown in the United States alone.
I entered the cockpit and checked throttles and electrical
switches before starting my exterior preflight. Byron stowed our gear in the cabin and after
my walk-around I talked to the line supervisor, signed the fuel voucher then
climbed aboard. That trudge “uphill” to the
cockpit is always a thrill and announces that you’re in a tail dragger. I slipped into my seat and went thru my
standard brief for anyone that would be occupying the right seat, emphasizing
items like emergency egress, what switches and levers not to touch, use of the
headset and a few other items. I slipped
on my headset. I then pulled the
sectional chart out of my NAV bag and
clipped it to the map holder on the left side of my panel. Next I got my laminated aircraft checklist and
started the mantra that hundred’s of thousands of pilot’s had gone through
prior to this flight and would go through after. “Parking Brake - Set….Landing Gear - Lever Down…Battery
Switches – ON…Master Radio Switch – Off…Navigation Lights – Set”…and on and
on. Soon the aircraft was ready for
engine start and I called out through the open side window and alerted the line
attendant. He glanced around the
aircraft one last time to ensure we were clear of personnel and equipment. With his hand resting on a portable fire
extinguisher he indicated I was cleared to start engines. I energized the beacon, moved the mixture
lever full forward, cracked the right throttle, set the prop control, turned on
the right Fuel Boost , set magnetos to Both, checked the Master Battery Switch,
flipped the Start Selector to the Right Engine position and then gave the
engine a couple shots of primer. I then
held the starter switch on and a low whine could be heard from the right engine.
Then she roared to life, belching a huge
plume of salt & pepper colored smoke out of her exhaust stack. A careful check of the engine instruments was
made to ensure that pressures and temperatures were within limits and then the
generators were placed on the line. This
ritual was then repeated for the left engine and before long we sat in a very noisy
cockpit with both engines roaring majestically only a few feet outside. I elected to perform the engine run-up on the
spot and in a few minutes was assured we had two fully functioning engines. I called ground control to taxi.
The
Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior was an engine widely used in American
aircraft starting in the 1930s. It was a scaled-down version of the original
R-1340, and the second in the Wasp family. It was a single-row, 9-cylinder
air-cooled radial design. The R985 featured a
built-in centrifugal supercharger and direct-drive propeller. Displacement was
985 cubic inches (16.1 liters); bore and stroke were 5.2". It was used on numerous light aircraft and
has a good reputation for being dependable. Most versions produced 450 hp.
Malpensa was using Runway 35L
this morning for departures. After a 10
minute taxi down the west side of the field, passing in front the main terminal,
we joined the early morning line of aircraft awaiting departure. When we were number two in line I set the
cowl flaps for takeoff, adjusted trim, made sure the fuel boost pumps were on,
rechecked the pitot heat switch and radio settings and glanced at the fuel tank
selector handle. We were ready to go. I placed my checklist in its normal resting spot
in the forward, left side of the instrument panel and just as I did in our
headsets we heard, “Mercator ‘18 Mike Charlie ’ cleared for Takeoff
Runway 35 Left….” A quick check to the
right and left assured me we were clear of traffic. I then pulled
out on the runway and switched on the landing light, locked the tailwheel and
rechecked the flap position. “OK, Byron
here we go” and I shimmied up the throttle levers to their take-off
position. The engines roared to a high
growl, internal vibrations increased significantly and we started to accelerate
down the runway. Soon the Beech had her tailwheel off the deck and we could
once again see ahead without craning our necks. At 105 KIAS I put light
backpressure on the yoke and we were airborne. After establishing a positive rate of climb I
raised the gear and as we passed through 300 feet AGL
I adjusted the prop and throttle levers to give us 32” of Manifold Pressure (MP)
and 2,200 RPM. At 500 feet AGL
the flaps were retracted, the mixture leaned out,
boost pumps secured, and the landing lights switched off. Malpensa
Tower cleared us for a right turn, so
after a careful check for traffic I banked gently to right to take up our outbound
track to Verona, our first
port-of-call.
