Floundering Around Part 8: "Boeing 767"

By Ron Blehm (26 October 2006)

Background: If you've been following this series you'll know why I'm known by a "fishy-sounding" name. My goal in writing this column is the hope that we can present pilots with a unique FS challenge every month or so. This feature could take you anywhere; from rugged mountain flying in Alaska to flying big heavies in SE Asia, from commuter hops across Europe to amphibians around the Caribbean - one just never knows what we'll come across!

History: Our little Flight Club also hosts a virtual airline, Flight Club International Airways (www.toomuchfs.com) and one of the flight options for mid-level pilots takes you from Rio, Brazil to Johannesburg, South Africa. Since our last two features where in South America and "Feature 9" will be somewhere on the African continent, I figured I'd give you the chance to fly something a little heavier this time - connecting the three features together.

Routing: First of all, go back into the archives of Feature Articles here on www.flightsim.com and search for "Golden Argosy" and/or "Golden Hawaii" by Tony Vallillo, a real-world 767 captain. Enjoy the fascinating reads and then, load up a real world or favorite 767 and set in a high altitude air-route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Cape Town (NOT Jo-burg!), South Africa. As you all probably know, add-ons can really enhance your FS experience and you'll find several at...FlightSim.Com. For this flight I thought you may especially have some fun with these files:

• rio_v5.zip
• riodjav5.zip
• capetown.zip
• sacities.zip
• worx14.zip

Timelines: This time I decided to fly a Varig livery so I downloaded one of the many-available 767s from FlightSim.Com (photo above, left). If you depart Rio just before "dawn" in the early morning hours (photo above, right), you should have a full day of flying (image below, left) and still be able to arrive over "Shark Bay" before dark (image below, right), especially over the next few months. Having not flown this particular aircraft before I loaded full fuel but noticed that enroute my consumption was higher than other models I have (and higher than Tony's article reported as well).

The route I had was just a touch over 3,600 miles and the specs for this aircraft are as follows: 767-200 - Max cruising speed 914 km/h (493 kt), economical cruising speed 854 km/h (461 kt). Range of basic aircraft with JT9Ds 5855 km (3160 nm), medium range version with CF6s 7135 km (3850 nm). (Somewhere around "the middle of nowhere" I was getting pretty worried - not like there are plenty of alternates lying around!)

Regardless of the paperwork (images above), I landed with just under 500 pounds of fuel remaining between the three tanks. (Guess I should have flown the -ER version!) This flight was, however, better then one of my more recent attempts which you can review at www.putfile.com/pretendpilot and then look for files regarding "Flight 551" (excuse the shameless promotion but I really am proud of this little 5-minute video). I hope that your experience is better - (image, right) and if it is, you'll have about 6-7 hours to get some yardwork done while the flight cruises happily along.

Ron Blehm
pretendpilot@yahoo.com