Spookster67 - Golden Age - Mew Gull E2H, G-AEXF

S

Spookster67

Charter Member
The Percival Mew Gull, G-AEXF, is ready to go. Panel all working, flight testing complete, time to leave Mildenhall. :wavey:
 
Down safely at LRBS.

Quite cloudy over Germany, but some good tailwinds as well. Cleared over Czech, and had a nice view of the mountains crossing into Romania. Navigation worked nicely, although at one stage I was confused by there being two NDBs quite close together with the same frquency - ARD on 517.0, and another one quite close but in the wrong direction!
 
Spookster67 said:
Down safely at LRBS.

Quite cloudy over Germany, but some good tailwinds as well. Cleared over Czech, and had a nice view of the mountains crossing into Romania. Navigation worked nicely, although at one stage I was confused by there being two NDBs quite close together with the same frquency - ARD on 517.0, and another one quite close but in the wrong direction!
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Cool start Martin ... hope success stays with you :applause:
 
Flight 2, LRBS to ORBI (ORBS). Rain and localized thunder at Bucharest for an early morning start, fingers crossed. Estimating 5:05 to Baghdad.
 
Real life interuption - wife needed me to cook dinner, and her to check emails on the PC. Controlled flight into terrain! :frown:

Will have to re-fly tomorrow morning.
 
Spookster67 said:
Real life interuption - wife needed me to cook dinner, and her to check emails on the PC. Controlled flight into terrain! :frown:

Will have to re-fly tomorrow morning.
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Bad luck ... worse still your beers are now warm and flat ... :icon29:
 
SWSucceed said:
Bad luck ... worse still your beers are now warm and flat ... :icon29:
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Well, that's the way I like my beer! :icon_lol:

OK, trying again, this time without interuptions. LRBS to ORBI, in a bit more than 5 hours. Starting pre-dawn local time, to try to get 2 or 3 flights done in daylight today.
 
Safely down at ORBI. A reasonable flight, but I hit some bad thunderstorms over northern Iraq which last 45 minutes, with low vis, turbulence and rain. Anyway, cleared up nicely for the arrival at Baghdad. Came in very hot on the runway, but there's plenty of it, and I must have glided half its length just losing speed before I dared put the wheel on the tarmac.

Just time for a kebab for lunch, the (now warm and flat) beer that Stuart bought me yesterday, and we'll be refuelling and off to the Persian Gulf.

Flight time 05:12:16
Cumulative 10:37:34
 
Flight 3. And the next one, ORBI to OIBB. Target 2 hours.

Actually I would like to have routed straight over Iran to VIJO (Jodhpur), but at 1573nm that is at least 100nm further than the range of this little Mew Gull. It would have needed some good tail winds, a bit of fuel leaning, and a lot of luck!! So instead, it's a series of "lightly loaded" sprints around the Gulf coast.
 
Well done :)

I had crap weather over Baghdad too, not written the flight report yet, but it was very rough in places and I am surprised that I'd not received structure damage.

Testimony to the DC-3, no wonger she lasted such a long time in aviation terms.

As for the warm flat beer reaching the parts others do not, you know that with all the expense on fuel and provisions for the flight that I only bought you half a Fosters, so if warm cat-pee is your thing ... ... ... :blind:
 
Safely down at OIBB, just a minute quicker than I guessed. Completely uneventful flight, which in a way is nice. :icon_lol:

Flight time 1:58:59
Cumulative 12:36:33
 
Landed safely at Jask (OIZJ).

It would have been a nice VFR flight around the coastline, but I picked up coastal fog almost immediately after departure, so I was relying on bearings and stopwatch at times rather than following the coast. Anyway, it cleared, and it got a lot easier. Jask was easy to find - not a cloud in the sky.

Flight time 2:03:31
Cumulative 14:40:04
 
And down at Karachi (OPKC). Had to try lots of different flight levels to avoid some fairly gentle headwinds. With the Karchi NDB popping up at 122nm out, navigation on this one was relatively easy. Just a little misty on arrival, otherwise weather quite nice.

Flight time 2:25:06 (oooh, just 6 seconds out... :p:)
Cumulative 17:05:10
 
I was watching your flight on the race tracker. It looks like you're having to work pretty hard to find favorable winds. Keep up the good work!
 
Vicious said:
I was watching your flight on the race tracker. It looks like you're having to work pretty hard to find favorable winds. Keep up the good work!
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Yes, I had thought that it would be a case of finding the right altitude, and then going with the flow, but in fact within 5 minutes of finding a tail wind I lost it and had to go searching again. In the end I think I ended up with slightly more headwind than tailwind.:isadizzy:
 
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