Italy
is a country that has an exulted place in the history of human civilization. The
Italians have made immeasurable contributions to the development of European
philosophy, science, and art during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It has
produced such remarkable personages as Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci,
Brunelleschi, Machiavelli, Christopher Columbus, Marco Polo, Galileo, Raphael, Garibaldi;
a plethora of Caesars and scores more. And the mere mention of such places as the
Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Vatican,
the Coliseum, the canals of Venice,
the Apian Way, Mt.
Vesuvius or merely the word Rome, produces almost instantaneous recognition
of a country so diverse it’s hard to describe.
Italy
is a classic peninsula, a geographical landform consisting of an extension of a
body of land from a larger body of land, surrounded by water on three sides. Italy
is flanked on the northwest by the Ligurian
Sea, to the west and southwest by
the Tyrrhenian Sea and to the South by the Mediterranean.
To the southeast lies the Ionian
Sea and to the east is the Adriatic. Roughly measured, Italy
is approximately 650 nm long and averages around 55 nm wide.
Flight Advisory: AOPA
Italy would
like to draw to the attention of all European pilots a peculiarity of Italian
airspace, which might so far have escaped the attention of visitors. The
ubiquitous definition of the so-called “semicircular” flight rule for VFR
flights in fact does not apply to Italy, where it has been modified as follows:
All VFR flights above 3,000 ft, or above 1,000 ft AGL,
whichever is greatest, must fly at the following flight levels:
For headings between 090° and 269°: odd tens plus 5 (i.e. FL 35, 55, 75, etc.)
For headings between 270° and 089°: even tens plus 5 (i.e. FL 45, 65, 85, etc.)
This differs from the universal practice of splitting the levels in a
north-south line used in other European countries and is a source of potential
problems. Italian geography is such that the great majority of flights are in
NW and SE directions – ATC cites the country's shape as the reason for the
semicircular anomaly – and in these quadrants there is no difference in the
Italian and international requirements.
AOPA Italy's Massimo Levi says: “How many French, German or British pilots are
aware of this difference? We believe not many, which explains
our concern. The situation poses difficulties not only for foreign pilots in Italy,
but for Italian pilots leaving the country, who must be aware that the rest of
the world does things differently.”
Its most prominent feature is its
boot-like shape kicking the island of
Sicily. Much of Italy
is covered by mountains with the Dolomite’s and Alps extending
across northern Italy.
The Apennine
Mountains cut down the center of
the country, stretching from north to south, and separate the east and west
coasts. The geology of the Apennine’s is very interesting in that the mountains
actually dive under the sea at the southwestern edge of Sicily and re-emerged
in North Africa on the Tunisian coast east of Tunis, where they eventual make
up the Atlas Mountains in Morocco. Italy
also includes two large islands: Sicily
and Sardinia. Sicily
is the largest island in the Mediterranean, with active
volcanoes and earthquakes. Sardinia
is basically mountains rising out of the ocean.
Italy is
comprised of twenty regions which primarily serve to decentralize the state
government. Within the borders of Italy
lie two independent countries: Vatican City,
the center for the Roman Catholic Church, which is the world's smallest country
and San Marino,
on the north east coast of Italy,
which is an independent republic.
Verona
(LIPX/VRN), our first stop, was a mere 90 nm to the east of Milan.
After reaching our cruise altitude
(almost all segments of this trip were flown below 12,000’ AGL)
I reset the power to give us 30” MP & 2,000 RPM.
After I centered the heading bug on the
Directional Gyro (DG), I switched on the Lear L2 Autopilot and tweaked the
pitch knob. (The L2 autopilot is pretty
basic and there is no altitude hold or capture and naturally nothing to help
maintain speed. It sports 4 knobs: 2 small ones on the left side and bottom to
trim elevator and ailerons, a large knob in the center for turns and another
smaller knob on the right to adjust pitch). I then slewed the yellow heading bug to our
computed outbound heading. The old Beech
wagged her wings as if to indicate she understood the command and would comply.
