PRB / Qantas / Pacific / It's On

Well I'm off to a good start. Lost fuel pressure on engines 2 and 3 about half way out. Breaking out the life boats. Ok, I'm sorry I made fun of McHales Navy, err, I mean Air Line! Can you guys send a PT boat over??
 
We've passed the message to "Ole Leadbottom" Binghampton (Commander in Chief of his vision of the Pacific Empire) as we are have no "boats" available. Sorry Paul but he was muttering something about "bonds" and "rescue fees" so we're not quite sure when he'll get around to it. If we can we'll try to get one of the Black Cat Cansos over to fish you out after dark. Hope you have shark repellant.

Btw, if you feather the dead engines (see manual) it flies not to bad (if slowly) on the other two... but I don't know for how long. One of our Ferry Command buddies made it from Green Bay WI to Ottawa , Ont on Two -fuel consumption unknown. Get used to it.. a lot of Connie legs ended with less-than-four-turning.

Lt. Elroy Carpenter
Communications Manager
McHale's
 
Well, that's where I went down with all hands. I don't know why it was showing me doing a zig-zag course though. I thought I was going in a more or less straight line. More or less.
 
Ok, getting ready to start again. Qantas Airlines was kind enough to give me a new airplane (what the heck are they thinking??), but only after I sat through thier class callled Fuel Management for Dummies, I mean Fighter Pilots. Ok, I made that last part up. They don't have such a class at Qantas. They did make me read the flight engineer's instruction book, however...
 
Taking off for Noumea (NWWW)

TOW: 116,270
Payload: 20,000
Fuel: 16,363
 
Hey, I resemble that remark!

Actually, I was worried about the “great circle effect”, meaning the course indicated by SFP is not the course you want to follow the whole flight, and since there are no NDB stations out in the middle of the Coral Sea, I figured I’d make a 3 degree course correction to the north about half way out (there’s a GPS fix which helped me decide that.) Then the dang wind kept picking up and I thought it was pushing me further south. Then I though, hey, I need to be heading for the NDB station north of the airport, since that will line me up with runway 11… So I was sort of all over the place. That said, I know I wasn’t zig-zagging that bad!
 
Off to Fiji (NFFN) with a load of tourists and grapefruits.

Payload: 22600 LBS
TOW: 116,140 LBS
 
Made it to cruising altitude of 18,000 feet. Awesome tail wind, just like on the first leg. Solid cloud deck below. The oil temp on all four engines was creeping out of the green zone at the end of the climb, but all the engine gauges are happy right now! That's what the flight engineer was telling me anyhoo. Those FEs always complaining that I'm abusing his engines!
 
Experiencing a bizarre visual phenomenon. There appears to be an enormous ring surrounding the planet, at about the orbit of the Moon. If fact, I think it is the Moon… I shall continue with the flight in the hopes that it does not hinder my landing attempt at Fiji. I’ve shot some photos of the object and will post after the flight…
 
Going on a short flight from one end of the island to the other, since the airport on the other side of the island is where I'm supposed to be... But hey, now I can carry more stuff, and bump up my average!

NFFN -> NFNA

TOW: 111,064
P/L: 29,000
 
Off to Pago Pago (NFNA -> NSTU)

P/L = 23000
TOW = 115,603 (more or less)
 
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