It's happened to you...

[tgibson]

Hi Ralf,

Nice trip to Greece and Lebanon, thanks.

The only TWA flights I can find in a 1962 timetable are from Newark to BWI:

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/tw62/tw62-07.jpg

but I don't know if they added flights from Idlewild to Baltimore by 1963 - it's possible. However, Washington Dulles had opened by then and most jet flights were transferred there from Baltimore.

That Continental aircraft is not a DC-3, but another favorite of the British charter airlines, a Vickers Viking. Basically an interim type used by BEA until the Ambassador and Viscount were delivered, it was then sold to a plethora of smaller airlines around Europe.

That TAI DC-6B was probably returning from the Far East:

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/ti57/ti57-3.jpg

or it could have been Madagascar:

http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/ti57/ti57-4.jpg

Their other major route at the time was to West Africa, but it didn't stop in Athens. This was later given to UAT.

One possible reason that your LH 440 nacelles aren't shiny could be that you have Reflections turned off in Options/Settings/Display, as mentioned in the other thread.

Hope this helps,

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Just checked Go Advanced which seems to give the proper Reply window - hope this works; still getting used to the new layout, but thanks to everyone whose set it up and managed to retain the story so far...

Although Peter's father was killed in a real air crash in 1961 at the start of Season 2 of Mad Men, they do take liberties with reality for the sake of drama. I think this confirms my suspicions about TWA doing an Idlewild - Baltimore flight in '63. The stewardess seemed to be wearing more underwear in the form of pantyhose than outer garments, if that's humanly possible.

Should have recognised the Viking! There are flyables, but why is it called a BL17 in Traffic Tools?

Will check reflective textures for the next leg as it seems to be popular demand - I think the system should be able to handle it.

Now for the map of our departure from Athens:

View attachment 30939

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Don't need those thumbnails! Just trying to work out how to post an image and continue with text afterwards. Here are some more Isles of Greece:

View attachment 30940

Not sure if this will just come out as a thumbnail - please bear with me. Anyway, I've given up on Charlene and decided she's way too old for me anyway. I mean it's not 1982 anymore, is it? It's 1959.

Posting a picture of the TT screen:

View attachment 30941

We'll see what size they come out...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I think I've got it: the picture has to be formatted every time, but can be downloaded direct from the computer which saves a bit of fiddling about and should double my spare time (so I can learn the clarinet now). Here's the TT screen from over some Greek islands full size:

View attachment 30942

And here it is a few minutes later, off the Turkish coast:

View attachment 30943

This time I've tried reformatting them after insertion - sounds painful...

Hope this works!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Starting to get the hang of it - might be able to improve picture size in future.

This mainland is Turkey to our east, no flag available at the moment, so we'll have to make do with a sad Smiley (a Saddey, maybe a Saddo?):

View attachment 30945

And this is over Rhodes, Diagoras Airport, another I've been to in reality.

View attachment 30944

Presumably the smaller airstrip is for the Greek military.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It's is working better now, though there were teething problems this morning.

Through the magic of Traffic Tools we can see crowded skies near Turkey:

View attachment 30968

That was around the time of being controlled by Istanbul Centre. First view of the large island of
Cyprus - the flags are all there now, but I'm afraid there are problems writing in these Reply to Thread Message boxes (which I hope will be ironed out). This island is an independent country, but the north was invaded and conquered by Turkey in 1974 (about three days before I was supposed to be arriving there with my father - our hotel in Nicosia, the Ledra Palace was a battlefield - nearly a bit too interesting a holiday). 'North Cyprus' remains an illegal country, only recognised by, you've guessed it, Turkey. It also remains a problem both for the United Nations and the European Union, whose we do not have!

View attachment 30969

Thinking of writing all the text, then inserting the pictures...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Right, the bit over Cyprus. We approach its coastline, where you will notice some enhancement of the scenery:

View attachment 30970

One of their own operators (Anglo-Cypriot from the tail flag: the island wasn't independent till 1960, having been British since 1878 when Prime Minister Disraeli had managed to buy it) flying there...

View attachment 30971

...plus a compatriot of my own:

View attachment 30972

This is the large port of Larnaka on the south coast:

View attachment 30973

Including its interesting Airport:

View attachment 30974

The British have kept two Sovereign Base Areas there, Akrotiri to the south and Dhekelia, north of Larnaka. These keep a low profile, are both on the coast and used mainly for listening to what's going on in the Middle East...

View attachment 30975

We leave Cyprus behind us and begin the run-in to Beirut which may by now be becoming familiar to followers of Roggeveen stories.

View attachment 30976

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

It's called a BL17 because the FS9 voicepack will say "Viking" if you enter that. I assume there is some other Viking aircraft called a BL17?

