That 15 year old RtW flight

[defaid]

I've recently returned to FS9 after another long hiatus during which I practically lived in Skyrim.

 

I arrived in Mexico city in January 2022 and didn't leave until March this year.

 

In the last six weeks I've flown back to S America via Panama, flown down the Amazon (if only there was better scenery) and south to Natal.

 

I am currently somewhere in Africa, following Ernest K Gann's flight, in Fate is the Hunter, from Natal to Chabua in India. I'll take a commercial flight back and then I've two places to visit in Venezuela before Port of Spain and the Caribbean.

 

This morning I departed Kano illegally while the airport was still IFR and arrived at Al-Fashir in Sudan, on a runway about six inches wide. The nearest metar for Al-Fashir was from Khartoum, about 450 miles away.

 

Concepción volcano in Nicaragua

 

A man, a plan, a canal. Panama

 

En route to Espinar. Can't get away from these

 

Approach to Yauri

 

Not landing there. SPPA

 

Braided water near Fonte Boa

 

I must come back (please, no!) to follow this one day

 

Climbing out of Manaus. A rather dull picture but I caught the lightning

 

Beyond the endless river - departing Natal for new horizons

 

... and arriving at RAF Ascension Island, also rather romantically Wideawake Airfield

 

Eek! See what happens when you break the rules? On the go at Kano, Nigeria

 

 

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

Great fun! 

 

[Macroburst]

Looking great!

[Airbasil_1]

Looks like there are a few mesh issues to fix... allthough, a nice routing keep showing us more of your travels. 

[darrenvox]

sorry for the delay but those are gorgeous..

[Rupert]

Nice series.  Having said that, the only way I'd even attempt a landing at SPPA would be in a well below gross loaded chopper! 

 

Michael

[defaid]

Continuing to tweak the workflow: my PC, monitor & photoshop are set up for weekend photography and my FS screenies look very different when I view them elsewhere. Never mind.

 

Here's Khartoum, short final. Once all the work was done, holding the last cup of coffee of a seven cup day, breathing the cooling air, I sat on the doorstep beneath No.1, looking out over my domain and feeling at peace.

 

Given the situation in Khartoum a month or so ago, I felt it was probably time I moved on. A hazy farewell to the Nile.

 

Over counterpane country in Ethiopia. Some time later, I found dense fog in Somalia.

 

Before crossing the water somewhere between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden I cleared all weather because I really wanted to see all I could of Yemen and specifically Aden. This comes about mostly through reading Alex Kimbell's Think Like a Bird, which vies with Fate is the Hunter for first place in my library, and partly because I was born in the year Britain was finally and messily booted out of South Arabia. Passage to India had ceased to be a concern many years earlier but political egos were firmly attached to their imperial delusions.

 

Approach to Aden. Radios were not working.

 

If Fate is the Hunter or Chickenhawk or Stranger to the Ground held your attention, see if you can find a copy of Think Like a Bird.

 

This morning I left for Salalah under uneventful VFR, except for spending an hour playing very close to the wrinkly ground just inland. Arrival at Salalah was interesting: another 'entertaining' runway. No approach or touchdown screenie -- I had to concentrate:

 

There is a proper runway there too, else my neighbour on the apron wouldn't have been there.

 

 

 

[Rupert]

Very enjoyable series!  Thanks for sharing!!

[defaid]

When did I last post? June? While I'm writing this, I'm a passenger in my own plane while the AP ferries me the last few miles through the early morning back to Brazil so that I can collect the SF.260.

 

The plan had been simply to skip the return flight and claim a commercial seat in a jet but it seemed right to bring the C-130 back with me. I love flying it but as a runaround it's somewhat lacking. It's much more fun on long routes or as a cargo carrier for Air Hauler.

 

The Ernest Gann excursion is done. His trip was made in a specific C-87 which he described as "the original caldron in which all of the sinister essences common to the type were brewed." Serious oil leak. Disintegrated starter. Broken prop governor. Incompetent co-pilot. Jammed nose gear. Dead direction finder. Unpredictable control response. Limited flap travel. Broken cabin door. Scratched windshields. Inexplicable vibration...

 

And on his return journey, unwittingly overladen, coming within a gnat's crotchet of destroying the Taj Mahal.

 

Now I can finish off South America and explore the Caribbean. Natal to Chabua was a long trip, even in the context of a persistent round the world mission.

 

The whole excursion, 16 500 miles.

 

Salalah morning.

 

Get up there.

 

A deviation to visit an ocean of sand: the Rub al Khali.

 

What seems like an eternity ago, the relative cool of Salalah and a bone-dry Rub al Khali (living up to its name as the Empty Quarter) finally gave way to Karachi's sauna.

 

Karachi. Golden light like the brazier in a sauna.

