It's happened to you...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The flight into Egypt

Nowadays Air Jordan means something quite different, but in 1959, as you may have noticed from the AI, it was the name of the national carrier of the Kingdom of Jordan. In 1963 this became Alia, Royal Jordanian (KLM was, of course, Royal from its foundation in 1919). We know that the Carters took a Jordanian aircraft from Jerusalem one evening, but they had to fly down to the Gulf of Aqaba in order to avoid Israeli territory, as Mrs Carter tells us on page 101. In fs9 you can go by this more direct route along the Mediterranean coast quite close to the Palestinian territory of Gaza (where the Israeli assault began with Sampson knocking down their Philistine ancestors' temple back in the Bible), then crossing the Suez Canal just north of the Great Bitter Lake for the run into Cairo:

As far as I can tell, nobody has made so much as a default DC-3 livery for Air Jordan (surely there are some Jordanian flightsimmers out there?), but then this rather brilliant repaint DH89A Dragon Rapide JY-ABP by Tim Trivett was discovered:

It belongs to a mysterious organisation called The Below Sea-Level Flying Club, but Simon seemed to know them (maybe he's a member?), and, after a lot of discussion in Arabic fuelled by enormous amounts of excellent coffee, they very kindly agreed to let me fly it down to Egypt if I took 'a German professor and his students' with me. The Jordanians would pick the aircraft up in Cairo where I was due to re-rendezvous with Vincent van Gough - if you know what I mean. So the Carters went their way to Egypt, I went mine. I trusted them; it seemed unlikely there would be any major cheese dramas over the Red Sea.

Nice aeroplane. It's the 1937 model of what started as the DH84 Dragon with various improvements along the way, culminating in the Dragon Rapide 4 of 1953 (I didn't tell them that the last De Havilland type I flew was that DH106 Comet down to Johannesburg, a somewhat different beast from the same stable).

We trundled off at about 16.00 hrs, so it'll be dark by the time we arrive in Cairo.

Not long to wait for clearance at the relatively quiet airport. Where we're going is a lot busier.

It's pretty obvious that we've got enough runway for this little airplane!

Here's the VC. No autopilot, not even one from our old '30s friend Mr Sperry, but with that peculiar biplane configuration it's very stable once you've got it to the right altitude and pointing in the right direction. Only have to keep an eye on pitch, and heading changes aren't difficult. Of course it's funny sitting up there alone (though Professor Dreigroschenoper was just behind me) with his students.

The Tower view above.

Looks like that MEA DC-6 is on its way back to Beirut...

It seems to be flying along very nicely, though it's not exactly what you might call quick. I believe that these mountains beyond the Dead Sea are the Land of Moab, as mentioned in the Holy Bible, and in Sarah Elizabeth Carter's slightly less-holy effort It Happened to Us :

For all you Bible scholars: Psalm 60, Verse 8 (Well it might have been to King David & Steven Fry, but I personally have nothing against the place).

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Missed this takeoff picture before 'cos I can't read my own notes:

Shows how little of the runway was required (and that Lebanese DC-6 leaving!). OK, now you've seen that and here's the exit & climb map, Low Altitude Airways IFR at 6,000ft:

You can see the Palestinian territory of Gaza (which always used to be called 'The Gaza Strip' there). The Germans seemed alright, though they were very quiet - not surprising with the constant drone of our Gipsy Six engines not very far away from everybody.

All appeared somewhat apprehensive about something, but maybe they were just nervous fliers? Not sure exactly what he was a Professor of, or indeed what the rest of them were supposed to be studying with him. Sometimes it's better not to know too much about your passengers.

Managed to take a look round with Traffic Tools once I'd made sure we were headed in the right direction. This Grumman Goose was down at Tel Aviv:

Didn't we once see him at Schiphol? I like the hangar, no doubt dating from British days. Then there were plenty of these Arkias, probably kept busy flying cargo-loads of yarmulkes and matzo balls up and down the Holy Land!