Edit - yep, the Bellanca BL17 Viking.

I guess I could use EVP to make the code VC1 to say Viking, but I'm lazy...

Here is the full listing:

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?t=204751

Hope this helps,

Tom

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

That explains that mystery! Thanks, Tom.

Forgot show any pics of another Greek island, which we overflew before Rhodes in the Dodecanese, which is Kos with its now large & busy airport, Ippokratis, named after the famous doctor who came from there (as in Hippocratic Oath):

View attachment 31033

You can see that it's flat in the middle, so they've got a rare place where airplanes can come in. That's a download of the modern airport, though I can remember when it was very like a Microsoft default one with one dusty luggage 'carousel' that wasn't a carousel because it just trundled in a straight line and threw any baggage that hadn't been grabbed quickly enough into a big pile on the floor. There was also a wonderful sign which helpfully pointed the direction to go for FLIGHTS (INTERL), so you could spend your whole vacation wondering if it meant Internal or International.

But just beyond Cyprus we catch our first sight of Asia:

View attachment 31034

Traffic Tools reveals this BOAC Comet 4B climbing away from our destination:

View attachment 31035

The final approach map:

View attachment 31036

It's quite difficult in fact because you're coming in from the west and going to a north/south facing runway. Nowadays there is longer one which sticks right out into the sea facing southwestly. The Israelis and various Lebanese & Palestinian terror groups have blown up the poor old airport so often that it's been rebuilt exactly how the long-suffering Beirut aviation people want it, though I don't suppose other airport authorities envy them that dubious privilege.

View attachment 31037

And here's a view of the city as we approach from roughly due north. It's Christian to our left, Muslim to the right. The famous American University is just below the flightpath in the Muslim (West) Beirut:

View attachment 31038

We all like aeroplanes and we all like architecture, but we don't want them to splat into each other...

View attachment 31039

Another reason it's quite difficult is because it's crowded. This time we followed a BOAC Britannia in.

View attachment 31040

I haven't the heart to tell the Carters that although Arab cookery is superb, cheese gets a lot worse east of Greece

 

[Jagdflieger]

Good thing they have their trusty KLM cary on bags full of the stuff.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Have you noticed that you can tell the official KLM photos in the book from their own, (a) because the bags are always there, and (b) because they're in focus and much better-composed? But the Carters were prepared to forego their favourite food for a few days because these Bible Lands were their main target. There's a chapter called We Walked Where Jesus Walked. (Unfortunately the only 'biblical' verse I can think of that mentions the stuff is "Blessed are the Cheesemakers" from Monty Pythons Life of Brian). Seventh Day Adventists don't have to be vegetarians, but they try to abide by the clean-living rules which seem to have been laid out in the Bible. Their Seventh Day is actually the original Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, which puts them out of kilter with all other Christians. Mr & Mrs Carter would definitely not have flown on a Saturday.

Never mind about Beirut being the Paris of the Middle East. This is the Schiphol of the ME:

View attachment 31171

Verily I say unto ye, Brethren, here be romantic retro airliners:

View attachment 31172

An Iranian (you can see us going down on the left there)...

View attachment 31173

...and a local Air Liban (not to be confused with Libyans), an operator which was later merged with MEA:

View attachment 31174

Wolfgang Gersch's wonderful evocation of the old terminal building:

View attachment 31175

Not that Sarah Carter at the time expressed any interest in these fantastic flying machines...

View attachment 31176

This Tower shot from out at sea seemed to be worth preserving:

View attachment 31177

On the flight from Athens the Carters heard a disturbing rumour that war had been declared between Turkey and Syria. They even feared 'being put in an internment camp'. It is most unlikely that such a thing would have happened to US citizens; but, as with my trip to Cyprus in '74, nobody wants to fly into serious violence. Once, on a long flight in a 747, I met a friendly but naive young Welsh couple who had recently been staying in a hotel in a West African country when there was a coup. Staying in became the operative phrase, and they quickly learnt not to go anywhere near the windows. 'It was terrible,' the Welshman told me, 'When we finally got outside a nice man who'd given us directions the day we arrived was lying shot dead in the carpark.'

Ulp!

View attachment 31178

Luckily there was no war in the Mid East that year; the Carters were safe enough.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

We flew where Jesus walked

In 1959 the Carters flew into Beirut with KLM as we have done. They then took a taxi to Damascus, capital of neighbouring Syria, presumably because it was rather an important place in the life of Mrs Carter's hero Saint Paul. Then they were driven down to Jerusalem so that her book peaks with a chapter entitled We walked where Jesus walked. Obviously this was the highlight of their journey, if not of their lives (the highlight of the journey for us here will probably be looking round the 1959 Heathrow using Traffic Tools, but each to his own).

