Speedbird around the World

[Sunny9850]

Great read on this epic flight on one of the great airplanes. The Comet certainly has that certain something that modern airplanes all lack completely.

One small correction maybe is that Moffet or KNUQ is not the main airport for San Jose...that is KSJC.

But at least the Blimp or Zeppelin Hangars now once again are home to one of the great airships from Friedrichshafen.

Stefan

 

[EMatheson]

Just wondering what that bit about Mormons was about...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Xden - kmdw

Just wondering what that bit about Mormons was about...

As I said, Mr M., Mormons make good pilots (and AT controllers). You should know! Thank you for your hospitality over Utah, and greetings from the Dutch Reformed Church.

Is it OK to fly on the Sabbath? Anyway, it was time to leave Denver:

Oh yes, here's the plan:

That's Colorado - Nebraska - Iowa - Illinois. We will fly quite near Omaha, Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

The little tower at XDEN:

We follow a shabby DC-6 and a snazzy 707 out to the active runway (oh yes, got the purple lines back):

Waiting behind them...

...here's that Golden boy...

...and there he goes!

Then it was our turn; here we are just off the ground:

And off in the usual direction...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Rivers of the Midwest

Now I know that the Grand Canyon is in Arizona, but believe I was right about the Mormons being in Utah. Looking back, realise that there are a few historical/cultural/geographical errors made during the flight - but luckily nobody seems to have noticed most of them!

(big bmps might look better as pictures, but they do take much longer to download, so I'm afraid it's back to little jpegs!)

Map for leaving Denver:

The detail kicks in over the USA. Flew over this airfield in Nebraska:

Checked the map and found it to be Kearney Municipal:

It all goes very flat once you leave the Rockies behind. But it's also rather pretty at only 19,000 ft., you can make out humanity below. In reality I've flown over the Canadian Prairies at a much greater altitude (in a 777), and boy! was that dull. Like looking at carpet tiles forever & ever.

The mighty Missouri:

Now, of course, I'm looking out for the even mightier Mississippi. Is this it?

No. It's only the unromantic Middle Raccoon River (or the even more unromantic (or just less romantic)) South Skunk!

Never mind, here's Iowa City:

Could THAT be the Mississippi up ahead?

I'm afraid it was only the Wapsipinicon, but you can see the Mississipi in this heading change shot:

...and the fact that the engines get a bit hot. I have seen that river in reality - much further south though, at its mouth down in New Orleans. Shall we now go for the old joke: If that's the Mississippi, then where's the Mister Sippy?

OK, forget that. We get our approach instructions:

Still slow, less than Mach 0.7, at 19,000. The map goes purple circle crazy:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Lots of small airfields and AI GA buzzing around below, here in the US heartland:

Once read a book about microlighting which included the memorable phrase that the guy who loved microlights referred to people 'who have Cessnas' like he was saying 'people who have lice' - ! Seemed a bit unfair on Cessnas. Of course mention of microlights reminds us of the late John Denver who not only had the same name as the place we've just been in, but also sang I'm Leaving on a Jetplane - wrote it in fact. No problems finding songs for our next destination of course.

Things seemed to be going well...

You can see the not-brilliant default Chicago Downtown there. Obviously that could be greatly enhanced, but it's the '60s airports & traffic, not cityscapes we're here to see.

I make a brilliant final approach...

EXCEPT - Did you spot it? The undercarriage hasn't gone down!!!
Only the Smily's JAW has DROPPED...

Luckily I did notice in time (when I took that picture in fact) and made a go-around. So here we are, still in one piece, now flying away from Chicago, south towards Indianapolis:

:redf: Already late - it took much longer than the 2 hours or so predicted - we were sent MILES before turning round & making it successfully...

...only just had enough runway too.

Don't think those three should really be on the grass; either a fix is needed, or someone will tell me that they ran out of concrete at Midway in 1959, etc., etc. I'm afraid Ground Control proved very slack there, they even sent my beloved purple lines over the lawn.

Nobody warned me this was coming either - only just stopped in time!

It was a...

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Hope you've all taken all your clothes off as SOH STATUS has said 'Please bare with us' (maybe they don't like bears?). Anyway, if God had meant us to run around naked we'd have been born without clo...or German, or something.

Some lovely classics can be spotted amongst the propliner AI:

Talking of the Almighty, only He knows where we were sent to park. Not that it was short of advertising...

Let's take another, closer look at some of Sterling Cooper's sterling work:

Makes you want to eat bread and go to Mexico in that Golden Jet, doesn't it? What about that first pair again...

Sublime! Maybe those boys from CalClassics made us park here deliberately? Actually I do smoke a little; but only Meharis (it's a Dutch thing).

And I liked this airport stuff lying around in that distant corner...

Mind you, we could do with a flight of those steps after our flight...

And just before I go to , this looks like the earlier picture with a Connie in it, but now you can also see a Viscount landing there...

...which is nice.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Kmdw - klga

If anyone's following this, sorry there wasn't any flying at the weekend - we had lovely weather & it was time to wash cars, mow lawns, etc. (I've also been fiddling about with some 1930s & '40s aircraft & scenery which makes this 1960 flight, especially navigation, pretty easy to manage.)

