Steppe One

Steppe-ing out...

Fairly short flight- only 300nm. Cruised at FL190 for a while, but since this area is basically flat plain, descended for a better look. Didn't help. Ran into a thunderstorm nearing Syktyvkar, which bounced things around a bit, but otherwise uneventful.

Climbing out of Arkhangelsk


Miles and Miles of Miles and Miles


Oddball approach ILS- the angle from the runway is coming from the beacon, which it seems sits to the right of the runway, instead of at the far end.


Gear Down...


On the ground. This isn't a dinky town, but the airport setup is kinda weird, May have something to do with it being an old airbase.

Аэропорт Талаги

Moving on, I decided to pass by the Krivak at Murmansk, and head straight to the submarine races at Arkhangelsk. But enough F119 references...

This trip was about 500nm, at the staid and boring FL190. Took off at 4:30am from Tromso, having to dodge some mountains because of the straight thru GPS flight plan, eventually coming out on top for clear skies the whole way. Couple of air pockets here and there over the White Sea, then a quick descent into Talagi Intenational. There's no nav equipment at all in FS at Talagi, but it's made up for by the length of the runway. I guess.

Warming up at Tromso


Turning to Course (The city is actually quite a bit more populated than it looks here. See the Wiki article.)


En Route


On Approach


Taxiing off the runway.


I don't know if my landing skills are just bad, or I'm too used to using an ILS, or too dependent on the approach slope lights (none of which exist at this airport) or what, but the landing was lousy- only saved because the runway is over 8000 feet long. I, er, bounced. Not bad enough to break the gear, but it would have been very unsettling. Probably coming in too fast.

Midnight Sun for a Midnight Snack

From Oslo, on to Tromso, which is way above the arctic Circle, and has realllllly long days this time of year. I'm aiming for a landing very late, just to demo FS's astute grasp of sunlight conditions at different latitudes. I'm nerdy like that.

This leg is at FL210 (quel surprise...) and hasa distance of about 600nm. Becuase of the low angle of the sun, it's also very dramatic.

Feulin' Up in Oslo, 8pm local time.


Turned to Course, and flying back over the airport.


Dramatically over Norway (click thru to see the [dramatic] sliver crescent of the Moon)


Even More Dramatically under the Big Norweigan Dramatic Sky


Dramatically Descending thru Dramatic Mountains to Tromso (Dramatically)


Dramatically lined up over a dramatic reflection of the sun


Dramatically on final next to the dramatic houses of Tromso, which are dramatically perched on the hiils by the shoreline


On the Ground in Tromso- local time 12:15 am (Drama!)

N00B to Oslo

Heading northeast from Glasgow to Oslo, which is, evidently in Norway. It is roumored that the Norweigan language is made of almost entirely of the sounds that drunken Vikings make...

Anyway, lined up for takeoff in Glasgow- this trip in only about 550NM, and I cruised at FL190 (predictable, really). Very nice weather the whole way until some turbulence in the terminal area. Made the descent, especially between 10,000 and 3,000 rather bumpy.


Initial Climb


Turned to Course, Climbing over Glasgow (the trees make it look like the plane's shadow, and I'm just skimming the ground here. Kewel.)


On Approach to Gardermoen Airport (a little big for this type of aircraft, but what the heck, it's Flight Simulator. I can land where I want.


On Final

"You're Scottish, Fry Something!" - The Doctor

From Iceland to Scotland. From the Land of Ice to the Land of Scot. Er, Scots.

Anyway, about 750NM at FL190 (seems to be the most efficient). From Keflavik to Glasgow. Cloud tops were only at abut 16 thoudand, winds mostly calm, in short, a very good day for flying at altitude.

Pulling out of Iceland.

Turning to course.

Over the North Atlantic, headed south to Glasgow.

On final into Glasgow, following a 737 that just landed.

Instant replay from the tower view.


All out for Haggis & Butter Cookies.

Iceland - Land of Ice

Moving on to Keflavik. This flight totalled 3.8 hours, mostly at FL190. Both the airports are far enough north that the days are really really long- landing was at 12:30AM local, and as can be seen from the last photo, it wasn't quite dark.