This is their hangar which can now be correctly attributed to Mike Stevens:

My 1973 book gives some of Arkia's destinations as Masada, Ophir and Mount Sinai. Couldn't have been more romantic if it said Atlantis, Utopia and Shangri-La.

We see the sea...

We see the Sinai:

Exiting the Promised Land and coming to the desert you notice the biggest scenery change since we left the snows of the north behind and first came to the Med around Macedonia. Now we're abandoning the Fertile Crescent and coming to Africa. As the man once said to me when I arrived there in reality: "Welcome in Egypt."

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Noticed this strip below. It's not the Palestinian airport at Gaza, maybe an old military one left by the Israelis or the Egyptians?

Traffic Tools Explorer detected a few interesting aeroplanes in the vicinity, such as this Syrian flying from his own capital, Damascus, to Cairo:

Then there was this Norwegian cargo plane from Braathens SAFE (South American & Far East) Air Transport A/S:

What are they delivering? Kitchen units to Kathmandu? Skis to Samarkand? Or knitted bobble hats to Bandar Abbas? Another freighter from the British company Air Links going the other way, Cairo to Beirut:

All the usual thoughts about whether it would be worse to ditch in the desert or the sea... You don't want to end up writing The Little Prince like Saint-Exupery did, do you?

(Actually his estate must have made millions out of that, so maybe going mad beside a burnt-out Dewontine in the wilderness isn't such a bad thing. Mind you, I'd rather complete the flight safely and NOT write an evergreen children's classic, if it comes to that).

Anyway, there was no need to worry since the faithful little aircraft carried me and the lugubrious Germans safely across Sinai and, as seen here, the Suez Canal:

TT picked up this old acquaintance from the Arabian American Oil Company at our destination for this evening:

Another DC-6, though they seem to have removed some of the propellor blades on that one. Hope they remember to put 'em back before he tries to move off.

The approach map:

There we are over that Great Bitter Lake which is called Al Buhayrah al Murrah al Kubra in Arabic! And an Egyptian sighted in the distance:

...with the top end of the Gulf of Suez, stretching down to the Red Sea, beyond. Needless to say, travelling west like this in the evening the setting sun was shining right in my eyes; most annoying, however lovely the dusky ambient light might seem.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Sunsets? We got 'em.

Then there was this deserted, unlit airport near the Canal:

View from the 2D screen near Cairo International. Makes a change to approach from the east rather than the usual north, doesn't it?:

With a tail-dragger you must be careful not to pitch forward by applying the brakes too much when your wheels do make contact with the ground. No worries though about the undercarriage getting last-minute stage fright with this machine!

Nearly there....

...and we're down. Not a word from the Germans. Bockholt's sailors would have been singing 1930s Cabaret songs from old Berlin, or maybe hymns, depending on their mood. How does it go? Johnny, macht die Musik von damalsnacht...

The Cairo terminal building. This is a slight anachronism as it actually dates from 1963. Boring buildings, but juicy AI from Tom here!

Now how do you stop this thing? You have to look round the VC and cut off the mixture on the throttle quadrant. Quite convenient if you're left-handed like me and, er, Lefty.

These old Egyptian and Greek DC-3s make a nice change from all those DC-6s we've been sighting today.

A bit more of a look round Cairo to come...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The man who said 'Welcome in Egypt' was the lavatory attendant at Aswan Airport where I first landed in reality. I only went in there to put a cooler T-shirt on, having just arrived from rainy London. As I was only changing my shirt I did not require the small piece of toilet paper which he tore from a roll and ceremonially handed me. I realised that he expected Backsheesh for this, as his hand (a stranger to soap, like the rest of the filthy place) remained hovering. As my wife had all our money at the baggage carousel, all he got from me was three-quarters of a packet of Polo mints that I'd brought for the flight. This was when he said 'Welcome in Egypt' and I'd just had a practical lesson about being in another World - the Third one.

