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Vicious
October 20th, 2009, 15:48
Time to get started. Heading for Romania at 1115nm away. I should be there in 4.35 hours. Good luck to all!!!

Vicious
October 20th, 2009, 20:11
Nice flight to Romania. It was cloudy most of the way so there wasn't much to see, but it cleared nicely towards the end making it very easy to find the field. The crowds on hand were very nice and helped push the plane to the hangar for the night.

Total Flight Time: 4:14:46 (Just a few minutes early :jump:)

Vicious
October 21st, 2009, 15:36
Another long flight, this time around 4.21 hours. It's fogged in here in Romania, but it should clear up along the way.

Vicious
October 21st, 2009, 16:01
20 minutes in and I've got a nice 22kt tailwind. Sweet!

Vicious
October 21st, 2009, 19:54
Another nice flight, with a good tailwind all the way. Again a few minutes early.

Leg Time: 4:07:10

Vicious
October 23rd, 2009, 17:22
This will be a long flight to India. It's over 1500nm with an estimated duration of 6.03 hours. Should be fun! :icon_lol:

jkcook28
October 23rd, 2009, 17:29
Fire up the coffee pot! good luck V.

Vicious
October 23rd, 2009, 18:01
Thanks! I've got the first cup in my already. Fighting some T-storms at the moment. I hope they clear before i get close to the mountains.

Milton Shupe
October 23rd, 2009, 18:04
Wow! Great progress in a beautiful aircraft! :ernae:

Vicious
October 23rd, 2009, 18:39
Thanks Milt. Just had a brief excursion over 12K for about 2 minutes to avoid a mountain peak. I just wanted to post it now in case I forgot about it 5 hours from now. :kilroy:

Vicious
October 23rd, 2009, 19:27
At 2 hours into my 6 hour flight all is well. The P&W Hornet is purring, the winds are cooperating and the last NDB check put me within 2 miles of the ideal ground track. If this keeps up it should be another hot flight.

Vicious
October 23rd, 2009, 23:24
I'm down safely in India after a nice 5:53 flight. The weather was clear most of the way but decided to turn very foggy about 100 miles from the end. Fortunately my navigation worked out towards the end and the runway just appeared from the haze right in front of me. BTW, I had to climb over 12K for just a few minutes to clear some mountain peaks.

Flight time was: 5:53:35

Total flight time: 14:15:31

Tomorrow I'll dash over to the next mandatory stop.

Vicious
October 24th, 2009, 18:28
A short hop to the next required stop. This flight should be a bit under 2 hours, so hopefully not to thrilling.

Vicious
October 24th, 2009, 19:19
A bit over 40 minutes into the flight and I'm still in the fog. There's probably not much to see anyway. I've been busy trying to keep up with the changing winds though, so it's been interesting.

Vicious
October 24th, 2009, 20:28
Another smooth flight, although I hardly ever saw the ground. It was fogged in the entire flight.

Flight time: 1:48:34

Total flight time: 16:04:05

Vicious
October 25th, 2009, 15:39
This is my longest let at 1575nm, and with favorable winds should take right at 6 hours to complete. There's lots of time over the water so hopefully I can stay on course.

Vicious
October 25th, 2009, 19:40
Nearly 4 hours into my 6 hour flight and things are still going well. I'm without nav over the water but the winds are relatively calm and I had one island group along the way to use for reference. I should be on the ground within two hours.

Vicious
October 25th, 2009, 21:56
Not the speediest of flights but still below my time estimate. I was about 15nm off course after the long ocean crossing but managed to bring it back in line before I had to start my descent.

Flight time: 6:06:31
Total time: 22:10:36

Vicious
October 26th, 2009, 18:08
From the longest leg on my route to the shortest; 353nm to Singapore. I should be there in a little less than 1.5 hours. :jump:

Vicious
October 26th, 2009, 19:44
Now that was exciting. Just a few miles out from the field the visibility went to near nothing and there was a bunch of rain and turbulence. I missed my first approach and had to go around and reset, while trying not to fly into the ground. I also had to be careful not to land at the wrong field since there's a few closeby. Fortunately on my second pass I was able to find the runway, but I still had to fly past and then turn around for the landing. So much for my wasy flight, and good flight time. But at least I made it.

Flight time: 1:30:21
Total time: 23:40:57

Vicious
October 27th, 2009, 15:44
This is a 1372nm run down to El Tari. Should take me about 5 hours and 20 minutes. The weather looks nice at the moment so it should be fun.

Vicious
October 27th, 2009, 21:14
A beautiful flight the entire way. There were some bad winds at 11,500 but fortunately the winds was blowing from the tail at 4K, so the last few hours were down low.

Flight time: 5:16:06
Total time: 28:57:03

Vicious
October 28th, 2009, 18:08
A relatively short hop to Darwin. The weather is a bit overcast there at the moment, but it shouldn't present a problem. With the NDB right at the end of the runway it's hard to miss.

