Speedbird around the World

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Would you believe they only gave me 13,000 ft? And they call that 'High Altitude Airways'!?! Admittedly we are flying over the flat, fertile north Indian plain, but I added another 10,000 simply in order to improve cruise performance. Happy at Two Three (but no contrail):

As you can see from this map, the Himalayas and Nepal (even odder flag than similarly mountainous ) were off on our port side:

We spent a couple of hours flying over several historic Indian cities. Lucknow with its small airport:

Varanasi on the Sacred River Ganges (I sound a bit like Tintin now):

When Varanasi was still called Benares one of my (Welsh) relations died and was buried there:

As you can see, he was a British Army doctor and had probably just survived fighting in the 1857 Indian Mutiny, but succumbed to cholera - a long way from Llandeinolen.

You'll also have observed that we picked up Calcutta Centre over Captain Roberts' tomb, and eventually we fly over that great city:

There's the Ganges again and Calcutta Dum Dum Airport. It was the site of the main British munitions depot (Calcutta was the capital until they moved it to New Delhi in the early 20th Century) - where the exploding bullet of the same name was invented. (Not very nice, but good for dealing with Ghazis and Talibs.)

We reach the sea again for the first time since we left the Mediterranean behind at Beirut. Here are the Mouths of the Ganges:

And the map to show how you exit India via Dhakar Centre Bangladesh (which was still East Pakistan in 1960)...

The map will have to go in the next section, as I've used up my ten images. Congratulations, though, to the Smily/Flag people (Ickie?) - I can't fault you!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Here's that map:

We left the Subcontinent behind around 9.10. Oddly enough, briefly went back to being controlled by Calcutta Centre, before being picked up by Yangon (= Rangoon). And now...

A short rant about Changing Place Names

If a city or country is very, very famous it is sometimes granted the supreme accolade of being renamed in another language, e.g. London is Londres to the French, Londra to the Italians. That's a compliment. Sometimes, when a bunch of insecure bullies takes over somewhere, they pathetically insist that everyone should now call it exactly what they call it. Two obvious examples are Beijing for Peking and Myanmar for Burma.

Personally I am never going to obey either the Butchers of Tiananmen Square, nor the cowardly captors of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Another fine free sample is Mumbai for the great city of Bombay. Everyone who lives there actually still calls it by its correct name - 'Mumbai' is for a bunch of sad Indian nationalist politicians who just want to impose their own particular dialect, (a bit like if Cockneys insisted on Farkin Lunnon Innit? or the inhabitants of the Big Apple made us ALL say Nooo Yor-uk). Incidentally, Beijing is from a Mandarin (i.e. minority) Chinese language system of phonetics which the Butchers want to force on everyone - including the majority in the rest of China and Occupied Tibet who, of course, speak completely different languages. They also want to get rid of Chinese written characters and use our simple Latin letters. This is simply because they are greedy for material things and fear history, civilization and culture.

What next? Firenze Nightingale and her performing Beijingese dogs?

Maybe you skipped that bit, but now for some excitement over the Bay of Bengal:

There we are going back to Calcutta (Kohlkahta?) Centre while a 737 streaks by. But soon we were to do our own streaking:

One of our own BOAC dinosaurs...

We left him standing (apparently at the same altitude as us)! That was less than 2 miles away - you could practically see them buttering their toasted teacakes as we zoomed by. I suppose they'll land in a few hours' time.

First sight of Burma and perhaps you could also say Southeast Asia:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Nobody has yet suggested where exactly we might be going - it's not Yangon - I mean Rangoon - it's actually in . So now you know.

I rather liked this place to our right in Burma called simply Ye:

Flying over the enormous Irrawaddy River (which I forgot to photograph! ) there. The famous city of Mandalay is well to the north. 'The Road to Mandalay' is, of course, the river itself; which explains why 'the flying fishes play' there. For reasons which you may easily guess, my father spent the whole of 1944 and much of 1945 in Burma. Their main means of transport was, you may be envious to learn, the flying boat.

We soon hear from the people we're going to visit:

Landing should be easy as it's right by the sea, no altimeter problems. I was also helped towards the airport by AI traffic. Here's the correct way to follow a Connie:

And here's the WRONG way:

Gulp! and Double Gulp! (To do them justice, they did warn me and he was going for 21L while I had 21R. Anyway, it seemed to be forgotten once we'd all landed safely).

Apart from that, mine was a good one:

60s Scenery, but a nice long runway and no overshoot. Perhaps I'm getting better with practice? (Let's sincerely hope so if you know our next destination...)

Don't worry, I'm not quite such a pedant as to call Thailand Siam. to all those of you who got it just from the flag above. Let's go and park now, we landed at 11.06, so it took about 4 hours to cover 1,825 miles.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

I had my camera ready for anything interesting we might see on the ground here at Don Mueang (which nobody ever calls it), old Bangkok International.

By the way, music is easy here: One night in Bangkok (which is all I have) by Bjorn & Benny out of Abba and Tim Rice. it was sung by Murray Head, part of a long-forgotten show called Chess, but quite a good catchy pop/disco song really.