Let's take more of a look round Cairo in '59. Old MEA/Air Liban friend:

The Olympic DC-3:

An Egyptian, at last a Viscount! (even if the picture insists on staying small):

Note that the Egyptian Viscount has United Arab Airlines on it from the time Nasser tried to 'unite' with Syria and thereby surround Israel with 'one country'. This did not work politically (or militarily for that matter), but they did get round to repainting some of their civil air fleets.

The Syrian Airways DC-6 (not bothering to be united):

Of course Nasser was still in charge of Egypt at this time and although President Eisenhower had helped him to humiliate the British and French in the Suez Crisis of '56, he was yet to suffer the worst Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967. We've already seen that the Carters were fairly jumpy travelling in the Middle East at the end of the '50s, though they remained unaware of how influential the USA already was in the region (it's that black sticky stuff that comes out of the ground and makes engines work).

Sinister unregistered DC-3 which is obviously flying drugs and guns all over the nicey-nicey virtual world of fs9. Nobody ever catches him:

Pretty grey & red GA classic that was there:

Oh yes, and talking of American influence in the Mid-East, here's that Aramco:

The final map which shows our route and my somewhat ziggy-zaggy hands-on flying:

And the flight analysis:

A nice, gentle descent, no complaints from the passengers. Let's hope Vincent, Dirk & Harry (Miss Schripsema) will be here to meet me. I have to fly those Carters back to the other side of the Mediterranean. They certainly took full advantage of winning the prize, should be in the Guinness Book of Records.

 

[Willy]

Sinister unregistered DC-3 which is obviously flying drugs and guns all over the nicey-nicey virtual world of fs9. Nobody ever catches him:

Merc Air will neither confirm or deny the presence of company aircraft in Egyptian airspace. However you can rest assured that no illegal pharmaceuticals would be on board our aircraft. Properly aged high proof grain alcohol in 1/5 gallon bottles is a much more profitable cargo in Muslim countries.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

HECA - LTBA

Aha!We might be seeing some more of him later, but at least we know that Bockholt is currently in gainful employment with Lufthansa Ost (flying to Vladivostok I hope).

The Carters' Odyssey continued with this trip from Cairo - Istanbul. Most of modern Turkey is the ancient land of Anatolia (that peninsular between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean) and Mrs Carter was excited to think that they at least flew over The Seven Churches of Asia from the Bible. I hereby swear that, whenever quoted, I have never altered a word of her book:

The next morning, Friday, October 25, we were up early and packing, for this was the day we were to fly into old Constantinople in Turkey. As our plane left at 8:45 we checked in early and cleared all our customs. It was a beautiful day and our flight on the Royal Dutch Airlines took off on time. It was good to be back on this airline again, one of the very finest in the world. The crew was so sure and careful and so friendly. It was good to have our Dutch foods again. How good the cheeses were. We had missed them. (p. 109)

Since we know they were back with KLM it seems reasonable to go in the Convair 340 again.

As mentioned before, Cairo has boring buildings, but interesting AI:

A closer look at the GA AI there. I remember this was good in Egypt from when the Comet 1 landed here on the way down to South Africa and we saw a lot of private aircraft pootling about.

This Ryan was the jewel in the crown of all General Aviation, either at Cairo, or anywhere on the virtual planet perhaps. I think it's an ST-2, but Tom will correct me if that's wrong; a civil conversion of the WW2 PT-20 trainer.

In big aircraft, a KLM L-1049 was just leaving before us:

Closer look at that kameraad:

He's going straight to an old friend of an airport which we'll be taking the Carters to after Istanbul. A Viking from LTU, Lufttransport Union (or Unternehmen) of Dusseldorf (where Bockholt was born!). This, or something very similar, popped up again later in the day:

Cairo Tower shot:

You see them flying off while Vincent is waiting for clearance beside the runway:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I was like a child given free rein in a chocolate factory, gawping at everything there, using Traffic Tools Explorer. This classic TWA Connie for example:

And another TWA beauty (though not that blonde stewardess from Mad Men Season 3, Episode 1):

He's going somewhere we've recently been. Here's the KLM L-1049 on his way to somewhere we're going later:

Then I saw this Air Links Handley Page coming in to land...

