Flight 19 European Vacation

Sweet flight over the western Scotland, the Irish Sea and Belfast, and then over the green fields and small villages of central Ireland. Good to see the classic Shannon ramp and to duck inside to the well-stocked duty free shop.
 
Headed east to Merry Olde England, landing at London's Heathrow airport. Next stop Paris!
 
:wavey: Hi all,

Shucks, We were so busy checking out the country side that we forgot to take many pictures. And worst yet, no invite to go to the Queen's house! No problem she more than likely doing all those Queen things. What a susprise, the weather was clear for our approach and landing at EGLL.
 
Three more Kodaks. First, climbing out of Shannon and over the Irish Sea, then a mixture of high clouds and the moon as we crossed into England, and finally the classic control tower at Heathrow.
 
Left Heathrow for a nice little hop across the Channel to Orly airport in Paris. Almost a full house tonight. Even had the FAA flying along with us. Got a couple of pics of downtown London on the way out.

It came up a thunderstorm as we flew into Paris which made for an interesting approach and landing. I flew over the aiport, doubled back and then made my approach.

Looks like we headed to a place with a Cadillac connection next....
 
Out of London Heathrow for Orly. Paris is known as "La Ville-Lumiere" or "The City of Light". We certainly got the "Lumiere" part--as we encountered driving rain and distant lightning while overflying the city and approaching Orly. An "electric" introduction to the Continent. A few snaps showing (a) our approach to the city with ominous anvil heads in the distance, (b) the Eiffel Tower, (c) central Paris with L'Opera, the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Left Bank in the distance. Even though it was before midnight, we were looking out for Hemingway, Dali, Gertrude Stein, Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald, Luis Bunuel, and all the group.

Finally, we landed through the rain (d) at Orly. Here is a picture (e) of the gang in front of Orly's famous South Terminal which drew a million tourists in the early years. (Couldn't get the FAA Connie in the shot.) If you look closely, you can see plane-spotting Parisians on the terrace.
 
We put Paris behind us and flew down to Barritz France (LFBZ) near Spain. Decent flight with good conversation.

Only got one pic of the flight. The other is the Cadillac connection I mentioned earlier. The Eldorado Barritz. I think it'll haul us to the beaches and casinos just fine.
 
Well here we are in Barritz, Willy has lined up transportation to the beaches and the Casinos. Someone mentioned about loosing our shirts, so I brought an extra shirt. Now I don't know it there meant at the beach or casinos. I'm not that dumb I know what they meant I think. We had another pilot join us on this junket, and I know that you would be surprised at this, but we behaved ourselves. All in all a very good flight.
 
Nice flight from Barritz to Vigo, Spain (LEVX). The landing was something else though. Very low visibility. I made one low and slow pass and never saw the runway. Climbed out of the valley and turned around for another run down the valley looking for the airport. This time I spotted it, but I was too high to attempt to land. So I climbed back out and turned around which put me behind the others. So, I just followed them in and landed. 3rd time a charm...
 
Leaving the beaches and casinos of Biarritz, this was a good time to honor the Constellation's long career with Air France. The company treated the Connie as its luxury flagship from the late 1940s through the 1950s--at the peak of the airlines' romantic era.

First a shot over Bilbao and the spectacular Guggenheim museum. We had a long interesting flight over the mountains of Northern Spain, and learned about Leon and the famous procession "The Burial of Genarín". ... SrG has more details.

However, as we descended we encountered clouds covering the mountains and visibility started to worsen. ATC reported 0.4sm on the field. Things were spotty until, turning over the harbor, we discovered the hill-surrounded airport to be covered by a cloud bank. Made for an interesting short finals and touchdown. Going to have to work on my IFR skills...
 
You can get some sense of the conditions by watching the gang land and taxi in. (What you cannot see are the high hills surrounding the field.)
 
Howdy,

I don't know what more could be said about this flight, all in all wasn't to bad until the approach and landing. These picture we took as we overflew some of the local hills, now not a place needed for any kind of emergency landing, But the scenery sure does look nice.
 
One other thing about last night's flight. I learned that they modeled in drag for the cowl flaps on the Constellation. I'd taken off with mine fully opened and forgot about them. Then was wondering why it was flying so slow. Saw the cowl flaps open and it sped up when I closed them.
 
We eased on down to Lisbon Portugal. Nice flight although on approach, I blew out my flaps and gear and had to circle around a bit until my new hire flight engineer got it patched back up. I was able to land then and head for the terminal.

The pics are backwards..
 
Good times ..... love those Connies ... one of my all time favorite aircraft.

Enjoying the screen shots!
 
Ah...Lisbon, spying capital of the world during WWII. I think. Well, what the heck, it was a good flight and was enjoyable one. Now on to Gibraltar for some minor maintenance, and then the cross over to the Dark continent. Looking forward to, and maybe putting the con to our old buddy Achmed. I sure hope our buddy isn't still mad at us from when we last met. lol. Tentative plans is to fly east across the top of Africa to Egypt with intermediate stops along the way, and then up the Nile......to where who in the heck knows. But you all know this is going to be fun.
 
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