As we passed south of the city of
Brescia the early morning fog
disappeared, as Mauro predicted. We flew
on in relatively clear skies. An hour
later we were sitting on the ramp at Verona. Verona
is a provincial capital and is located in the Veneto
region of northern Italy.
The ancient town and the center of the modern city of Verona
are in a loop of the Adige River
near Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy,
and is home to approximately 260,000 people. Several
local Alitalia officials greeted us; anxious to extend their hospitality to us
since we had contracted with them for ground service support for our newly
negotiated Italian routes. There was a lot of back slapping and handshaking and
I counted more than a few espressos’s knocked down as we talked aviation – what
else – with our new found friends!
Soon we were back aboard and the
engines went through their customary sequence of startup sounds: rattle-rattle,
click-click, bang-bang – then a few more clicks, then a lot of smoke as they
roared to life. This leg would carry us
northward, out over Lago di
Garda (Lake Garda). Then I intended to track northeastward up the 28
nm long lake and climb deep into the Dolomite
Mountains to the city of Bolzano.
The northern part of the lake is
narrower, surrounded by the mountains. The
shape is that typical of a moraine valley, probably having been formed by a
glacier. In one spot this lake is over
1,100 ft. deep. After a northwest departure
we passed the southern shore of the lake. As I banked to the right Byron exclaimed
“Man, this thing is huge,”.
I initially climbed to 4,500‘ to afford
us a good view of the lake and the view was spectacular with the deep cobalt blue
of the water complemented by the green mountain slopes that rushed down to the
lakes shorelines on both sides of the aircraft.
Soon however the lake was behind us and I started letting down for Bolzano
(LIPB/BZO). We were cleared straight
in. Soon we were emerging from the
aircraft to be greeted by cool mountain air, a brilliant sun and a view that
was absolutely breathtaking. Bolzano
is a city in the Trentino-South Tyrol region of Italy
and is the capital of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. Of the 100,000
inhabitants 73% of the city speaks Italian, 23% speak German and 1% speaks Ladin (a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the Dolomite
Mountains).
Next
on the itinerary was Trieste where
we would have lunch. We departed Bolzano
and I had to corkscrew upward over the town to reach a comfortable altitude to
clear the surrounding ridges that dotted our trackline eastward to Trieste. We kept Austria
off our port wingtip and soon sat on the ramp at Trieste
(LIPQ/TRS). We were graciously
invited to lunch by an airport executive.
In a matter of minutes after landing we were in the cool shade of an
open veranda at a nearby café savoring the local fare and talking with our host
about – what else – airplanes. Lunch is
the big meal in Italy, and typically consists of a starter (antipasto), a first
course (pasta, risotto or soup), a second course of a meat, chicken or fish,
cheese and dessert (dolce), all topped off with coffee. Soon though, with appetites totally sated, we
were airborne once again and after stops in Asiago (LIDA/---) and then Bergamo
(LIME/BGY) we turned the
little Beechcraft southward and headed to Genoa.
After
a flight of 36 minutes we blocked in on the Genoa
(LIMJ/GOA) ramp, right on the edge of the Gulf
of Genoa. Byron and I stretched our legs a bit and
walked around the terminal area. Several
ramp workers greeted us and asked questions about our aircraft, which I was
more than happy to answer. Genoa
is the capital of the Province of Genoa
in the region of Liguria and was
the home of such important personages as navigators Christopher Columbus and
Andrea Doria and the composer Niccolò
Paganini. As I
stood there on the ramp and glanced south at the port area I wondered what it
had looked like in Columbus’s day? Today large gantry cranes were working
feverously to load and unload container ships that were moored there. The air was heavy with the smell of kerosene;
that sweet, pungent, warm airport fragrance.