Anyway, it's time for Chicago to New York, and as I have today,Tuesday, off work (payback for a Saturday), flew it this morning. Here's the route:

That's Illinois - Michigan - a corner of Ohio - Pennsylvania - New Jersey - New York. It takes about an hour and a half and I added 5000ft to the 19000 they gave me; a very sensible trick since the Comet flew much better this time and easily made Mach 0.75.

Around 07:00, but Midway is already getting busy. You'll see two good city skylines today. Here's Chicago's:

Don't know who that pilot was, but he seemed pretty glad to be in the Windy City, must live there...

Realistic airport stuff lying around:

(Maybe that big multangular wheel isn't so realistic!). By the way, this was Gate 5.

A lot of American Airlines planes here; though they're based where we're heading to...

I snapped that one just before we moved off, having completed all my pre-flight checks. A nice forest of Connie tails in this picture:

We switch the lights on and move off...

Thank heavens the purple lines worked here!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Is that the Sears Tower? I doubt if it was yet built in 1960, but still.

Not much GA on the ground at Midway, but I noticed where they get their fuel from...

We were behind a Capital (yes, Capital, not Capitol) DC-4:

There he is just starting to move off...

And now it's our turn:

View from the flightdeck:

And here's the landing gear being tucked away until the next time we need it..!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

A striking shot from above as we left...

...with the DC-4 disappearing on his way. As well as two city skylines, you get two big lakes on this trip. Lake Michigan is, of course, the first one:

When I first learnt to fly back in FS98, Archie, my instructor at Meigs, used to splutter 'Where ya goin'? Michigan?!?' (If he could see me now!).

Here's our route out of Chicago:

They had some interesting AI/GA flying around down there:

Chicago Centre soon handed us over to Cleveland. Then, interestingly, quite near this place...

Detroit, we were handed over to Toronto Centre for a bit. Of course we were briefly over Canada, though they soon handed us back to Cleveland who then guided us right across Pennsylvania. Note the DC-3 way below, approaching Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County...

I was there in reality last year (KDTW - exactly there), and took some photos, but the weather was appalling and we'd been delayed so there wasn't much time; ended up deleting the lot . Looks like the Gooneybird's just about to land there too - or it did in some sort of virtual 1960.

And the next big body of water is Lake Erie:

(Unlike Pakistan/India, the US/Canada border is not one where you fear flying into some crazy war.)

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

This must still be Lake Erie...

...but at the risk of offending the Quakers (who I'm sure will forgive me), Pennsylvania is quite dull & flat from the air, so the next exciting sight turns out to be...

The Atlantic itself! Here's our approach map for La Guardia:

Should really be going to JFK, which was still Idlewild in 1960. Today La Guardia has won out on 1960s scenery. Got a quick glimpse of some skyscrapers during my Final, but there wasn't a great deal of time to take photographs...

That's our Runway (4) they're talking about. Followed a Connie in and the landing seemed to be OK until I noticed that the (very short) RW4 suddenly turned liquid! Happy though I was to see my Home Ocean, I wasn't so happy as to want to go for an immediate swim in it. Just managed to veer off to the right before this picture was taken:

They have helicopters there - Yay!

That will be the Piasecki H21-C, presumably shuttling between the city centre and various airports. This was a big idea in the late '50s/early '60s, but of course the problem is... the passengers' wretched luggage. Why do they have to spoil everything by carting all that stuff round with themselves? So that Victorian invention, the train, remains by far the best way to get people to airports. Nevertheless, my father did use those helicopters in NY back in that sainted decade, the 1960s (though Ralf didn't reach New York in reality till this blighted century! (by car down Route 1).)

Flaps up, a moment to check the local GA and that glorious Manhattan architecture again:

I'm just hoping they've got a longer runway hidden away somewhere so we can LEAVE!

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Art Deco terminal at La Guardia - plus at least one aeroplane designed for eternal beauty before simple functionality in front of it:

Come to think of it, the lovely Comet's engines being built into its wings weren't terribly practical either. A lot more Americans here, their HQ being down on Third Avenue:

At least parking was nice 'n' easy and I was allowed just to slot into a gap facing this massive TWA hangar:

I don't see any other jets here and develop a horrible suspicion that no runway will be suitable to exit the place!

Jets or not, there's plenty of glorious hardware on show:

Suddenly thought of taking the 'directly above' shot, usually reserved for flying over something spectacular:

Makes for interesting size comparisons. The L1049G could take a maximum of 95 passengers, but the DH106 Mk 4 only had 81 passenger seats. The first 707s already seated 131 (rising to 189), so the nature of air travel was changing. As my old friend 'Captain X' puts it in Unfriendly Skies 'When I started flying passengers were exclusively the Jet Set. Now it's PEOPLE OFF THE STREET.'

Nobody can ever get enough of the New York skyline...

Well, it was nice of TWA to let me (and this little Eastern guy) go in front of their big building...