...before realising that it was me who was right in his way...

...and I forced him to make a go-around! Afraid I did the same to this Skyways fellow:

(You can, of course, use TT to remove such unfortunate AI if you're going to be in their way, or if they're in yours). Here's the LTU Viking in flight:

That Aramco again. This is more for the good shot of the terminal building than for the DC-6, however.

Finally got out of everybody's way, leaving a quarter of an hour late at 09:00:

Only JUST Had enough runway this time. Ulp!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Though we used all the runway God (or perhaps the Egyptian airport authorities) gave, it was a good takeoff and climb:

Just reached cruise altitude there and accelerating up to above 200 kias. Perhaps you noticed the 707 waiting impatiently behind me?

Amazing how a bunch of pixels arranged to simulate something that sort of never happened over half a century ago can give the impression of being angry with you! He seemed dangerously close.

Most of Egypt near to the Nile is fertile agricultural land like this, especially around the Delta which we're going to overfly. Yet a very great deal of Egyptian territory is just useless sandy desert, the population is still totally dependant on the River as it has been since time immemorial.

This Ghanaian Stratocruiser, Ghana Eight Niner One, is one of the great exotics of the Cal Classic late '50s world:

Obviously on his way home there. Note that Ghana was a free nation state from 1957, so she proudly flies her own colours. Most of the British, French and Belgian colonies in Africa didn't gain independence until the early '60s.

Vincent flying along at 12000 feet. This journey takes about 2 hrs 50 minutes, so our ETA was around Ten to Noon. It divides very neatly into three sections: Egypt, the Mediterranean and Anatolia. We sight the sea ahead:

Flying over the Nile Delta. We went straight out, almost due north from Cairo, so didn't see any pyramids or interesting cities like Alexandria (further west along the coast), though we had a good look at that when it was neatly overflown in the Comet 1 last year.

This bit, protected by sandbanks, is called the Buhayrat al Burullus (which is probably Arabic for The Bit Protected by Sandbanks):

I didn't even notice the river on the way up, but there's a good view of it in this shot of the Olympic DC-3 on his way:

Farewell to Africa. We're now going to cross the sea, overfly the bottom lefthand corner of Asia and land back in Europe - so you see three continents in one day.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

By checking the ICAO codes on their Labels you can find out where everybody's going. For example, this Cessna is HEPS - LCLK....

Port Said to Larnaka, Cyprus. Bob Hope's Ercoupe Club-Air:

He's left Katherine behind this time. And, a bit bigger, an El Al Connie:

This chap is flying from the Greek island of Chios to Damascus, Syria:

After a lot of sea and no sight of even a tiny island (although we were controlled by the British from Nicosia Centre, Cyprus for a while), we eventually see Anatolia up ahead:

In the Bronze Age this was the setting for the mighty Hittite Empire which fought massive battles against the Egyptians down in the Lebanon area (not much having changed in the Middle East during the last 6000 years). Then the Asia Minor coast was colonised by Greeks, including, it seems, those Trojans from the famous war in Homer's Iliad (who obviously had the same gods as the other Greeks they fought against, plus Hittite allies who are mentioned and speak a different language from the Trojans). The Turks, originally a Central Asian nomadic people, didn't arrive till much later(three and a half millenia in fact). When they captured Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, in 1453, they renamed it Istanbul and made it capital of their mighty Ottoman Empire which once included the whole of North Africa and stretched from the Atlantic to the Caspian. When this finally collapsed after the First World War, the brilliant army officer Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk (Father of the Turks), managed, through sheer energy and genius, to create the modern nation state of Turkey. He moved the administrative centre from Istanbul to Ankara, in the middle of Anatolia, quite near the most ancient Hittite capital of Hattusa.