Soon it was time to kick the tires and light the fires for our next leg,
which would carry us down to Pisa. Before long we were at altitude and cruising
down the Riviera Di Levante which runs from Genoa
to La Spezia.
Just off La Spezia I angled in towards the
beach and we started to set up for our afternoon approach into Pisa
(LIRP/PSA). We got a short right base entry to runway 22L
and soon we were turning onto final. Byron
remarked that he could see the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the failing afternoon
light but I was too busy getting the aircraft configured for landing to do much
sightseeing. After landing, I turned off
the active, taxied in and shut down.
Leg eight, the last for the day,
would take us to Rome’s
Fiumicino airport (LIRF/FCO). We
left Pisa with the sun just below
the horizon and it got dark fairly rapidly. As we got nearer to Rome
the visibility started to drop. I had
been briefed earlier in the day that our departure from Rome
on day 2 for Sardinia would probably be a foggy one. Oh
well, that was something to contemplate tomorrow. After a 1.3 hour transit down the western side
of Italy, Fiumicino
Tower cleared us for a straight in to
runway 16C. I kept our speed up at ATC’s
request due to the long line of heavy breathers queued up behind us to land also. And after landing I exited as quickly as I
could. Several minutes later we had
taxied to our spot behind the Alitalia Cargo Terminal. I shut down 18 Mike Charlie and
secured her for the night. Day One had
us visit eight airports; we had flown 722 nm and logged 6.9 hrs. It had been a fun day but we were both tired
and ready to relax.
DAY
TWO
Rome
– Olbia (Sardinia) – Cagliari
(Sardinia) – Palermo
(Sicily) – Catania
(Sicily) – Lamezia
– Brindisi - Bari
The early morning weather was
foggy and ragged like the night before. Visibility
was less than 4 miles and the sun was straining mightily to burn off the
offending fog cover but it looked doubtful by departure time. After a good nights
sleep Byron and I met in the café for our customary cups of cappuccino and a
couple anise flavored biscotti di prato’s dunked
in our cappuccino to soften not only the hard Italian cookie but also our
hunger pangs until lunch. Neither of us
were big breakfast eaters.
At 0700 there was still minimal
traffic at Fiumicino and we were off with no major delays. We departed straight out from runway 25 and at
4,000 ft I finally broke through the fog. Patches of blue sky were appearing so I
suspected it would be clear soon. Since
this leg was over a lot of water (130 nm) I climbed to a respectable altitude
in case we needed the extra cushion for safety. I set cruise settings and leaned the mixture a
bit more then secured the cowl flaps. The
twin R-935 Baby Wasps were in a synchronous drone. With little to look at below Byron took the
opportunity to ask some questions about the old aircraft that was transporting
us around Italy. He wanted to know what the two, big red “eyeball
looking things” were up on the dash. “Emergency Prop Feather switches.”
He asked about the missing gauge in the
instrument panel down by my right knee. “The
radar altimeter use to be located there but the Avionics shop remounted it on
top of the panel for easier viewing.” He was confused by all the levers that seemed
to sprout from the center pedestal. ““P“ is for propellers, “T” is throttle,
“M” is mixture, “MH” is manifold heat and “OS” is for the Oil Shutters.” He also wanted to know why Mercator still flew
such and old aircraft? “Its fun and the pilots – some of them anyway – love
these aircraft. And in smaller bush areas it’s a great choice and a real PR
(Public Relations) asset for the company.”
“But isn’t this aircraft more
work to fly with all the levers you seem to have to manipulate constantly?”
I told him that many aviators thought an
old aircraft like this Beech 18 epitomized all that was good in aviation. I pointed out that airline pilots, after flying
a wide-bodied jet for a living, often flew old recip aircraft to relax and have
fun. An old aviator once lamented, “If
it isn’t oily, noisy, or a challenge to fly what good is it?” Then Byron fell silent for a while and just
enjoyed the tranquility of riding above the earth in such a splendid aircraft.
