I actually ran a dummy flight of this leg last night in a 747 to Melbourne.
Just wasn't sure if there was a better aircraft choice that I wasn't aware of. (Plus I wanted to get used to heavys before an official run..haha)
I did basically the same thing.
Before I decided to try the leg I had to make sure I could get the TU-95 off the ground. With special permission from the airport authourity we were allowed to back up say another mile. This was done with a fair amount of gentle persuasion if you want to call it that.
The first take off run when I finally got to the runway I was doing 85 kts. I was around 75% of the way down the runway when I finally got it up to 135 kts. That is when old eagle eye here decided to pull out on to the runway.
I hit this Cessna 172 doing 135 kias and stopped on a dime. No damage to him or me. LOL
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So it was time to try again this time I took a note from Willy's book and joined on line to clear out the AI.
This take off was right on the money. Rotated at 152 kias before the end of the runway but that was still a test.
The next one was the real one and again rotated at 152 kias and off we go.
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She cruises quite fast but the winds were brutal swinging all around and giving me 9 seconds of overspeed. I had to go slower and lower than I would have liked to it from over speeding.
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The landing well was not text book I am sure but I pulled it off. I think before I try this in the real race I would need to land it a few more times.
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FYI next time I will take less gas for any length of leg. I had enough fuel for 4500 +nm.
