Craig’s Cape-to-Cape Voyage of Discovery ‘Due South’

Craig Taylor

Craig Taylor

SOH-CM-2024
Paul and Tom Braniff have a great desire to expand their young air service to new markets (I know, it’s a big leap from Oklahoma and Texas routes to Europe and Africa, but you have to dream big!), and have loaned me one of their brand new DC-3s to show the colors, promote the brand, and assess the aviation facilities along the route. They get a great opportunity for exposure in some major European newspapers while I get some much-needed corporate support for my efforts. The venerable (MAAM-Sim) DC-3 is stable, rugged enough to put up with my abuse for nearly half the circumference of the Earth, and has some long legs when I need them. Rumor has it that another Braniff bird was spotted over in Norway recently. I wonder what else Paul and Tom are up to?

I wanted to try to make it all the way to Stockholm for the first hop, but the mechanics convinced me that we needed a stopover at Umea so they could check the ship over for the effects of cold weather operations. We won't need to take on fuel, but at least we'll stretch our legs.

Edit: Experienced some wonky behavior with the throttles and aborted the take-off. Not sure how that's going to appear with the Duenna. Hopefully no crashes registered (at least they didn't in FSX). The Duenna is reporting "yellow" for Wx. Am using ActiveSky 2012 for weather, and it seems to be operating correctly in the sim, but shows as "User-defined Weather." I followed the AS2012 user documentation properly, but I'm open to suggestions if I'm doing it wrong. Anywho, I'm off again.
 
Well (he said disgustedly), looks like I caught the dreaded "Overspeed" bug, too. I was probably only about 100 miles from my distinatin, to boot. Ran into 50-kt headwinds and didn't factor that in when I decided to descend to look for clearer air. Overstressed the airframe in about 10 seconds. I thought the DC-3 was more rugged than the Avanti, but maybe not. :mixedsmi:

We'll try this again tomorrow.

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Craig, don't worry about the "Yellow" warning on the Duenna for your Active Sky weather. That is normal.
--M
 
Thanks, Mike.

I hope the Scandanavian weather gods are kinder to me today. :icon_lol:

I will definitely be a lot more careful from now on, being reminded that WHEN KTAS + wind component > Vne THEN :pop4:.
 
Have a good flight Craig :salute:.. A little pirep for you.. The WX sucks again! I stayed low at first, tested higher @ 9K then right back down to 2000! YUK!

Roman
 
My first successful leg is in the books, culminating in a stopover at Umea so the wrench-turners can look the ship over and pronounce her ready to go on to Stockholm tomorrow. The Braniff brothers were none too pleased after what happened yesterday and have insisted that I take some company mechanics the rest of the way to keep an eye on things (i.e., me). After the valuable lessons I learned yesterday, I'm pretty sure they won't have a problem (knock on wood paneling).

Real-life got in the way of this flight, so the duenna file includes about 91 minutes and 55 seconds of <pause>. Based on that, I'm left with 152:22 of flight time.

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Edit: I figured out the <pause> time and flight time, and entered it above.
 
After posting guards on the ship to make sure no one siphons any precious fuel for their snowmobiles (or whatever passes for ground transportation up here), we make ready to push on to Bromma. The Braniff wrench-turners have pronounced that she's airworthy, so let's get those props crankin'!
 
The crew was decidedly happy when we made Stockholm-Bromma in reasonably good shape, flying straight down the Gulf of Bothnia. The weather was much better than when we left the Cape. Apparently there was still some skepticism amongst the Braniff bunch about my piloting and navigation, especially when this leg was to be over water most of the trip. We hit all our marks pretty well, though, so everyone is pretty upbeat about the next hop over the Baltic.

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jt_dub said:
Great pics of that foggy dawn launch. Very atmospheric.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Jeff. I'm really pleased with the way Active Sky 2012 works with FSX.

I also purchased the Scenery Tech landclass for Africa. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works together when I get down there.

Now it's off to Poznan, in Poland. Hopefully it's a quiet hop.
 
We made Poznan with little trouble, although I have to say the Polish didn't make it easy - no VASI/PAPI lights to guide on, and visibility was only about 2-3 miles! Fortunately there were two very handy NDBs to line up with, so I was at least pointed in the general direction when the runway appeared out of the haze.

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Easy flight across the Baltic
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East Prussia in sight
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Visibility could be better
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Finally...
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Landed a little long, but plenty of runway left...
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After a much-needed rest, the crew is itching to head further south. It's off to Balzano and sunny Italy, hand-flying it over the Alps.

Update: Overstressed the aircraft coming down from the mountains, within sight of LIPB. His cry of anguish echoed off the Alps. :173go1:
 
As Julie Andrews might sing, "The hills are alive with the sound of ... anguish."

Ouch.
 
MM said:
As Julie Andrews might sing, "The hills are alive with the sound of ... anguish."

Ouch.
Click to expand...

Yes, airplane parts were spread all "Ober Salzburg!"

Oh, well. The fun is learning to fly a new plane. Meanwhile, I am re-approaching Prague in my re-run of this leg.
 
We made it to LIPB on the second try (these "dress rehearsals are getting expensive). It was a little more exciting in the Alps due to some unanticipated cloud cover, but Bolzano was clear. Hand flown bonus, but with a crash penalty. If I figure it correctly, I should get 2hrs for LIPB, plus 15 min. for hand-flying in from EPPO (to be offset by the 3-hr crash penalty).

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I have more time in Dc-3's than the total time in everything else I've ever flown combined ... probably times 3.

It's good to see the Gooney Bird out and about ... like the Braniff uniform she's wearing.




Good Luck on your Venture South Sir!
 
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