Vicious
October 28th, 2009, 18:28
Since it looks like the SOH server will be down when I land, I'll post the results of the leg on the Avsim server tonight and move them over here tomorrow morning.

Vicious
October 28th, 2009, 19:53
A nice quick run into Darwin. The weather was perfect at landing except for a 10kt crosswind.

Flight time: 1:41:29
Total time: 30:38:32

Vicious
October 30th, 2009, 19:57
Time to make the 1200nm hop across Aussiland. I should be there in about 4 hours and 42 minutes, with a little luck.

Vicious
October 31st, 2009, 00:55
I made it without a problem, I just wasn't very fast in doing it. I had over 10kt headwinds most of the way which really slowed me down for a change. Fortunately the landing was quick so I made up a bit of time there.

Flight time: 4:52:10
Total time: 35:30:42

Vicious
November 1st, 2009, 12:44
I'm ready to head off on the final leg of the race. The weather seems ok, but at least it doesn't look like headwinds the entire way.

For the precision race portion I'm going to estimate my flight will be 2:35 in length. I'll need some tailwinds to make this time so if I don't get them I'm going to miss the target by a mile. It should be an interesting challenge. :jump:

Vicious
November 1st, 2009, 15:33
What a fligth!! The added pressure of trying to get the precision portion on the final leg made this one interesting all the way. I knew that I needed to have some tailwind time to make my schedule, but early in the flight I was fighting moderate headwinds. I kept changing altitude to find better winds but didn't luck out until about 1/3 from the end when I found some 20+ kt tailwinds at about 11.8K. I was trying to get to the runway as quickly as possible knowing I was a bit late. Fortunately I stopped just 29 seconds overdue. :jump:

Flight time: 2:35:29
Total time: 38:06:11

Thanks to the race organizers and all the participants for making this another great event!!!

Great Ozzie
November 1st, 2009, 15:35
Well done Tom! Wooooooo Hoooooooo! :ernae:

(very nice leg time btw :icon_eek: )

Willy
November 1st, 2009, 17:48
Congrats Tom! You've done the Granville Brothers proud! :ernae:

MM
November 1st, 2009, 19:15
Hooray!

You're a Racing Machine, Tom! Superbly well done.

EdGeneer
November 1st, 2009, 19:24
Very nice job!!! and awesome job on the precision time estimate... I thought it would be hard to beat Austin's time, but the very next try did it, wow...

excellent job!

Spookster67
November 1st, 2009, 22:23
Wow, great flying, well done! You've just taken the lead in the Speed race, the Handicap race and the Precision Competition all at once. :applause:

Your times and score are all going to be hard to beat...

SWSucceed
November 1st, 2009, 23:52
Yep a brilliant effort Vicious ... :applause:

Haitun
November 2nd, 2009, 05:09
Great race, Tom!!!

salt_air
November 2nd, 2009, 08:23
Congrats on an absolutlely awesome job Vicious....Well Done!...:applause:

donlimpio
November 2nd, 2009, 10:44
Nice work! Congratulations to the provisional race winner!

Vicious
November 2nd, 2009, 18:59
Thanks all for the congratulations, but there's lots of racing left so I wouldn't be surprised to see someone steal my lead in at least a few of the categories. I think I've got a lock on the speed class, unless someone else flies the GB, since it's simply the fastest plane in the stable. I thought someone else was going to fly it (Willy?) but I haven't seen any flights yet. As for the handicap race, my eye is on Spookster. His time is ahead of mine at the first checkpoint, so if he can keep it up over the rest of the race he'll beat me there. As for the precision portion, I think if someone pads their estimate by a few minutes they can arrive at the field with some time to spare and then fly a nice controlled approach that will allow them to better target the stop time. In the poll about the precision portion I voted that the winning time would be within 15 seconds and I still believe it will be. So I may be leading in all three categories at the moment, I think I'm going to lose at least one of them before the race is over.

Good Luck to all!

P.S. to the race organizers. Maybe next time we could do precision timing for the entire race and each checkpoint. It's just more opportunities to have fun. :wiggle:

Willy
November 2nd, 2009, 21:05
I originally entered the QED as I've flown it in these races every time. My problem with it is that 9 out of 10 times, I can land it okay.. But that 10th time, I'm going to rack up some serious crash demerits. I've had a theory for a long time that if Jackie Cochrane hadn't of dropped out of the race in 1934 at Bucharest, she'd have given those Comets a serious run for their money.

I switched to the Beech 18 mainly because I decided that this time out, I wasn't going to take it serious and just have a good time. And the Beech is my main just having fun aircraft.

Congratulations again! :ernae:

Moses03
November 3rd, 2009, 06:42
Belated congrats on your run in the R-6. That is a tough act to follow.:icon29:

teson1
November 3rd, 2009, 06:48
Definitely some thorough preparation, good planning and precise execution.
Congratulations! :ernae:

bpfowler
November 3rd, 2009, 06:59
speedy, precise, and tenacious piloting. Congrats!

Vicious
November 3rd, 2009, 17:49
Thanks also to Moses, Teson and Bpfowler!