bosspecops
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Could you not have replayed a few minutes and grabbed screenshots that way?
I don't know how do that I'm afraid, any and all hints would be gratefully received.
Getting to Fiji y'day wasn't just a matter of taking off, pointing Aries vaguely north east waiting for some land to show up. I made a fundamental mistake in leaving it too late in the day before taking off, and heading easterly meant it got darker faster, with the result that I landed around 8 pm at night, and it's REALLY dark out here too. That plus the massive thunderstorm over the 2nd half of the flight meant poor Aries was flung all over the sky, thank goodness for good autopilots, is what I say.
I tanked her up fully before take-off, just in case, even though the leg was 'only' 1160 nms, and here I am on the ramp at RNZAF Whenuapai NZWP along with some very strange looking aircraft, but they can't be all bad as they have two fins as well.
Taxiing out to the now closed 24 runway wasn't too difficult, and opening up the four Merlins soon had me up to 75 kts with the Lancaster's tail well up.
With a heavy fuel load Aries lifted off at around 120 kts and I was soon climbing up and away, but I expect I'll be back at Whenuapai later on in the flight schedule.
Turning more to the north east and heading directly for Fiji meant I was soon clear of New Zealand's North Island and feet wet.
Before much longer it was everything wet too as it started raining heavily at my 6000ft cruise altitude, and it continued pretty much for the entire flight!
I did consider climbing above it, but as Aries was handling OK, and the nav system was working as designed I carried on. Sunset was really quite impressive and I took maybe 5-6 screenies before deciding to keep this one. You can only JUST see Aries below the horizon!
As it got darker the weather got worse and worse, and Aries was being flung about quite strongly in the gusts, climbing and diving almost 500 ft on some excursions too! As I mentioned earlier, the lightning was coming thick and fast, lighting up the fuselage, but I never managed to capture one on screen, darn it.
After quite a while Fiji itself came into sight, but very darkly of course. This screenie has been brightened quite a bit just so you can see the aircraft!
The approach to Nadi NFFN was pretty straightforward and I was headed for their longest runway luckily as just SEEING it from that far out wasn't easy. They had a good ILS which I was able to home onto and I came in low enough to capture the glide path and come in on instruments until it did become visual. Again this screenie has been brightened, not that you'd notice much!
Amazingly, more by luck than good flying I came in almost on the numbers, but as the runway is over 10000 ft long I had MILES to taxi to the terminal at the far end!
Finally arriving on the ramp alongside some swish looking prop-less aircraft was a nice relief at last. On the return leg I'll make sure I can do the whole flight in daylight!
Overall I averaged 171 kts and burnt 2245 gals of fuel, and it took 6 hrs and 46 mins, but I saw NO scenery at all as 99.9% of the flight was over water.