Now of course this was a few years before the Six Day War of 1967 in which the Israelis successfully captured the whole of Jerusalem, so the West Bank of the River Jordan was still in the Arab country called Jordan. The Carters stayed firmly on the Arab side, unable even to overfly pre-'67 Israel. Luckily fs9 isn't quite so dangerous, so we will be able to fly over some Bible scenery (including a very nicely enhanced Jerusalem) which wasn't so easy for our Texan friends. We can also go in some interesting aeroplanes.

While the Carters were off on their taxi adventures, I hitched a lift in this:

An MEA Avro York, down to Jerusalem. I would have given the Carters a lift too, but these Yorks, dating back to 1948, were by now only used for freight. Unbelievably, the aircraft, ATC code 'Cedar Three Three Zero' WAS carrying some of the famous 'Cedar of Lebanon', though in this case it had been carved into ornate little tables. Here's the route we were supposed to take:

We left early and there wasn't much going on at the Schiphol of the Middle East...

The pilot was an old friend of mine, Simon Ibn Daoud. His father is a Muslim, his mother is Jewish and his aunt's family (who brought him up) had him baptised a Christian!

I once ventured to ask Simon which of the three great Faiths that flow through his veins, as it were, was right...

"I'm interested in Buddhism," he replied. Anyway, like many Arabs, he's a good pilot.

He certainly got that flying museum-piece up & running. Runway 36, where I'd landed:

And up it goes...

Circling round to head almost due south:

Hope this will post OK - still plenty of teething troubles with the new system, but I'll try to stick the story up whenever possible. Pictures a bit big by the looks of things; I'm afraid it's back to using URLs & a loss of control compared with last time - hope these issues can be resolved. Incidentally, if you have the fs9 York then you'll definitely need this nice Panel by Peter Mercy:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I've just reduced the picture size a bit, but hoping that direct downloads will become possible again, as they briefly were. Obviously we're at a transitional stage atthe moment; I wish Ickie & the Guys the best of luck and would like to thank them for all their hard work so far...:ernae:
Cheers!

Anyway, to continue our flight by York to LLJR:

We leave Beirut behind. Here we are entering the Holy Land, now Israel:

That is the Sea of Galilee (aka Lake Tiberias) with the Golan Heights to the right and the border between Israel and Syria. My latest atlas ominously says CEASE-FIRE LINES 1974, i.e. after the 1973 Yom Kippur War (aka the October War or the War of Atonement. It's funny how some wars have snappy names whereas others remain anonymous, isn't it? I blame historians).

Used Traffic Tools to take a look round Tel Aviv Airport which has been given the Gersch '60s Scenenry treatment. Here's an old friend!

Your classic TWA Connie:

This is a fine El Al Britannia in front of the main terminal building:

And closer up you can see the multifaith crowd of passengers:

Flying nearby was this Akira DC-3 from the internal Israeli airline (also available as a flyable livery for the default Dakota):

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Still posting these as URLs & I'm going for the 19" Screen size. I hope this is OK for most people, please comment if you have any problems. I realise that the new system is still being established, but hope everyone's getting to see the images properly. Strange things have happened to earlier postings, especially with Smilies & flags going out of kilter, but it's good that the whole story is still up (or it might be if you're reading this).

A map which shows how we deviated off course, though I did the flight twice & didn't miss any ATC instructions. Not sure why exactly this happened - anybody got any ideas?

The Dead Sea. The River Jordan flows between it and the Sea of Galilee, now defining the border between Israel/the West Bank and Jordan. On the map, as you can see, we crossed over into Jordanian territory and were controlled by Amman Centre for a while. Nowadays Israel and Jordan are relatively at peace, so aircraft may be able to pass from Tel Aviv to Amman Centre, though they definitely could not have done in 1959.

I wanted to get a shot of Jesus' hometown of Nazareth (always in Israel, so the Carters never went there); this might be it:

This is us flying over the Land of Galilee where He lived, the Mediterranean in the background (I won't say Eat your heart out Mrs Carter because she DID walk where Jesus walked, in Jerusalem at least. And this is only a flight simulator game, isn't it? But still):

(Incidentally, that Arabic on the side of the York is upside-down, a great shame. Can anybody do a Fix?)Here we're leaving the Sea of Galilee, where the Disciples fished, behind:

...and here's the Dead Sea, um, dead ahead:

And of course it's so salty that everything floats on the water, plus being well below sea level (-398m according to the atlas), which is all a bit weird.

 

[Sunny9850]

The course deviation at the end of the flight would be quite normal if you let FS ATC do the navigating for you as they will vector you to what ever intercept is hard coded for the destination runway in use.
Variations are possible depending on which approach type is available and has been requested.

