December 2010 - Pacific Islands

Wednesday November 3rd, 2010: I was aware of voices and lights. It was far too early for any commotion so I rolled over and pulled the blankets up over my head and stretching my prone form to match that chalk outline drawn at the scene of a shooting - I just wanted a bit more sleep. I tried to think if I had any flights to do today but I couldn't come up with ... "WAIT A MINUTE! THE FLIGHT OF THE MONTH!"

I sat up and looked around. Where was I? This certainly wasn't any of my normal hotel rooms! It looked more like ... like a hospital. (pict1) I remembered one of Bill's old PIREPs where he was in hospital (pict2) - but this was real. I staggered to my feet. Whew, weak legs! I staggered over to a sink and began washing the sleep from my eyes. The water gradually grew warm - my mind gradually cleared. Soon a nurse came and encouraged me to return to my bed. "No, no!" I insisted, "I'm getting out of here."

"By the way Miss ... where is here?" "Southern Ecuador."

The last thing I clearly remembered was landing the DC-3 (YV-500C) into Bogota after the October FOTM. I really wasn't clear how I ended up here or why. (Next month you'll know.) What I wanted to do now was to get back home! I caught a commuter up to Quito, and from there worked my way back to Oregon.

While I was at home recovering for the month it occurred to me that most of Tony's repaints for TooMuchFS were for FS2002 (sure, some FS2004 versions too) and most of those don't work with FSX and few of them match our current website themes. Obviously I'm no artist or creative type like Tony but I've spent November finalizing some new "FS Flight Club International" repaints.

On Monday November 30th Tim invited us to Hawaii and the Marshall Islands so I set off at 07:45 AM to gather the troups. Some details about that adventure follow below:
Monday 07:45 - I flew a Cessna 404 to Redmond Oregon to pick up Tony. (pict3) (pict4) We departed Redmond at 09:00 and flew a 737-200 to Winnepeg to pick up Brad. (pict5) (pict6) We departed at 14:00 and flew a CRJ-900 to Ocean City Municipal (KOXB) in Maryland to fetch Tim. (pict7) At this point it was 18:15, dark and we were ready to overnight.
Tuesday at dawn the four of us set out in an A300 to Valencia to get Alejandro. The A300 really is too big for this airport but we were light on load so by using all of the 4,000+ feet we were airborne again and on our way. Our route took us over Haiti and the Dominican Republic. (pict8) We arrived to Valencia just after noon (pict9)- just in time to grab some lunch, load Alejandro's things and head off in the DC-3. (pict10) Now, this isn't officially in Flight Club colors but it's darn close and matches the "fly anywhere" theme we have going on. It's just under 2,000 miles from northern Venezuela to Brad's old haunts in southern Peru, just barely within the Dakota's range. (pict11) Silly me, I thought everyone would enjoy the historic trip but by sundown the natives were really pretty restless and that's even with the five of us taking turns at the controls!
We finally arrived into Arequipa at 23:20 local time (we barely had any vapors in the tanks) and were all able to bed down, quite comfortably, at one of Brad's former churches.
Wednesday, December 1st, 13:00 - After a good night's rest and a slow-to-start morning we all loaded into a Flight Club A-318 and headed for Recife, Brazil. (pict12) (pict13) We arrived at 8:30 PM and met Joao for a nice dinner in the city. About 22:30 we went back to the airport and loaded up into the Flight Club's 787 for the overnight trip to London. On board now were: Ron Tony Brad Tim Alejandro Joao Next up was Alastair.

Dawn came near Funchal (pict14) Weather in London wasn't great, cold, windy, snowy ... I heard that Gatwick was closed? (pict15) We shut down just before 10 AM on Thursday December 2nd. Alastair and his things were quickly added to everyone else's stuff and we boarded the Flight Club's ATR-72 for the hop over to Hans'. Departure was about 10:45 AM. (pict16) The flight was a little bumpy but we arrived safely into Hannover at 13:00 local time. (pict17) We loaded Hans and his stuff into a DC-8 stretch and departed again at 13:40, heading east towards Mumbai. (pict18) We had already stopped off in Arequipa which was the starting base of operations for Flight Club's former Virtual Airline so I figured, why not break up this long leg with a stop in the other main base of operations? Sunset Thursday night came while we were over Turkey (pict19) and our arrival to Mumbai was at 1AM!

The brief debate was whether we should stay overnight or continue on. Considering that we had several accomplished sim pilots on board and that our next accomodations were as plush as a fine hotel we decided to take turns flying and sleeping all the way to meet Bill in Perth. By 2 AM local Mumbai time Friday we had "Flounder One" cleared for take-off! Dawn camw for us over Sri Lanka and we had a very smooth flight all the way to the west coast of Oz. (pict20) (pict21) We arrived and shut down by 14:25 local time Friday. We met Bill and had some dinner along the Swan River. Saturday Tim and I don't fly but a couple of the others took the Caravan down to get Peter. (pict22)

We all loaded into the Flight Club A330 at 7:30 AM Sunday and by 7:45 we were cleared and taxiing. (pict23) Our route was almost due north and we arrived into Guam at 17:20 local time Sunday. (pict24) From here, everyone was on their own for the FOTM. There had been discussions about flying some old classics on this FOTM although Tim had recommended a 737-800.

Monday, December 6th, 07:45 - I set out in the Bristol Britannia with cruise set at 6,000 feet. (pict25) It was 551 miles to Truk which took a couple hours with arrival at 10:15. (pict26) Next up was the Flight Club's DC-4 and a 380-mile trip to Pohnepei. Another 90 minutes of water. (pict27) (pict28) I loaded the DC-7 next for the 576-mile trip to Kwajelein, another 3 hours of ... WATER. (pict29) I was enjoying the old planes and the livery but there frankly wasnt much to see out the windows. Just water! (pict30) It was getting pretty late, 16:15, so I stayed overnight. The hosts were nice and certainly happy for a visitor but really, there was nothing here. 1- How did people get here? 2- Why do people live here? 3- Why are there airports here? (sure, the whole war thing and needing runway launch points but .... really, why?) There is so much water on this FOTM that for the next 233-mile leg I flew the Boeing Clipper to Majaro. (pict31) Another hour and a half down the tubes. (pict32) Finally I got into something bigger (and nicer) for the flight to Hawaii. (pict33) The 757 arrived afte dark at 19:20 local time. So, the FOTM was 5 legs over two days and about 12,000 miles of water. (or so it seemed)