I soon saw this nice Thai DC-3;

Now we'll all learn their flag. Then I spotted my first JAL aircraft - there should be plenty more of those where we're heading:

These two fellows seemed a bit suspicious:

If they hadn't left a few years ago, I'd've guessed that they were flying the last lightbulbs back from their lost empire in Indo-China. Anyhow, it's 1960 and that's all turned into nice independent, sleepy little countries like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam - which nobody has ever heard of.

The kind Thais gave me a good parking spot (as befits the most beautiful aircraft in the country):

And if you think I'm going to have one exciting Night in Bangkok like in the song, you are mistaken. It's a good night's at the Sheraton, dreaming of a safe landing amongst the dragons at VHHH...

Another nice shot of G-APDA in Thailand:

 

[Ferry_vO]

Nice story, and good luck at Kai Tak! (You are going to need it... !)

For the best experience, try the '9dragons' scenery; five or six parts, available from the major download sites.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Dag Ferry!

I did look at the Nine Dragons a while ago, but think you may have to have the whole modern airport in there... Once we get to it (if!) you will see 60s Scenery & AI on the ground, so we'll see how that goes...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Well, I was wrong about VHHH - in fact we are heading for Victor Hotel Hotel X-Ray which comes up as Hong Kong International (old) under Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region?), not China, in fs9. There is a third, smaller (military?) airport called Sek Kong. Obviously in 1960 it still had 39 years of being to go, a Crown Colony no less.

Before we start, here's a map of the approach to Bangkok which I forgot to post yesterday:

Perhaps our most 'inland' landing till we get to New York and then London in the final two stages of the journey.

For once I was at the end of the row parked in front of the terminal and the runway was right in front of me. Glad I photographed interesting stuff going by them here yesterday!

We had a 6.30 slot and there was a solitary Learjet in front of us. It's 1,153 miles or 933.7 nautical miles if you prefer. My ETA for HK was 9.00...

...and we were off! Once more 'they' had given us a paltry 13,000 ft, obliging me to jack it up by another 10,000 again. I did a foolish thing, however, and climbed straight through 8,000 - my Initial Climb altitude - too quickly. They then, quite rightly, made me go back down to 8 thousand before permitting 15 and finally 23. I was a bit worried that that could plonk me into a mountain (as I was presumably further ahead than I should have been at that stage of the flight); but needn't have worried, that part of Thailand is as flat as a pancake:

Interesting round things that you get in the default scenery, made by oxen or Conan the Barbarian going round and round in circles for thousands of years?

At least there were no heading problems:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The border between Thailand and Laos is the Mekong River itself. I meant to photograph the moment we crossed the famous 17th Parallel, but forgot, so I hope you Nam Vets will be happy with this shot of your favourite waterway:

As you can see, Vientiane Centre were eager to pick me up, even before I'd crossed the national border. (The name Vientiane for the capital of Laos must be a French version of Viang Chan, the alternative which appears on one of my maps).

That was at 7.29. There was a lot of radio chatter from Vientiane/Viang Chan, much of it directed at Air Indias and Cathay (Pacifics), which certainly confirmed that we were heading in the right direction. They also addressed two fellow-BOAC Speedbirds, 910 and 933, so it wasn't lonely over Laos.

Yesterday I used this for the Vietnam flag . In 1960 there was also South Vietnam, which the Smiley people have thoughtfully provided - we cannot fault them. I was afraid that we might be picked up by Ho Chi Minh City Centre*, but glad when realism was retained and we did come to...

Hanoi Centre. And guess what? They immediately ordered me to turn Sharp Left! In fact I've got a song for them: Hanoi Annoys Me by Fashion (one of my favourite bands from when grandad was a lad, 1979). Hanoi Jane made a huge fuss about my altitude being slightly out and I spent my whole time over their wretched country trying to get spot on 23,000 ft. Luckily Vietnam is very thin there and we were soon over the Gulf of Tonkin...

...where default Boeings, probably from Orbit & Pacifica, seem to congregate. Then, wondering how we'd deal with the People's Republic of China, I thought we were picked up by 'Nanking Centre' - but Nanking is hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to the north. In fact it was Nanning Centre.

(* No doubt all the inhabitants still call it Saigon.)

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It was OK with the Red Chinese to overfly Hainan Island...

There was a 707 (more realistic Boeing for 1960) at 32,000 near there; possibly the one we saw again later, though he must have made a very rapid descent if it was. This map shows Hainan Island, the Gulf of Tonking to its west, South China Sea to the east:

Here's an outside view of our descent, including the 707 we followed in to Hong Kong:

In fact I was very glad to follow him; as Ferry said, it's a notoriously hairy approach:

Obviously with this big bird we got the easier one, through the Lei Mun Gap on the right, but I still didn't have much knowledge of it. That 707 up ahead was a bit of a Godsend. Here's the computer's version of the approach map:

Flying half the morning. Typing half the afternoon. I'm exhausted and hungry.

Will G-APDA, with her inexperienced pilot RALF, make it into VHHX?

Will it be :ernae: or ?