Warming up.


Climbing out after a 180 degree turn (took off to the west, the turned left to pick up the GPS track.)
Over the mountains and glaciers.
Midnight sunset.
Landing at Keflavik. Very big airport, with one small hangar area for dinky tiny plane parking.

Onward to Greenland

Gander to Narsarsuaq

Next stop is an airfield at the southwest of Greenland, called Narsarsuaq. Built by the US War Dept for WW2, construction began in July of 1941. At it's largest, the base housed about 4000 personnel, and was used as an aircraft ferry stopover for planes being moved from the US to Europe, and as an observation and antisubmarine base. It's a biut more mundane these days, providing a passenger service hub, since the runway is long enough to handle large aircraft.

Warming up at Gander

Took off to the southwest, so had to come around- shown here flying past the airfield while climbing.

Experimenting with screen views at FL230.

Almost landed- steep approach, because MS Flight Sim seems to maintain standard H over G requirements in all terrain, without regard to common sense approach slopes...

On the Ground

An actual photo from the Wikipedia Commons...

Bangor to Gander

...and other phrases that sound dirty but arent.

Anyway, drippy day in Bangor- very wet parking area and runways. Taxiing kicked up a lot of spray. Cruised again at FL190, uneventful flight to Gander. There's not a lot of traffic on these routes, so not too much radio chatter either.

On the line, just after getting IFR clearance.

Dramatic pose amid rain and cloud...

Liftoff.

En route.

On Final into Gander.


I looked at the Wikimapia map of Gander, and there should be buildings in the foreground of that last shot- mainly car dealers, according to the map entries.

Next up, Bluie West One.

Eww

I just realized I used the term "sweet ride" in a prior post. I humbly apologize to the world for, on balance, reducing couth and beauty.

Leg the Foist

Chillicothe, OH to Bangor Maine.

Climbing out



In Route



Dark, pues.



Overall, pretty uneventful. Cruised at about 165kts IAS at FL190. Trip length was about 660 nautical miles. Used about 60 gallons of fuel. Took about 3 hours flight time.

One more time, with feeling.

Finally, off to 'round the world again- this time in a Mooney Bravo. Just to make it more interesting. I haven't found out what kind of range I can coax out of the thing yet, so the pacific crossing could get hairy. The Atlantic crossing, tho, will go over the tiome tested northern route that was used for ferrying aircraft since the 30s & 40s. North to Canada (I'm going to go through Gander), then to Greenland, then Iceland, to Scotland.

Anyway, here's the Bravo:


The beginning and end point is, for no apparent reason, Chillicothe, Ohio. Mead had a plant there, but that had no effect on my decision.

Anyway, the Bravo is a pretty sweet ride (in FlightSimWorld, anyway). It's got enough horsepower to climb up at 1,000 feet per minute if you want to, and at FL190 can cruise with a 210kt groundspeed (winds permitting). I'm flying the glass cockpit version, which has a lot of advantages over the old style instrumentation- the only drawback I've hit so far is I haven't been able to figure out how to tune the NAV2 radio. There's got to be some switch or key somewhere that changes the tuner knob so it tunes NAV2, but I haven't been bothered to find it yet.

Anyway, it looks cool, too.

hoorah

ThespaceFafblogspaceisspacebackspaceexclamationpointspaceHuzzah

AkchallyspacetheyspacebeenspacebackspaceferspacesomespacetimespaceanapostrophespaceIspacedidnapostrophetspacenoticeperiod

Compods

Comcast is now employing Pod People to advertise their all-in-one cable system to other pod people.

Actually, the spacemen on Hippity-Hops are kinda funny, but the overall effect is just creepy. From the fedora-wearing-guitar-strumming chipmunks to the bicycle-riding-multi-tracked-singing-automaton, the last thing I'd want to be is associated with them.

I mean, I get it - "Dream Big" and the whole bizzaro world dream sequence thing, but usualy when having a dream such as this, I'm trying to wake up.



Get very very slightly excited...