We cross the coast:

Mrs Carter thought that they came over land just at the seaport of Perga where Paul and Barnabus landed. Possibly, but the main town is Antalya, which we definitely overflew:

That Goose was down there:

This is going from Antalya to OSAP, Aleppo in Syria:

Looks like mountains and snow again...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The large airport at Antalya. This city is in quite a large bay called Antalya Korfezi in Turkish. We flew parallel to bay, still going almost due north, so there was land on our lefthand side while there was still sea below.

You can just make out the lonely Goose down there. Here's the coast:

Oddly enough, these mountains are called Toros Daglari, the Taurus Mountains, like the ones we saw near Vienna. Don't know if it's anything to do with Latin, Taurus the bull (as in Horoscopes?).

Cyprus Airways Viscount going home to Nicosia, still British for a few more months:

This map shows wonderful lakes hidden high in the mountains...

...which you can see a bit of below us here:

This place with a remarkable airport was identified as Afyon:

Traffic Tools picked up the unregistered MercAir DC-3 making one of his clandestine deliveries...

...I'd just taken the picture above when he very politely dipped his wings in salute!

Believe they only hire the very best (desperate) pilots. Anyway, this ol' Cub down below was maybe a bit more licenced, as it were:

Yes, Central Turkey, a fascinating, beautiful place hardly ever visited by non-Turks.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Iraqi Airways Viscount flying along:

He is going to Istanbul (LTBA) like us. ICAO 4-letter code for his point of departure reads ORBS which, when looked up on one site, is still given as Saddam (! presumably Baghdad International). We approach the Sea of Marmara over Bursa:

Another DC-6 just for a change, but it is Dutch, coming from Tehran:

And another LTU , not same one we saw before as this originated from Beirut:

The approach map:

Noticed our Iraqi friend landing up ahead of us....

Unfortunately I then realised that, although we had maintained perfect altitude throughout the flight, this was the wrong angle of approach for our assigned RW36, where the Iraqi was just going in...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

So I had to do a Go-around (which probably serves me right for inflicting them on those AIs trying to land in Cairo back at the start of this flight):

Have put in some Turkish city scenery by Ugur Kenel which I hoped would make historic Istanbul as good as Jerusalem was for fascinating landmark buildings. Didn't notice any yet, except lots of ugly modern ones!

Arrived here in reality in 2002, a large efficient airport. I had visited the simulator one ahead of this landing and found nothing but Turkish Viscounts. There's one leaving now:

Obviously we were a little late for our ETA after the Go-around, getting down at about midday. But it was quite busy with plenty of international visitors like that other Dutchman and the German coming in just after us:

No parking problems.

Perhaps we are back in the Lands (or rather, Skies) Ruled by Viscounts!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Not for the first time I'd nearly finished posting this earlier this morning when the whole lot was lost, so fingers crossed that it doesn't happen again...

Disappointed by the virtual Istanbul. Athens was pretty good, Jerusalem superb, admittedly both enhanced. But nobody has ever put any of the landmark buildings into Istanbul - not even in default fs9 - so it's rather lame. And it's not as if the Turks are bad flightsimmers: as mentioned, I have Ugur Kenel's landscape improvements and there are plenty of 21st Century airports available to download; but nobody has bothered with the great city itself. So there's no Church of Hagia Sophia or Blue Mosque, nor the massive Byzantine walls which still encircle an enormous area and are much more impressive than those of Jerusalem. Another Turk, Salim Unuver, has, however, made this nice repaint of our old friend the AN-2:

This is supposed to go on Tim Conrad's Antonov, but I discovered that it will take the new Russian panel (as seen in East Germany above). Seemed like an opportunity to go in one, so I managed to borrow it from the local Flying Club:

Pretty SAS Caravelle that turned up there. The landscape seems OK, but the buildings are what Bockholt would call ganz gewöhnlich, very ordinary.

Of course it's Europe on the left, Asia on the right. The Asian bit includes Scutari where Florence Nightingale strutted her nursing stuff during the Crimean War. She never went to the actual Crimea, other side of the Black Sea (though Turkey is a good place to realise that hygeine and sterilization of equipment might just lead to better hospitals).