 

"Temperature 31°C, dew-point 7°C, visibility 8000 m" was forecast for the following day's flight across India to Gaya. The temperature was correct but, given the fog that persisted for well over 200 miles, I guessed the dewpoint also to be around 31°C. Looked more like 8000 inches to me. No sightseeing.

 

No sightseeing en route to Gaya.

 

10 miles to Gaya - an interesting approach.

 

Took off in mist... landed in twilight fog with no navaids... actually found the runway and managed to stop on it despite landing long to the tune of 3/4 the length. I reached the ground at just above stall speed with no cargo and minimal fuel. Full reverse & full brakes had me stopped within about 6 inches. It was ok: stopways are for stopping on aren't they? I mean, it's in the name.

 

The next five days' metars had visibility <2500 m everywhere in Assam. I picked a random date from the spring and loaded that one. Visibility 1800... It would have been ok as there's ILS at VEMN but I wanted a look at Assam as I flew up the Brahmaputra so I gave up and made my own static theme, reserving the right to modify it en route.

 

The Brahmaputra, lifeblood of the finest leaves known to man.

 

I dumped EKG's Chabua in favour of the neighbouring Dibrugarh (VEMN) five miles from the river and five miles from Chabua proper, as Chabua is an Indian Air Force base (and there's more traffic in Dibrugarh).

 

Seven mile final to Dibrugarh. Chabua AB on the right.

 

VEMN Dibrugarh.

 

I spent a day just being there: it would have been a crime to rush through what's arguably the cradle of civilisation. The following morning, after a final pot, I bade farewell to Assam for the Himalaya, the Middle-East, the Caspian, Turkey, the Med, North Africa and the Atlantic.

 

Farewell to Assam.

 

8000 miles and more, well over the normal range. Good thing there's all that space in the back for the extra plumbing. For all the hazards that ferry flights present, once darkness arrived I had no problem in falling asleep while the plane took care of itself.

 

Tibetan waters. Yarlung Tsangpo - the Brahmaputra by another name.

 

Nanga Parbat. Somewhere just behind it is a place called the Fairy Meadow.

 

Exploration of the Himalaya is scheduled for when the proper RtW flight reaches that region, possibly next year, possibly in 2054 but I was pleased to find clear weather for so many miles of rubber-necking. The vast expanse of Tibet, the headwaters of the Brahmaputra and a close fly-by of Nanga Parbat were highlights. And finally getting back to Belém, whence the RtW can start again.

 

This, and a pot of tea, is all I ask.
From Wikipedia, the appropriately named Brahmaputra_River_Homeward_bound.jpg

[defaid]

Belém to Rochambeau

 

SOCA was renamed as Félix Éboué in 2012 but I'm sticking with the original in memory of Robert Smith's win over Stan Cartman.

This was my first flight with FSRealWX. It started well enough, though actually getting it to inject the weather was a bit of a poke-it-until-it-does-something task. Departure was great and the first part of the flight, just above a broken cloudbase at 4000, was lovely.

 

Back in the little runaround.

Farewell to Belém, hauling it around with the stall warning bleating.

 

After a while, it stopped updating FS9 and left me with CAVOK. I returned to FS Metar's 2011 archive.

 

... everything became much less scenic.

 

I'd hoped for a VFR flight, filed a plan on the fly with Belém Centre and prayed for a patch of blue. 70 miles from Rochambeau, and a couple short of my last waypoint, Oiapoque, MS's native controller, with the usual absence of intelligence, turned me onto an intercept that was designed to give me a 70 mile final, which would have made vector plus approach 169 miles, adding 100 miles to my journey.

 

I restarted FSRealWX, in the hope that the murk would disperse. It grew some holes so I cancelled the flightplan and continued semi-legally, imagining I was on my way to meet... well, perhaps best not to say.

 

The realistic five mile final down the localiser should have been a breeze but the addon SOCA dropped my framerate to around 15 fps, making the well balanced and sweetly responsive SF.260 as outrageously sluggish as an overloaded C-87 on course to taking the top off an Indian palace.

 

SOCA Rochambeau. See if you can spot the runway. Another illegal landing.

 

A CTD just as I exited the runway was followed by a hasty reconstruction and an artificial entry in the log. The ghost of that C-87 must have followed me. Having put another flight between me and it, I parked and gave thanks.

[defaid]

Rochambeau to Orinduik.

 

60 min for fuel and a short stretch of the legs and away again, to SMJP.

 

I tried FSRWX again as the current weather was fair in Rochambeau.

 

I was not at all sorry to be leaving SOCA. Beautifully detailed airport buildings but a phenomenal drag on the fps.

 

Worst and best framerates ever.

10 fps facing the buildings. Compare with 2048 over the ocean, in green.

 

Nothing whatsoever to report, except that flat, green Suriname put me in mind of Kansas...