Don't know if anyone even reads this stuff, but I'm going for a reality tea before posting any more! :d

 

[Firebar]

Interesting round things that you get in the default scenery, made by oxen or Conan the Barbarian going round and round in circles for thousands of years?

Think it might be a more modern (than Conan) rotary sprinkler system, like in (cough cough geography casestudy cough cough) El Sahiya in Egypt.

I'm certainly reading this with interest!

 

[Desert Rat]

I'm certainly reading this with interest!

me too :d

 

[Wing_Z]

Flying half the morning. Typing half the afternoon. I'm exhausted and hungry.
Will G-APDA, with her inexperienced pilot RALF, make it into VHHX?

It'll be tough, but they will make it in OK.
Nothing focusses the attention quite like flying straight at a hillside on finals, before turning right to land!
Remember to apply the brakes fairly early...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It'll be tough, but they will make it in OK.
Nothing focusses the attention quite like flying straight at a hillside on finals, before turning right to land!
Remember to apply the brakes fairly early...

Interestingly enough, if you get reverse thrust right you shouldn't have to apply the brakes at all - until you park - with a Comet. It's also a matter of knowing how to use the flaps, not throttle, to slow down on the descent...

And thanks for that about the rotary sprinkler system, Firebar. Your case-study finally came in useful!

You will now all learn, indeed see, how G-APDA fared...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The same old book that had the map of those nasty approaches and the Lei Mun Gap includes this delightful picture of where they stuck some of the cross-bar lights in Kowloon:

Luckily Suzie Wong doesn't require much sleep. Here we are about to introduce the people who live there to the dulcet sound of Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets:

The 707 in front was, as I mentioned, extremely useful:

I made a very careful note of exactly how high he was there, above Lamtong Island (about 2000 ft), and copied him carefully. Weren't we lucky to have an equivalent aircraft to follow?

This looks a tad low...

For some reason I didn't notice that big cruise ship (or anything else outside other than the runway) when that particular picture was taken. The 707 has already vanished, or at least his label did the moment he touched the ground; and it's a pity you can't quite make out the line of 3 or 4 aeroplanes that were waiting patiently for us to get down.

But we never found out how wet the water was. We were down safely:

As you can see from that shot, no brakes are being applied, flaps at 80 degrees. I was then just about to come out of reverse thrust and, though very near the end of the runway, was in full control, turning off to park with no problems (no overshoot since Beirut).

Anyone on BST will see that this is posting after 23.00, so I'll save the pictures of what we found there till tomorrow morning. (Don't worry, you'll be able to read those fascinating advertising billboards in clear focus too).

Good night from HK!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It was 9.05 when we landed, quite close to my original ETA despite the initial altitude problems over Thailand on that flight. Here's another interesting picture from that old (1962) book:

It was with the advent of jets like our Comet and that 707 that they built the new airport, starting in 1956, so it might have been OK to go to VHHH and use ILS, etc. though you'd have missed the following interesting scenery and aircraft:

Americans on the right... (those C-46s must be getting on a bit, probably WW2 veterans!)

...and Brits on the left:

Two Cathay Pacific Viscounts at their home airport (the offices are in Connaught Road) - not sure which airline the green one is from, but it looks as though we've CAUGHT UP WITH OURSELVES finding another Speedbird there!

Here's another shot of the Cathays:

Still not sure about the green one... anybody?

And we squeeze into a parking space at the other end of that row:

Now you can read the ads, apparently put there by Donald Draper and his colleagues from Sterling Cooper. Well we've been to Bangkok and we're going to San Francisco, so Pan Am eat your heart out!

(Seem to have lost the ability to post pictures, but will try putting these up now & go to User CP and investigate remaining capacity, etc.)

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It seems to be OK now.

Let's try again:

Cranes again; as at Delhi, building work going on nearby.

And finally for our arrival in HK, another map from the computer:

Tempted to try the more difficult approach in a Curtiss Commando or DC-2 or something...

But G-APDA, passengers, crew and myself are all still each in one piece!

 

[Shessi]

Great stuff Ralf!

The Comet was/is a real beauty.

back to your travelogue......

Cheers Shessi

 

[hawkeye52]

This thread is a DAILY "MUST" for me! Great tale, Ralf.

- H52

 

[edmoore235]

I lurk and read this one every day too!! Lots of fun. Thanks.

Ed

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The Comet was/is a real beauty.



Cheers Shessi

There is one (non-flying, but looking pretty) in Everett, Washington State, USA:

This is actually a 4C, never used by BOAC, with RR Avon 525B engines, not a pure 4 with 524 engines - it took 101 passengers (only 81 in the 4), but had a shorter range. It was with Mexicana and ended up at a US technical school, but Boeing (of all people) rescued it and did it up nicely. Dan-Air went on using them till 1980, so a lot of package holidaymakers in the '70s were unwittingly very, very lucky. Apart from the related Nimrods, the RAF still used Comets until 1981 - and they scrapped the last one after more than a decade in storage in 1994! Nitwits.

(I can definitely remember going in a VC-10 as a child in the '60s, but not sure if I ever travelled in a real Comet. Will have to ask Mother.)