Tall Tales at the Alvear

MM

MM

Charter Member
The sponsors have put us up at the Hotel Alvear, a rather swell place for those of us living on a pilot's paycheck. Happily, all expenses are paid. We can gather around the famous bar in the lobby and swap tales, both true and interesting. A few photos would be icing on the cake. The sponsors have kindly asked that we not break up the joint.

Otherwise we can go out among the porteños and enjoy the Tango. Or visit the Café Tortoni on the Avenida de Mayo for something completely different. Best of times...
 
The crew was anxious to get started so we decided to depart for Heathrow at 02:55 local. The passengers were in good spirits and enjoyed the early morning ride.

The Tudor handled surprisingly well with the full cargo hold. The only downside this leg was the persistent headwind and patchy fog.
 
Off to a good start with four legs under my belt. Decided to get the night legs out of the way on the short european runs, but decided to fly the Alps in daylight:icon_lol:

So far the navigation has been quite easy with plenty of NDB's and the winds favourable through France and Italy.

Steve
 
Well a nice first day for me . Night flights from Amsterdam to London and then to Paris in good conditions with good NDB`s to track . Then a day flight across the Alps to Milan , an area I know very well :) , The winds were shifting about early in the flight but was great to keep on track using the many NDB`s enroute , crossing the alps in good weather made keeping track easy ( just head for the Matterhorn ) and the RMG NDB comes alive and an easy descent and approach .

I`d like to give a big Thankyou to the organisers and all at the Outhouse for letting me take part in this excellent Event . It`s so different than the "point and shoot" of the RTWR , the route planning , NDB planning , Timings and the relief when the next NDB comes alive , is great fun . Cheers guys :ernae:


not much to see over the North sea to London at night , lots to see at the Matterhorn and nice landing in Milan
 
I decided to take an easy start today, with a flight from Stockholm to Copenhagen on my way to Amsterdam. I didn't want to start with a three hour flight direct to Amsterdam because I was a little bit afraid of ending up in Greenland because of a bad navigator (and it was getting a bit late).

Bry Rosier said:
I`d like to give a big Thankyou to the organisers and all at the Outhouse for letting me take part in this excellent Event . It`s so different than the "point and shoot" of the RTWR , the route planning , NDB planning , Timings and the relief when the next NDB comes alive , is great fun .
Click to expand...

I second Bry's comments (hi Bry by the way), it was a lot of fun having to think a bit about which direction you should be flying. EKCH didn't seem to have an NDB though, and I went out of range of the last NDB on my route about 30 nm from the airport, and me changing my heading trying to make a nice approach to the active runway, leaving me not quite sure if I was heading in the right direction. I was quite happy when I saw the Öresund bridge (which had mysteriously been transported back to 1949), connecting Malmö and Copenhagen, with one end right beside EKCH :icon_lol:
 
Down to DC

Imagine my surprise when the boss showed up to greet our arrival in La Guardia last night. He advised us that there would be a slight delay in our departure for Washington. He said the engines on our Strat had accumulated too many hours to be trusted for the Evita event and advised that 4 newly overhauled engines would be installed and my departure to DCA would have to wait a bit.
At 2100 Clipper America was ready for the next leg with the boss onboard. Seems he has some urgent business with some public servants about airmail contracts. The weather briefing has SIGMETS advising of convective activity along most our route of flight. We depart La Guardia with max payload and a light fuel load and head southwest.
Within 20 minutes we are being bounced around in the clouds as the lightning illuminates the flight deck. The turbulence abates a bit as a start my descent near Newark Delaware but I loose my airspeed indicator and get the Flight Engineer to fire up the pitot heaters. As I pickup speed in descent my co-pilot warns me that carb temps are getting low, so I close down the intercooler flaps and see the temps start to rise. A few minutes later I am warned again about low carb temps, so I gang switch the carb heaters on. Just past Baltimore I pickup the ADF for my approach to DCA and alter my course. I am reducing throttle as I pickup speed on my decent and then suddenly the engines cut out. No response to the throttle. The mixture controls were leaned for cruise and I forgot to set them to Auto Rich. A quick restart of the engines and then I notice that we were further west than I planned for the approach into DCA. To expedite the landing we overflew P-26 directly over the Washington monument and then setup for landing on runway 1. Downwind leg over Alexandria then turn for the 01 approach. I got a complement on the landing from the co-pilot and the passengers applauded. Nice finish for a short but busy flight
 
After spending the day drinking coffee and waiting around at Schiphol, we finally got a telegram from Max Hymans in Paris giving us the high sign. Rushed to the cockpit and warmed the Wrights.

In the excitement of the first trip, I plumb forgot to post the takeoff. Got a stern warning from the race marshal right away. Everything was new but ordinary—with clear weather over the Thames affording the paying passengers a splendid view of St. Pauls and Westminster. Everyone got out for a quick stop before crossing La Manche and heading for beautiful Paris. Fish 'n Chips, anyone?

The only unusual event came over the North Sea when we received a radio telegram from a colleague out in the Pacific. He was in need of some engineering advice and we had the technical manuals on board. Connie pilots have to stick together, it seems, no matter the time and distance.
 