...and indeed next to one of their queenly Connies:

Should be getting back to Olde England on the next virtual flight next week - and going to New World America on my next real flight next month.

Hope you're still with me. Do post any comments/corrections or whatever that might have occurred to you.

for now!

 

[Willy]

You're doing great Ralf! I figured out a while back if you really want to learn a FS aircraft, take it around the world once. I'm planning on starting another lap around the globe, this time in a Spitfire. (planning on it being my main ride in next years RTW race)

Good luck! :ernae:

 

[hawkeye52]

We're still with you, Ralf. Starting to worry about what we're going to do once you get back to London!
- H52

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Well, I'm trying to set up KLGA - EGLL, but it's doing that stupid trick of sending us round via the Alaskan border!

Seem to remember this happening to someone else & a cure being posted...

If anyone can let me know, please, will complete the RTW. I've been trying for over an hour, rebooting, rearranging scenery, traffic, departure airports, etc., but to no avail...

Suggestions please!

 

[Willy]

Ralf, I usually take the flight across the pond via shorter hops usually involving Gander & Reykjavik and most often Greenland and the Faroe Islands. If it was me and I was wanting to do it in one hop, I'd set up the flight plan like I intended to stop at Reykjavik, but "divert" (change the flight plan to a straight shot) on the way.

Just a thought.

Or you could try it via the Azores first.

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

No, it still keeps going via the Alaskan border! Tried your Reykjavik trick & tried setting it up the other way, Heathrow to New York, but it STILL went to Alaska.

I think this happened to somebody before & there was a solution, but don't recall the details.

May try removing some recent downloads in case they have caused the problem?

Anyone?

 

[Sunny9850]

Actually that is probably a L-749 parked there next to your Comet...slightly shorter than the L-1049G and round passenger windows. :ernae:
In my humble opinion THE most beautiful airplane ever to grace the skies....but then as a member of Manfred's Connie Team I am not really impartial

Great read this story and I certainly love all the Connies in the shots as well.

Stefan

 

[Firebar]

you can either set up your own route (do a direct to heathrow or simmilar and then drad the line to where you want waypoints) or just do a direct to via gps to get a straight line route.

my fs9 with no addons did that too

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Back to Blighty

You are right, Sunny, that is an L-749 Constellation (dating back to 1947), not a Super Constellation (L-1049G) of 1954. The original Connie took up to 81 passengers - they nearly doubled it from 44 originally.

Good news everybody! (to quote from Futurama which is never far from my thoughts), I have now successfully navigated KLGA - EGLL in the Comet. This took almost exactly 12 hours, 06.15 - 18.20, but you can all breathe a collective sigh of relief...

Here's a nice daylight shot of G-APDA in front of the old La Guardia terminal:

But when we left yesterday it was still quite dark:

Better show you the map(s) of our route:

That seems to be avoiding Alaska. Obviously took everyone's good advice and just plotted it without IFR; but you'll see that I gave myself 19,000 feet. It would definitely have been quicker if we'd gone higher, though this altitude gives more interesting views and I was still hoping to maybe tune into those Ocean Stations...

Took some good pictures indeed from 19,000 feet, but still no luck with the Stations which are not close enough to this route. Also the NAV radios are in an inconvenient place on the overhead panel in the Comet, so my plan is to come back one day in a flying boat - that'll be the way to see those ships!

Planespotters were up bright and early at La Guardia:

Poor old Jean Charles is down there again, in the bottom right hand corner...and isn't that Hong Kong Phooey, arms akimbo, beside the truck below?

Never mind about them. Put the lights on Ralf!

That's better. There we are coming up to RW4; and here we are lined up and ready to go...

Remember I was worried about whether they would have enough concrete for us or not? Just made it:

And we're leaving New York behind...

...and heading ever eastwards:

 

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Still climbing as we follow the American eastern seaboard:

Here's a map showing the exit from New York on a heading of 65 degrees:

It's not long before we pass over Logan International:

And the town that goes with it, Boston Massachusetts:

Funnily enough, will be there in reality later this week! And as I've been visiting regularly for the last 30 years, had better try to describe this view a bit. Obviously you can see the Financial District and Downtown below our port wing with the Charles River to its right. Large green area between our auxilliary fuel tank and Downtown is Boston Common. The white bridge dead ahead on the Charles is the Harvard Bridge, beside which you find MIT, Harvard College and Cambridge just beyond that. On the far right you can see the Mystic River.

Still awake? Here's a photograph I took last year from the airport side looking towards Downtown:

You can't get that view from the airport, only from the Sheraton Hotel there which has a terrace facing the Inner Harbor. I spoilt a rather good dinner that evening by running out and taking pictures all the time, though in that case it seems to have been worth it.

Here's the map:

Heading out along the coast of Maine towards New Brunswick and the Canadian border:

Handed over from Boston to Moncton Centre, we overfly Prince Edward Island, including Charlottetown Airport:

This seems a rather striking view taking in the whole of PEI in the Gulf of St Lawrence:

And in this map you can see us halfway between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland:

Who says Ralf can't navigate?