 

The pattern went by at 500 feet and 3 levers to the stops because I realised very late in the flight that I don't have to be conservative when I have only 170 miles to fly on tanks full of free fuel.

 

Right downwind.

 

A miserable start the following morning did not preclude being cleared to depart under VFR. In fairness there were some holes but on the apron it was a flat grey overhead.

 

A VFR departure in seven eighths and rain showers.

 

I graced SYCJ with a touch & go even though the airport was not open to me. To hell with 'em. My world, my rules. I could see the runway. Maybe approach's blinds were still closed.

 

Somewhere inland I burst out of the cloud like a cork from a bottle while thinking FSRealWX had gone CAVOK again but, not long afterwards, I flew back into it. Checking against satellite images, it was pretty accurate.

 

Eumetsat's view of Suriname and Guyana around 2000Z

 

As it turned out, the absence of a runway (and of anything else) at SYOR was a blessing. After a very poor semi-procedure turn counting seconds in my head while worrying about terrain, I was thrown again by the peculiar mag var. Runway 21 should be on 209.7° mag and 196° true but it's actually on 196° mag despite what FS9's own map and ADE both say. I turned onto 210, not correcting until I saw the field over on my left. I landed from corner to diagonally opposite corner. I am too embarassed to post any pictures...

 

[defaid]

Orinduik to Kamarang.

 

I was planning to look at Conan Doyle's Lost World when I recalled a huge FS Global 08 mesh anomaly from many years ago and then remembered that I had old screenshots stashed on an external drive so I had the lat & lon. I decided to pay the obelisk a visit at the same time. FSRealWX again -- I was getting to like it -- and for this flight it cooperated: very conveniently turning CAVOK again and allowing me to fly out of the clag into blinding sunshine.

 

An uncontrolled departure from SYOR into cloud with plenty of blue started a quick foray over to La Divina Pastora, mainly for the name, whence an interesting reciprocal take off sent me on my way to Roraima. Run up on the brakes and 20° flaps dropped just before rotating. Bah! You feeble fellows with your cross-apron departures. You think that puts hair on your chests? This parts it down the middle.

 

La Divina Pastora - quite infernal.

 

I've attempted worse.

 

Back on track and heading for the Lost World, thinking how disappointing it looked with no massive prow, no towering cliffs, no waterfalls so high they're mist before they reach the bottom, no dinosaurs -- when, as if by magic, the anomaly appeared.

 

The anomaly. Should it have a capital 'A'?

 

Those gentle hills are all that exists in FS9 of Roraima. In fairness, I don't know exactly where McInnes et al. climbed. It could have been on the north side where I did find some rock.

17 500 feet of it...

 

The anomaly changes size and shape as you approach it, developing extra spikes. It must be caused by some interaction between water and mesh at different LODs.

 

Tight squeeze.

 

The summits at 17500 feet but, as above, it's taller from a distance.

 

I decided that I would skip Kamarang. There's nothing there except grass and a large obstacle.

 

At that moment something happened that has only happened three times in the last decade and only in the last four flights. FS9 locked up. So recent additions were all uninstalled and I'm going back to simming offline. I didn't want to redo the whole flight so elected to visit SYKM after all. If only I could work out how to get FSRealWX functional offline.

 

One more stop then I'll be at Port of Spain where I can say a final farewell to South America, on which continent I first made RtW landfall back in April 2010.

[defaid]

Kamarang to Piarco.

 

... was a beautiful flight bobbing around among the clouds, with a growing sense of release.

 

The last flight on the continent. departing SYKM.

 

The entire South American section has been based on visiting airports I've modified for traffic and downloaded addons. Well, I just wanted to get over the coast so did only a touch & go at SVPR.

 

Entering R downwind at SVPR.

 

I made a small deviation at Port of Spain, to have a look at the port itself, another Roger Wensley addon in collaboration with Jim Turner.

 

 

Port of Spain port.

 

Clearance to land at Piarco was given prematurely. "Follow the Cessna on base" necessitated a 360 to give it time.

 

"Follow the Cessna". Starting an impromptu hold.

 

Short final #1.

 

Reestablished and over the threshold within touching distance of the tarmac and I heard "Siai Marchetti ENU go around".

 

'bout bleedin' time.

Shouldn't that be "... onto the runway"?

 

This version of Piarco was another framerate killer. A perfect landing (by my standards) and brakeless rollout was followed, on exiting the runway, by a CTD. Excatly as happened at Rochambeau, the other Delblond Christian addon. That sort of thing is so disappointing.

 

Still, I got some good shots of Port of Spain and reflew the flight at 16× for an accurate log entry and fuel consumption, and confirmed it's the airport scenery objects (probably the billion trillion polygons) that cause the problem.

 

Yeah? Just try it. Lucky for you I'm in a good mood pal.

 

Now, fourteen years on, I've finally left South America.