teson1 / Eastern - not that one the other one / L-1049G / Europe
Hi all,
after some crash (and I mean literally) training on propliner flying and NDB naviagtion and fuel planning and .. I had to finally get off my b..t and join
the fun.
Airline: Eastern - not that one the other one
Headquarters: LFLG France
Pilot: teson1 (Gunter)
Aircraft: Lockheed L-1049G
"Eastern - not that one the other one" was founded 1949 after CEO/Chief pilot/FO/Engineer/Navigator/Passenger/Steward (serves drinks to
passenger) teson1 heard about a race to Buenos Aires, promising a good challenge and lots of fun with a nice bunch of people.
The first challenge, finding a suitable plane, was quickly overcome. The airline acquired (later called "download") a used Lockheed L-1049 from
Eastern Airlines (broker: flightsim), conveniently stationed in Amsterdam, the start of the race. The decision to buy was driven by the excellent modelling (Chief pilot teson1 managed to destroy an engine on the first race flight to the despair of Engineer teson1 - a feature found on few of the GA planes Chief pilot teson1 was used to), excellent documentation the good real cockpit.
Chief pilot teson1 being a pure GA certified pilot, only once having flown a Propliner before, first flight tests were quite... interesting..., however,
repair of this plane comes at extremely low cost (later called "reload").
Chief pilot, FO, Engineer, Passenger and Steward, out of self-preservation, also urged Navigator teson1 to read up on something called NDB. Not very familiar with this acronym (but more so with NMFP -not my f.....g problem), he nevertheless got into some basics. Stated that he always could rely on pilotage - if seeing ice bears turn south.
Having a full agenda and little spare time available, no time was available to learn how to repaint the plane. The Airline decided that it was a fortunate coincidence that the company selling the plane also was also called Eastern Airlines; so no repainting the airplane was required. Btw: the company is called Eastern because the the eastern route is taken for the race.
After further technical hurdles had been tackled (Internet is still quite unreliable in 1949) the airline is finally ready to join the fun.
Our motto: Here we come - duck and cover!