Fifty miles from Sardinia the horizon, directly ahead of us,
began to take on an uneven appearance. After a short downwind to the east followed by
an abbreviated base and final leg we were sitting on the ramp at Olbia, Sardinia (LIEO/OLB) on the northeastern corner of the
island. From here we flew down the spine
of the island to the southern city of Cagliari (LIEE/CAG).
Leg
3 took us out over the Gulf of Cagliari,
then out over the Mediterranean Sea to the island
of Sicily, the largest island in
the Mediterranean which has five million
inhabitants. After a 1.5 hrs flight leg,
the longest single leg we would fly in our 3 day junket, we landed in Palermo
(LICJ/PMO). The official name of the airport is ‘Punta Raisi’
but the locals refer to it as the “Falcone- Borsellino” Airport in honor of two
well know Sicilian magistrates who were assassinated by the Costra
Nostra (Mafia) in Palermo in 1992. The
sky was streaked with high, wispy white clouds, a soft breeze was blowing and
the warm sun felt invigorating. Two
airport employees befriended us – Gian and Salvatore–
and offered to show us a good place to eat near the airport. In minutes we were all seated on the stone
veranda of the Ristorante La Tartaruga,
less than a half mile from the approach end of runway 02, enjoying a
magnificent view of the Gulf of Castellanmare. So
while we enjoy our lunch this would be a good time to take a break from our
adventure. See you back at the plane in Part
2 when we return to the skies to complete our travels of Italy.
“Arrivederci
il mio amico.” –
Good-bye my friend.
CREDITS & REFERENCE
LINKS
Once again, without the
unselfish and tireless efforts of many aircraft and scenery developers this
trip would not have been as dynamic and as realistic as it was. To all those
very talented people listed below and to the thousands of others that daily
contribute their efforts to sites such as FlightSim.Com and Avsim.com for our
enjoyment I can only say is - Thank You!
AIRCRAFT MODEL:
·
Beechcraft D18S by
Milton Shupe, Scott Thomas & Andre Folker, is
available at various sim sites. At FlightSim.Com see
files:
D18SVC2.ZIP for the FS2002 version or
D18SVC4.ZIP for the FS2004 version
·
Also highly
recommended is Milton Shupe’s website for additional files or suggestions regarding
this aircraft at FlightSimOnline @ http://www.flightsimonline.com/
·
Mercator livery
design, aircraft repaint, and panel modifications by the author.
SOUNDS:
·
See
Shupe website for recommendation.
AIRPORT SCENERY:
·
See http://walhalla.mine.nu/fs2004.php
and http://walhalla.mine.nu/fs2002.php
for airport scenery links for all the airports in this story;
or just search the
FlightSim.Com file library
·
For alternative
payware scenery for some Italian airports used in this story
(e.g., Florence) see
here
MESH SCENERY:
·
70m Global Terrain
Mesh - converted & compiled by Stephen Rothlisberger available at here
ITALY TERMINAL CHARTS:
·
http://usa-w.vatsim.net/charts/#Europe
WHERE TO STAY- EAT & THINGS TO SEE & DO IN ITALY:
·
Too
numerous to list - consult your local travel agent!
PREVIOUS FLIGHTSIM.COM
FEATURE ARTICLES BY THE AUTHOR:
·
Flying the
IL-76TD
·
Atlantic Canada in a YS-11
·
A Tale of a
Whale
·
A Long Haul
in a Hercules (Part 1)
·
A Long Haul
in a Hercules (Part 2)
·
Around Thailand in a DC-6
Postscript
If you enjoyed the article or
have comments please let me hear from you. I always look forward to your
feedback.
Joe Thompson
joe308@zianet.com
ceo@flymercator.com
After
a flight of 36 minutes we blocked in on the 