I have been blessed to be a part of this group for the past ten years. I have been blessed that health and jobs and schedules have allowed me to contribute some kind of report for each of the past 120 months. AMAZING! However ...
This is not to say that I have always made an accurate representation of the Feature Flights Presented. Sure, life crops up sometimes and just gets in the way but in this case I just did a poor job on the flights offered. This month I have the opportunity to correct my wrong.
Some of the flights that Salina mentioned for the April 2004 El Euro LoCo FOTM were scheduled to occur during hours of darkness. Since dark is never really good for screenshots I just sort of made up my own time schedule and flew whenever I felt like it. This time ... by the numbers!
There is another reason for choosing this FOTM; this year I have set about to fly mainly (if not exclusively) the EMB-190 and I wanted to end up near where I started out, in Bergamo, Italy (during the Ryanair flights from Marco Roth in December 2011). Salina's flights are quite similar to Marco's and occur in the same neighborhood so this should be a great final flight for 2012.
Flight Planning:
Salina suggested that on day one we start out from Frankfurt-Hahn and fly to Venice, Italy. ( Arriving to Frankfurt from Northern Germany was easy in a Dash-8! (pict1) ) The first problem to address is that many of these airlines (and most of the routes) no longer exist. Okay by me as I wanted to fly the Embraers anyway - but I'll still use Salina's timetable and real-world weather!
DAY1
"You will be leaving Hahn at 14:45 ... towards Venice in Italy ... If all goes well, you should be on the ground in that beautiful city by 15:45. ... where Ryanair FR797 awaits you for a departure at 17:25. ... expected to land in Stanstead at 18:30 local time and that concludes your flying for the day."
Okay, I arrived from northern Germany about 13:00 which gave me just over an hour to prep for departure in my Thomas Cook E190LR. Push-back was at 14:45, start-up, request IFR departure, taxi, await for AI traffic ... it was 14:53 when I rotated off the runway and turned southeast onto my heading for Venice. The flight was scenic and my arrival into this beautiful airport was not unlike in the 2004 flight with ATC winding my all over northern Italy. I arrived safely and shut down some 20 minutes late.
For the next flight I chose an Alitalia livery. If I thought these flights were dark in April, they are REALLY DARK in December! Arrival to a foggy Stanstead was early with shut-down at 18:22.
DAY2
"At 10.45 you are taking Air Berlin flight AB9292 to the Balearic Islands where you should be arriving at 2 pm. ... at 22.50 [you will] fly north, to Germany's number-one low cost airport Cologne-Bonn ... ending at 01.10 am there ..."
After an overnight and leisurely morning at Stanstead I loaded an Air Catalonia Ejet and pushed back at 10:45. The flight southeast across the whole of France seemed longer than I remembered and there was some notable wind and turbulance coming into La Palma but the landing was easy and I taxied directly to a conveniently-located gate, shutting down at ... 14:09. How the heck am I supposed to arrive on time?
For the next flight which is entirely dark, I flew a Retro Air Catalonia livery.
DAY3
"At 07.15 ... Berlin-Tegel ... for the scheduled service to Frankfurt (the real one) leaving at 16.55 and arriving there at 18.20."
07:15 is just before dawn at this latitude in December but I had a nice moon view. Arrival to Berlin was 08:15.
For Salina's last flight we return to Frankfurt. I used an Augsberg livery for this one. My arrival to the gate at Frankfurt was 18:17 - just about on time at last!
Thanking Salina for the memories - it was fun, again!
DAY4
Finally we are ready to wrap up this FOTM, the year and the decade by returning to Bergamo where Marco Roth had us end in December 2011. There are no direct flights that I could find but being the Club President I can charter anything I want! So I took an updated F.S Flight Club International, EMB-190 and made my own schedule - departing after breakfast and arriving into northern Italy about an hour later.
I am awe-struck by all that has happened the past ten years - I feel that I would be lost without all of you, my Flight Simming Friends from around the world. "THANK YOU" to each and every one.
Here's to looking at ten more years of virtual flight adventures.