Forgot to save the flightplan map, but here's one from the end of the next leg when, as you can see, we take the Carters to the capital of the Western Roman Empire, Rome itself:

You can see all Europe except Iberia, Scandinavia, the British Isles and Ireland there, though a bit of eastern England shows in the top lefthand corner. We're back in the Convair, Vincent van Gough:

This BEA Viscount was the only Brit seen all day, an unusual situation:

Final overview of Istanbul/Byzantium/Constantinople/Ataturk/Yesilkoy:

ATC do call it Yesilkoy, though officially it's Ataturk International. Ready at the end of 36R where we arrived:

This time I waited long enough to get sufficient revs before releasing the brakes, so we still had plenty of spare runway by the time Vincent was airborne:

The Carters seem to have escaped Turkish Tummy in October '59, but the Roggeveen party that visited in October 2002 (by BA Airbus, more than 2 hours late leaving Heathrow) all suffered Constantine's Revenge. Either it was their healthy, cheesy diet, or our Texan friends just weren't there long enough. Even Turks who don't live there permanently get sick when they visit Istanbul, lovely city though it is.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

A last glance at 'Stamboul as we manouever and turn onto our heading (270, due West, most of the way):

Leaving Asia behind us:

Here's the turn as we head out along the north coast of the Sea of Marmara over European Turkey and towards its small land border with Greece (that's mainland Greece, Charlene):

Traffic Tools picked up one of Willy's MercAir wiseguys flying LFMK - LTBE...
http://www.seldecpublishing.co.uk/

I have invested in a wonderful Nerdopaedia, Airport & City Codes ( available from http://www.seldecpublishing.co.uk/). This instantly informs me that he's going from the secret French airbase of Salvaza to the Turkish Bursa - defined as 'Mil/Civ', say no more. We head over the border and along the Aegean coast:

The Greek island of Samothrace to port. It's obvious that no winged aircraft could land there, but I visited from a Greek ship in '76 with my late father. He was a tour guide for some French people who'd chartered the ship and we climbed to the ruins of the Temple of Zeus at the top:

There was a thunderstorm and we had to use palm leaves as umbrellas. My father explained that the god was angry (I thought He should have been grateful that we'd stopped off to visit, but still). The French were interested in that island because they've got this in their Louvre:

The Victory of Samothrace. It will be noted that she's standing on a ship's prow, as it comemorated a naval battle won by the Athenians. They used to put the real prows of enemy ships into their temples if they could get 'em. (Looks like she won the wet T-shirt competition that year too).

This rare bird was lurking below somewhere:

A Bulgarian Antonov. It's not every day you see a Bulgar airplane, even in flightsims. He may have been in his own country just to the north; we flew pretty close and were even controlled briefly by Sofia Centre). The pretty Ryan was landing at Alexandroupoli Dimikritos (LGAL) in the far east of Greece:

We overflew that airport...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

"The French are holding a Wet T-shirt Competition in the loo?" asks Charlene.

Never mind; here's the northernmost Greek island ("Another one?") of Thasos up ahead:

I tried to get a picture where you could see Samothrace and Thasos both in the same shot:

Just managed it. And now we cross over our earlier North/South Vienna - Athens flightpath back at Thessalonika:

Not sure if the Carters registered that fact...

They had to veer south to avoid Albania which was a totally isolated Stalinist dictatorship under the sinister Enver Hoxha for four decades until he died (1944 - 1985). Map showing the direct modern route over that mysterious country and into the heel of Italy near Brindisi:

Going that way wasn't a problem for us, though looking at the scenery you can see how the Albanians managed to remain cut off from the rest of the world:

TT picked up this typical Olympic DC-3 plying its trade in the area:

And now Albanian Antonovs down below, even rarer than Bulgarians!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I'm starting to get a bit sick of AN-2s now. They seem to have taken over from Viscounts, but luckily (apart from in Cuba, where we're not going this time) this is the furthest west we'll find them.

