The Windsor's Watering Hole

From Bucharest, to Baghdad, then through the Persian Gulf to Karachi

A few more pictures of my flights so far.
  • Early morning departure over the Black Sea
  • Making landfall in Asia
  • Granite clouds in southern Turkey
  • Found the lake I was looking for in the mountains
  • Thunderstorms in northern Iraq
  • Lightning and turbulence all around
  • Clear skies for approach to Baghdad
  • The infamous nuclear plant at Bushehr
  • Coastal mist on the way to Jask
  • Coral beds :icon_lol: along the Iranian coast!
 
Rather a pretty morning to fly the short jaunt from Alor Star down to Seletar. However, after a while the weather started to rumble with the dark grumbling sounds of thunderstorms and suddenly the air pressure started to drop dramatically. (Down to 25.22 inHG at one point.) That meant constant fiddling with the mixture to keep the Gipsy on song.

Eventually, while bouncing through a series of storms, I had to descend to about 3,000 feet in order to keep the atmospheric pressure below 8,500 ft--the Mew's Gipsy starts to run out of breath at this altitude. This meant tempting the fates by flying in the clouds low enough for the Malaysian mountaintops to threaten the Mew's paintjob. Made for attentive flying.

In the end, though, the clouds broke up just as I was entering Singapore and things went swimingly on finals. Now off to Raffles to look for Harv, Buzz, and the rest of the gang...

  • Beautiful morning for flying.
  • The mountain peaks of Malaysia provide playful company at 6,500 feet.
  • Hmmm...stormy weather ahead. Going to be interesting...
  • The clouds were filled with water vapor and ... mountaintops.
  • Ended up flying very low to keep the Gypsy breathing.
  • The weather cleared on approach to Seletar.
  • Finals.
  • Touchdown in the Mew means sitting up high in the cockpit to get a look at the ground below.
 
Flight from WRSJ to WRKK was only 670nm, but went alot smoother with a 23 knot tailwind and great visibility... A total contrast to the previous flight out of Singapore. That run gave me a 14 knot headwind at any altitude the whole flight. This flight had some nice scenery through the Indonesian Islands with some great topography using fsglobal mesh, and some of the islands had some tall hills... Good thing visibility was not an issue, because using dead reconning, I would have smacked a few hills directly in the way along the route. Good time on this leg, but thinking my next leg will be as good is hopeful at best :running:
 
I decided to bypass Karachi and head for Jodhpur, India. That decision almost bit me on the butt. Seems Jodhpur was fogged in pretty heavily. What saved me was that the ndb I was using was located right at the end of the runway and I followed the needle right to it. Once I had that figured out, it was just a matter of low and slow and staying out of the trees and buildings.
 
I think most of India is one giant fogbank. The flight from Karachi to Allahabad looked like the first attached screenie almost the whole way. I dropped to 6500' about 20 min out and finally the fog lifted just in time to land. I did have a modest tailwind most of the way though so I'm not entirely complaining.
 
Some recent kodaks along the road: 1) Final approach to Karachi, in the fog. 2) On the road to Jodhpur Airbase (VIJO) which has no ADF station in FSX, but does in FS9! It burned down in 2005, I guess. Very tragic. 3) Final approach, Jodhpur. 4) Flyin_Bull’s house?
 
Made it into the 2nd Checkpoint at Allahabad in the Twin Beech. Like Moses, it was fog almost all the way. It lifted around Agra, then fogged back up as I went on towards Allahabad. Then about 15 minutes out from VIAL, it lifted again, so my landing was in clear wx. (pics in my race thread)

A quick once over by the race inspection crew, and I'll be off to Calcutta.

Here's a link to the FS Race track site....

http://www.fsrtwrace.com/track/ShowFlight.php?detail=flight&value=rMn7k2gPNE7GzNd39934p4pn8

I swear I didn't get drunk in Agra! Heck I never got below 9000ft there.
 
Found this parked in Calcutta. Makes me wonder just how many red Staggerwings are flying in this race... :d
 
Couple pics on the flight from VIAL to VECC. The final approach pic is at Calcutta. Notice the Mooney trying to land from the other direction! As I was making the base leg, I tried to judge which of the two parallel runways he was headed for. It was difficult from the off-centerline position I was in. I guessed wrong. I made before he did though. The other pic is of the Lockheed somewhere over India. I've noticed that using REX2 real weather, I don't get the endless fog we get over India in FS9.
 
On the way to Burma from Calcutta, I made a short stop at Cox's Bazaar and Flea Market to conduct a little "bidness" Made my contact there a deal on the latest antique flintlock muskets at one gold bar each including ammo. Those should be of real help for the local revolutionaries.

Polaroids....

1) unloading the goods..

2) busload of shoppers hogging the runway while I'm trying to make my getawa... er... departure.
 
Flights over Australia dont lend too much in the topography department. Winds are nominal, vains of winds on the hind end of the a/c 'can' be found, but must be hunted frequently. Nothing seemed to present itself to convince me to stray out of the sweet spots of the a/c performance, so I took the winds as they were and headed south. One more leg to go, flat lands of Australia are passing below :running:
 
I should not fly while ill, but the circumstances urged me to go. Snapshots have been attached in the Log of the Moth which now awaits in VYDM.

May the next leg be smoother!
 
Here we are grounded in Singapore, but not for much longer so it seems. Willy, if you're arriving here before I'm off to Surabaya we should swing some glasses, after three days I found a few nice hangouts
 
Off to Malayasia here after while, then tomorrow should be on to Singapore. If you're still there, I'll be looking for you.
 
Some kodaks from Rome:

1.Departing Marseilles
2-3.Over Corsica
4.Over Rome
5.Approaching Ciampino
6.Parking
 
Athens LGAT - Akrotiri AB, Cyprus LCRA

Started with beautiful flight over the Aegean sea and its islands, over Mykonos to Kalymnos, then on along the turkish coast passing Kos and Rhodos to Megistos as a last fix before the 150 nm hop across the mediterranean to Cyprus by DR.

Quite some clouds, but with enough visibility to fly high to conserve fuel, navigate and enjoy the views.
Throttled well back and leaned as the distance was quite stretched for the Gee Bee. This will be my longest leg I guess.

Got into some CB on the jump to Cyprus that I could not outclimb. Rattled me a little, and threw me off course. Hit Cyprus 5 nm off track. Easy landing at Akrotiri.

Interesting flight.
 
Some kodaks of the last two flights. The first three show the flight to Sittwe, in Burma (VYSW), and the last three the flight from Sittwe to Rangoon (VYYY). This Lockheed 9 is really starting to grow on me. She flys beautifully. In the approach you can trim the little beastie so that she practically lands herself. I am starting to get a little cocky in the landing pattern though, as can be seen in pic 2. At some point she’ll probably rise up and bite me. Need to watch that...
 
Landed in a rainstorm in Alor Star (WMKA). Other than that, the flight from Rangoon was okay. Picked up Willy on the radio. He had just departed WMKA in the Beech. Still no relief from the headwinds which have hit us since we left VIAL.

Photos of:

1) Taking off from Rangoon
2) Heading into uncertainty
3) A little high on final but okay
4) Parked in the rain
 
Went on down to Singapore and had a good chat on the radio with Moses, von Wrecktoften and MoparMike. About halfway there I spotted these towers in a city below. Not sure what they're all about, but as I was at 9,500ft, they're some big rascals....
 
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