02 July 2008

June 2008 -Seychelles Shuttle



First things first this month! From Key West I made my way to Portland, Oregon as noted on the following videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiBqXK4pG20
Saturday May 31st we were sitting out on the front porch having dinner and I heard a "different" deep rumble coming from the sky. Not our usual fair of MD-90s or 737s or Dash-8s, this was BIGGER. Taking my son by the hand we strolled down the steps and looked up to the underbelly of a 747-300 cargo plane on downwind for 28L at KPDX. It occurred to me then that I hadn't flown the 747 in a really long time.
This realization came just hours before my June assignment in Seychelles which, if you look at longitudinal lines, is exactly half a world away from KPDX! I got the basic location for this FOTM at midnight-zero-eight on June 1st. By 07:35 I was taxiing a United airlines 747-400, in real-weather, out to 28L for departure, non-stop, to Hong Kong. This meant leaving the computer on all day!
Somewhere around lunch time I was descending over the hills and islands around Hong Kong, setting up my radios for the famous checkerboard approach into Kai Tak, this was actually about 11:35 AM June 2 local sim time. While this was certainly not my BEST checkerboard landing considering it's been a very long time since I've flown into here and that I can't remember when I last flew a 747, I was happy enough with the smooth (off-center) slight cross-wind landing.
Late afternoon on Monday June 2, I took Flight Club Virtual Airways Flight 176 Hong Kong to Mumbai, India, arriving at sunset.
One little aside note about this flight: For the April FOTM I tried to take a 737-400 2,500 miles but had to stop about 300 miles short of my destination for fuel. This flight was just under 2,500 miles and the 737-500 (with smaller fuselage) should be a bit more efficient ... so I tried. From about half-way along I knew it would be "too close" but I stretched it out starting descent at 100 fpm from about 500 miles out! I ran out of gas during rollout with the engines stopping in reverse mode ! I just rolled out to the threshold and called for a tug.
Having survived Kai Tak and the harrowing landing at Mumbai, I took the 10AM Flight Club Virtual Airways Flight 136 Mumbai to Male - this time in a 737-200 . I did not take Peter's offer for download as this was little more than a "scenic stop-over" for me.
I loaded the Air Maldives Twotter on floats and took a quick interisland tour . Later that afternoon I took a Kenya Airways DC-9 down to Victoria, Seychelles for the real FOTM .
With the scenery add-ons downloaded and installed I set about to pick some planes for this month's tour - my goal here was just that, to "tour" the area . Here's what I came up with:
Britton-Norman Islander: Seychelles > Bird Island > Denis Island > Praslin
Cessna 404: Fregate > Coetivy > NDB down south in the middle of nowhere > Platte > Eagle Island > Darros
Socata TB-21: Desroches > Marie-Louise > Alphonse > Farquhar > Andrakaka Navy on Madagascar
Shorts 360 "Swahili Air":
Assumption Island > Prince Said Ibrahim on Moroni Island > Comoros > Mafia Island > Zanzibar, Tanzania. Now for the "story": Just after my GPS turn over Mafia I lost all power to my panel. I'm not sure if I didn't start something correctly at Moroni or if it was one of those random failure things but I lost it all! No GPS, no radios, no lights, no flaps, no gear, no autopilot, no nothin' ... but I could see my backup altimeter and my centerpost compass so I hand flew (and timed) the last few hundred miles (that's just over an hour at 135 knots - which is what I WAS doing ...) into Zanzibar arriving after sunset. Descent was fine, weather was good, I found the runway and glided down very peacefully, GENTLY setting her down on her flat belly (the wheels do stick out just a bit!) about half-way down the runway - ON the centerline I might add! Killed the engines and let the sparks fly ... but no sparks or flames on replay so you'll have no real proof of this.
After the paperwork and investigation was completed (after about two days) I was able to catch an Air Tanzania 737-200 BACK to Seychelles for more shuttle work around the islands, opting for the Cessna 404 as my aircraft of choice for the month. Basically what I did, as time in the real-world allowed, was to take the "Titan" out for a short little hop around these scenic islands. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1LNiH25LkY

All-too-soon the month was over and I wasn't done flying yet! As of this writing, I have been unable to get a video slide-show put together - so I will have to sit on several dozen photos, for the time being. Now the orders were coming in to head off to Brazil, so I loaded up a BRAND NEW A-330 and headed off into the setting sun ...

Cub Flounder

Posted by Flounder at 13:57