The small sandy island of Sazan just off the Albanian coast. Tried to see Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek), further to the south, but it was definitely out of sight. Below we are leaving the Albanian coast near the port of Vlore. Mussolini actually conquered the whole country quite easily, and thought he'd have a go at Greece in 1940. Most amusingly the Greeks smashed the Fascisti and pushed them right back into Albania! Unfortunately the Nazis then came to help Musso and, despite aid from the British, the Greeks were beaten.

Italy very soon appears up ahead, just across a narrow part of the Adriatic:

Might as well deploy the Italian flag now - and here the country can be seen up from outside the aeroplane:

A striking shot which magically came up by itself. Gina in her little Piper out of Brindisi airport:

And of course big Italian planes are from their airline, Alitalia:

There's that DC-6 below us with Rome Centre ATC talking him down:

We'll be following...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Photobucket

There's the Eternal City below:

St Peter's on the right. Of course we're going to the old airport at Ciampino, not the new Leonardo da Vinci. Runway Three Three up ahead:

But I'd been over-confident due to having made so many landings here. Was too high and too fast, so unfortunately it was another Go-around. Don't say I'm getting good at them.

But we got down OK, though about 40 minutes late. This place looks better every time I come here:

Certainly there was a major upgrade of the AI by Tom earlier this year, but even the scenery seems to improve:

It was one of the first 60s Scenery Project airports I installed and it took a while to get everything arranged properly:

Look out Rome, the Dutch are in town! It will be hot chocolate, Bible-reading and bed at 10 o'clock tonight!

This is towards 11.00 hrs and there were the expected Alitalias...

...but we also struck American gold from the two greatest US airlines of the day. Thought I had a map showing the Go-around, but as I can't find it we'll just have to take this opportunity to see the TWA "hostess" out of Mad Men:

She's topical enough. Her uniform sort of falls off (a bit too easy that time, Don). Her Connie again...

...and you know what's coming...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

...Pan Am, it goes without saying.

I like this planespotter's shot from behind the perimeter fence. Don Draper actually took his wife Betty on this aircraft to the very airport (or maybe da Vinci by '63? But we know it was a Pan Am 707 because their eldest son had a toy one when they got back from Italy). Planespotter steals cherrypicker shot:

No doubt about it, American aircraft were the sexiest.

But this time we found a good variety and lots of nations' airlines in at LIRA. The 707 seems to be hovering slightly above the tarmac, which must be useful when it comes to checking the tyres:

The sensible Dutch favoured Electras, but we will eventually be following our Convair Vincent's actual European route taken by those cheese-pickin' Carters in '59.

Decided to take pictures from both ends of the airport. One from the north looking south...

...and another from the south looking north:

Was going to leave it at that, but then noticed the Swissair leaving (I'm guessing for Zurich)...

...followed by the arrival of that Air India Connie:

You can see his tail(s) in the background to this final shot from that leg of the journey:

Back in Rome. I'll have to go visit the Gucci Bros and show them how my roll-on case is coping. No doubt the Carters will meanwhile be partying at the local 7th Day Adventist HQ.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Found the missing Go-around map & analysis, showing unusual permission to land facing the other way:

You can also see how close we came to disaster! One of those 'Those trees are very close, aren't they?' moments, but we just cleared the wretched mountains.

Two very kind Italian Air Force officers, Captain d'Attomo and his colleague Giovanni Quai let me go in their Piaggio basic trainer of the time to have a look at default Rome city scenery:

There's St Peter's. The aeroplane was wobbling about all over the place (no wonder the Italians are such good pilots, it must be like learning to ride on a bucking bronco). The Pope's Castel St Angelo:

Originally Hadrian's tomb, though heaven knows what they did with him when those pesky popes moved in. Here's the famous Coliseum:

And a general view with plenty of historic buildings, plus the plane going fairly straight & level for a change:

I mean the last Piaggio I was in charge of was a scooter. Nice colour for the Dutch though. You can see the River Tiber. Why couldn't Microsoft do this for Istanbul too?