ENHF - EDDF Complete
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The crew and I beat a dandy path out of Hammerfest, Norway at dawn to a rainy early afternoon arrival in Frankfurt, Germany.
At a butt flattening 1308 NM the Vega never even sputtered ... bounced and shook once in a while, but trucked right along steady as a clock.
A fairly long ride at close to 8 and 3/4 hours ... a lot of the planes I had considered wouldn't have been able to make the trip due to range limitations.
The fuel capacity is an even 3900 lbs ... only used a shade over half that amount today ... don't believe I could sit long enough to run a full tank fuel until empty in one flight.
Not sure about the winds once we got out of range of the forecasts from Hammerfest ... forgot my copy of the "Scandinavian Languages for Dummies" so what few broadcasts were audible I couldn't make out.
Had to keep between 5 and 10 degree WCA so it was hitting the plane on the starboard side and the airspeed was a little disappointing, so I'm guessing a quartering headwind in the 20 -30 kt range ... all day.
A pretty good assortment of cloud coverage from nearly clear to broken 5/8 ... cold, but no ice ... good visibility except for brief moments during climb and descent ... and no precip until about 30 NM out on descent to land.
You plan and plan and plan, but always miss something ... this time I didn't consider that this really nice population of NBDs's along the way was an illusion of comfort as the vast majority only had a 22 NM range.
If you had nothing else to do you could continuously switch ADF frequencies first one then the other like Tarzan swinging from one vine to another ... even then it would get tiresome.
Fortunately I had scribbled down 3 timed waypoints to be used as positions for sextant readings ... came in handy as I was not reading the Driftmeter correctly or staying on top of WCA's in general .. probably a little of both.
First sextant reading was very good, but the next two set up course changes beyond what I had calculated for wind and Great Circle.
A very handy shot was near the end of the flight ... quite anxious to land at Frankfurt ... I entered the coordinates for an assumed position at the airport itself ... knew it would be off, but that difference would equal my distance out.
If you are going to use the old school instruments alone, then plan on staying busy ... staying on top of any timed events and using each instrument as back up and verification to the other ... a balance and check thing.
Pfsst! ...These next three "hands on" flights should get a lot more interesting than originally planned ... especially trying to hold below 12000' on that jaunt to Bolzano, Italy ... wheeew ... won't need any no-doz on that flight bubba.
In the corridor we flew today ...with the exception of all of the amazing coastlines from Sweden across Denmark to Germany ... there really isn't that much in the order of landmarks for VFR flying.
A high point in the ol' pucker factor for this flight and I hope for the rest of the journey (yeah right!) was when my second monitor froze or locked up or some sort of demonic crap out as I was crossing into Denmark.
First time it's ever happened ..that's where all of my maps and charts reside during all flights so I can run FS full screen .. to put icing on the cake a nice blanket of ground cover had me wondering if I was in fact headed to Denmark.
If I had not properly corrected for being off (to the west) a good bit on the last sextant reading, then it's conceivable for me to have been over the North Sea ... way off track.
I had already made a couple of arbitrary corrections earlier against Driftmeter readings in favor of visual and was really starting to wonder ... no relief in site as a computer restart was impossible ... wonder if this monitor will go out?
One thing I picked up on in the 2009 L-M was to make a hand written note of all of the longer ranged NDB's along the intended flight path ... not until the Hamburg NDB came into range did I know I wasn't lost or headed to the UK.
I'm talking about a two hour scare period with blood pressure levels up akin to those forced on you very often in the RTW enviornment ... also not in the planning.
The prudent pilot would have found Hamburg, Germany on the "Safe List" and landed in order to wipe his brow while the computer was restarting ... then set up for take off again ... no longer lost and ample fuel I just pushed on.
Yessir .... Frankfurt, Germany was quite a sight for sore eyes ... even in the rain.
After a nice break from today's fun, I'll crack my knuckles and set out for Interlaken, Switzerland and maybe points beyond ... weather will be key.
Already interesting and challenging .... this will be one of the best events ever ... certainly a tabbed page in the memory book.
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Cheers,
...but the haze got really thick ... consequence was a turn too soon ... caught a parallel pass that runs just north of were I wanted to be ... only a quick climb to peak over the top of the ridge verified it.