From December to January I had left off, after an engine failure on my DC-8, in Gran Canaria for the Christmas Holiday. Shortly after my arrival I heard that I should start doing some research on http://www.flyingthehump.net/ and http://www.palletmastersworkshop.com/hump.html This World War 2 theatre was based out of the Assam Valley in far northeastern India and kept supply routes open between the Chinese and the Allies after Japan captured and controlled the Burma Road.
So it was that I set out on the morning of 26-Dec-07 for Athens aboard a shiny new Binter Canarias A-310. Very early the next morning I took an Air Mumbai 757 to Mumbai 
and on the 28th flew a final leg aboard an Air Mumbai 737-800 in to Dhakuakhana in the heart of the scenic Assam Valley 
(famous for it's tea plantations). (You can see the video of my commute from the Canaries at:
and on the 28th flew a final leg aboard an Air Mumbai 737-800 in to Dhakuakhana in the heart of the scenic Assam Valley (famous for it's tea plantations). (You can see the video of my commute from the Canaries at: Then I had two days to fully explore this area before setting out on the assignment for the month.
Some History before I fly: One of our founding members, Tony, belonged to a virtual flying club before joining us - just a year or so before this group started in 2003 "The Flying Rogue Brothers" had disbanded. Named for the Rogue River in central/southern Oregon the group had flow together and hosted the famous "Friday Night Flights" for some time. Tony had done work on their logo and designs, repainting many aircraft from back in the FS98 - FS2k days. To think back now (from FSX) to FS98 is much like thinking back from 2008 to 1942 when the last shipments were made over the Burma Road. There aren't too many pilots or aircraft from that day...and there aren't many who remember Rogue Air in FS98. As Alastair has taken us back in real history, I'd like to take us back in virtual history for one of the last flights we may ever see of an old Rogue Air FS model, the CV580. (Hey Tony, any Rogue Air DC-6s out there?)
The FOTM Feature: Having loaded Alastair's FS9 flightplan into my handheld GPS I found myself wondering why "The Hump" was flown in this great northern arc when simply heading out about ... 110* for 440 miles would do the same thing? Well, we'll have to see. I fired up the motors on the old CV580, downloaded read-world weather and tuned in the local VOR, setting the OBS to 009* and putting the little GPS device back into my insulated coat pocket. With research papers stowed and my co-pilot Benjamin strapped in we headed out on runway 5. We used up every last meter of runway getting into the air and I then flew a great climbing arch to the south since visibility was less than 10 miles - I wanted to get up out of the soup and give Benjamin a quick VOR lesson before letting him take over. Once through about 6,000 feet we were above the haze and my co-pilot took over with directions to 1- not hit any mountains and 2- do whatever you want "just so long as the middle of the arrow stays within three dots of the center." We settled in at about 12,000 feet until Ben wanted to check out a river valley below, then we were off to see this hill or that mountain. 
"Hey! Where's all the snow?"
"Hey! Where's all the snow?"As Benjamin cruised us along I read from several sources where pilots talked about heading eastward from the Assam Valley and flying some 550-600 miles. So, it appears SOME of them did take a more direct route! "Flying eastward out of the valley, we'd first top over the Patkai Range, then we passed over the upper Chindwin River valley, bounded on the east by a 14,000-foot range, the Kumon Mountains. From there we were over 'no-man's land' a series of 14-16,000-foot high ridges seperated by the valleys of the West Irrawaddy, East Irrawaddy, Salween and Mekong Rivers. 'The Hump' referanced specifically the Santsung Range which is between the Salween and Mekong Rivers."
"Dada? What happens when the arrow goes away?" I looked from my reading to the panel, there was no VOR to be seen! I pulled out my GPS and found that we had flown some 50 miles past the first waypoint. I retuned the VOR, turned the OBS and headed us roughly 110*. Ben now had us around 18,500 feet - no wonder I was feeling whoozy!
"The success of the Hump operation specifically was shown on 01-August-45 when on that one day planes flew 1,118 round trips over the mountains - that's 5,327 tons! A plane crossed The Hump every minute and twelve seconds; a ton of material was landed at China bases four times a minute and there was not one single incident or accident. Just the month before, in July, aircrews had delivered 71,000 tons of cargo." VOR now insight and we were back on course! "In all, nearly 1,000 men and over 700 planes were lost during the course of flying operations in this region. Yet, this was the first time an air-transport wing was fully utilized and the value of air-transport became apparent to all. the lessons learned in flying The Hump were later successfully implemented during The Berlin Airlift." (A past FOTM from April 2003!)
Finally we were setting up for landing into Kunming - a bit low-and-slow on approach due to the high altitude here but no worries and a smooooooth landing. Three hours later we were ready to head back into India, this time via the more direct route!
It was another scenic flight, I actually enjoyed this one more with the scenic river valleys below - we were pretty comfortable at 14,000 feet although we did have to pop up to 16,000 a couple of times just to assure clearance over the ridgelines. The Assam Valley was still shrouded in haze but the 20-mile visibility was more than double what it had been that morning.
After successfully completing the flight in the Rogue Air CV580, I loaded up a Bristol Britannia (my own BOAC repaint) and set in some monsoon-like wet and humid weather themes over my (direct) route and flew the full round trip again. 
Alastair, another challenging and VERY EDUCATIONAL Feature this month - as always, "Thank You So Very Much" for the adventures.
Alastair, another challenging and VERY EDUCATIONAL Feature this month - as always, "Thank You So Very Much" for the adventures.Having completed the flight challenge, twice, and feeling pretty confident in my abilities to fly it blind (so long as I have two reliable engines and 16,000 feet) I took the Air Mumbai 738 back to Mumbai and spent the rest of the month flying some business for our Virtual Airline, Flight Club International Airways.
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