Stefan

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Interesting, thanks for the info Stefan - I guess that this one shows up because it's a short flight, but of course variations to improve approach at the end of a trip often occur.

We notice Jerusalem up ahead:

You can see the walls of the ancient City; we'll come back later in a smaller aircraft and take a proper look while waiting for those Carters to arrive by taxi from Damascus:

We get clearance:

And we're down:

Here's a view of LLJR. I've installed the Jerusalem area Mesh by Seev Khan which, as you'll immediately see, is very good indeed (you can enhance the whole of Israel in 3 parts if you want). It's still the default fs9 airport buildings, but the real airport, originally built by the British, is no longer in use for flights. The Palestinians cunningly chucked rocks onto the runway, making it too dangerous for Israeli use. So it's nowadays just an Israeli Army base, though of course in 1959 it was a Jordanian civil airport just outside the Holy City. Tom Gibson has provided the '50s AI traffic. There wasn't anything there around 8.00 in the morning when the York arrived on that flight, but here's another visit at a busier hour:

'Tables, tables! You want to buy a cedarwood table? Very fine quality...' And we park there:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

An MEA DC-3 taking off from Jerusalem the next morning:

Can you see me in that picture? I managed to arrange for the KLM Beechcraft Baron to be at LLJR so we could take a spin around the City:

It's called Yerushalayim in Hebrew and Al Quds in Arabic:

The current walls were built by the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th Century. When the British were in charge of Palestine between the two World Wars, they imposed stringent building regulations for old Jerusalem which the Israelis have sensibly kept. That's why it's still beautiful. (This is amazing because both the British and the Israelis often make a big mess when it comes to town planning).

The Temple Mount, site of the Jewish Holy of Holies, King Solomon's Temple (also known as Herod's Temple because Herod the Great built the grandest version, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD). You can see the Western, or Wailing Wall, and the stunningly beautiful Al Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, above. This is the site of where Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac (or Ishmael according to the Muslims who also believe that the Prophet Mohammed ascended into heaven from the site), so it is sacred to the three great Faiths:

Here's

The real Al Aqsa below. It's built according to the Golden Mean of architectural proportions and, I think, the oldest mosque in the world, dating back to the 7th Century Umayyad Muslim conquerors of the City. They seem to have built it to replace a Byzantine church that was on the site:

Unbelievably the Carters had the Western Wall to themselves (plus a Jordanian policeman), as Jews were not allowed to pray there when the West Bank was in Jordan (i.e. before it was recaptured in the '67 Six Day War, bottom LH picture):

The most holy place for Christians is, of course, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, supposedly the site of the crucifixion AND Christ's tomb. Surely the crucifixion was OUTSIDE the City walls?

The Russian Orthodox Church, built by the Tsars, also stands out with another golden roof. Needless to say, the current Russian regime, under Tsar Vladimir the Putin, is keen on this and encourages Russian pilgrims to go there. They weren't so happy for Russian Jews to go to Israel when Stalin and Brezhnev were in charge, were they?

You can see that Russian church outside the walls to the right in this general view, the Holy Sepulchre just below the aircraft:

I think that might be the famous King David Hotel with the swimming pool. King David was, of course, the first person recorded in the Bible ogling naked babes bythe pool (well, Bathsheba by her pool, naughty man!).

 

[Willy]

Ralf, I think I must have missed it, but what Jerusalem scenery is that?

I've been to northern Israel (spent a month broke down in Haifa) and visited the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights. We didn't get to visit Jerusalem as Israel was busy bombing southern Lebanon at the time and it was felt unsafe for us to travel off too far.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Hi Chief! As mentioned, it's from the Israel scenery by Seev Khan - available from FlightSim.Com (if nor AVSIM).

Know what you mean about the locals having some stupid war when you want to go somewhere. Friends of ours did a brilliant tour of the whole region, visiting Syria, Jordan and Lebanon by just choosing the right moment when it was safe to travel there (and they kept their mouths shut about what they thought of some political groups encountered). Anyway, it's always best to avoid aircraft when they're busy dropping things on people below...
Three corrections: Tel Aviv '60s Scenery is by Mike Stevens :ernae: Cheers!

The Israeli internal line is Arkia (Akira?!? was I thinking of a lion in the Jungle Book or something?)

Jan Kees Blom has very kindly sent a fix for the upside-down Arabic on that MEA York:

There it is the right way on the flyable, still not right on the AI (though I guess it may be possible to correct that too without much difficulty).

Hope everybody can see the pictures now. I'll try to go back & edit the missing ones in at the weekend.

Excellent MEA site:

http://wassch71.tripod.com/cedarjet1.html

 

[tgibson]

Hi,

I'll try to remember to fix that on the AI version, thanks.