Oy! The black, the black!

I was up at 23000 ft peering into the inky black thinking "I've got a bad feeling about this!" Long test flights over the days prior to the race showed me that my trusty drift meter was not 100% reliable on legs in the vicinity of 800 NM or more. Brisbane to Noumea was proving to be a constant struggle with anxiety, and I only had to look forward to 1400 NM and 2000 NM legs as I made progress to the east. I started my descent into the unknown cryin out to Mamma, "What am I doin here?"

You guys in the north have got it easy!

"Oh yeah, I can see the panel. But what about outside?"
 
Night flight for Merc Air One to La Guardia.

It was a bit too foggy for pics in New York.
 
I fully express my sympathies to the gentleman from Qantas. Navigating over open ocean in the dark can be disconcerting, as for all intents and purposes you're guessing where you are. The view isn't much to write home about either.

Not to mention our National Airlines celebration in Miami had only been underway for a few minutes when Pan-Am's Flying Whale showed up to crash the party. Why does it always seem like they have to one-up everyone else? :kilroy:
 
This month, June 1949, the "24 Heures du Mans" is set to start again after the war interruption. Wonderful machines. Wonderful event. Hope that it lasts into the future.
 
A glimmer of hope!

I've been wrestling with my navigational problem and I think I've found a solution.

I've flown from New York to London often enough to know that when you leave JFK you head in a north easterly direction, but when you cross the shores of England you're heading south east. You follow a great circle path between the two points, and in order to follow such a circle your navigational plan has to account for an element of precession. The only question is, could you estimate how much is necessary with sufficient reliability?

Well, it may be crude, but the flight planner will give you a vector flying to your destination from the west, and it will also give you a vector for the same course in reverse.

Say I'm flying from Easter Island to Santiago, the flight planner tells me I should head in a 095 direction for 458 minutes! When I enter the reverse course it tells me I should head in a 267 direction, so there's an 8 degree difference between my departure heading and the compass point opposite my heading for the reverse course, namely 95 - 87 = 8.

I may leave Easter Island heading 095, but I should arrive at Santiago heading 087, and I should adjust my heading one degree every 458 / 8 = 57 minutes.

It's crude, but it's worth a try, and I'm feeling much more positively about the reliability of my drift meter. I hope you weren't too disappointed with the pessimism of my earlier post. I thought it kinda funny to be attempting this navigational feat with such simple instruments, and I thought I'd share.

Good luck to all.
 
Having fun in Havana

The Evita Pan Am Crew had it's first daytime operation of the event. A quick flight from Miami to Havana. After a quick climb out over the Florida Keys and a short cruise at FL180 it was time to descend into Havana and some fun.

Everyone (passengers and crew) were going to head to the Tropicana for the evenings entertainment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obFPAXXeFos&feature=related
 
Most of the passengers were on their way Monaco to visit the classic Casino. A spot of gambling and all that.

In the morning one wakes up dreaming of meeting a wonderful young girl, visiting Monaco, who might want to go for a drive in the hills. A spectacular view of the city from up there. And who knows, might meet a princess. But wait, who's that suave fellow meeting her now? Stop, thief!

Gosh. Well, maybe I'll look for Bry who just landed his BOAC Hermes at Nice. Good fellowship beats all...
 
No chance to meet up Mike :( My First Officer and the Stewardesses were just checking in to our Hotel and planning quite a night out when the receptionist informed us that BOAC headquarters wanted us to take the next flight out to Lisbon :( Apparantly the Captain Scheduled to take the flight has the "Flu" and cannot leave his Monaco Hotel room !!!! Yeah Right :/ The Hermes was already fuelled up and waiting for us . Passengers were boarding . I tried to explain to the HQ we were "Out of Hours " but he told me " such things do not exist in 1949 " :) So no Casinos , no dancing girls but the promise of a 2 Day rest in Lisbon so cannot complain really !!
 
An evening flight from Paris to Milan, carrying a group of tourists on their way to see some of the sights of this marvellous city. With all the talk of visiting the Last Supper, the Milan Cathedral and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II i was left with a nice tailwind to whisk everyone in over the Alps.
Unfortunately the evening was too late to take in the Alps but a nice sunset was some reward.
 
Paris to Milan

Nice scenic flight that almost went off without a hitch. Nearing the Alps our engineer remarked that our right outboard tank was about to run dry. In a calm manner I asked him to please crossfeed #4 with the mains which took care of that. Problem was we had a 730 lb off-balance situation with #1 & #4. At 8800' I dumped the excess fuel out from #1 and all was well again. We also managed to land with a slightly overweight ship despite our best efforts.

One more slipup from the engineer and the navigator and they will both be sacked!
 
All I can say is, I love working for an airline based in Miami. :jump:

[YOUTUBE]P5dWxjihyGE&fmt=18[/YOUTUBE]

And you all wonder why I'm not anxious to leave Miami quite yet. :kilroy:
 
Completed my first leg. Ok, the first leg without dumping the plane in the sea, that is. No good pics as this was a night landing, but here's a shot from the flight deck as we came into runway 11 at Noumea.
 
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