Oz And Beyond!

[Willy]

Got the Me 262 back from the warranty work at the dealer.

Attachment 71129

[Willy]

Sure was great to back in the 262 for the flight to Rangoon. Although I did land with 7% fuel left. Barely enough to do a go around if necessary, maybe if I didn't get too happy with the throttles. Anyway, it was a great flight.

(pics are in reverse order)

[Willy]

Great flight from Rangoon to Mandalay and had a lot of fun. Although I did set it down pretty hard on the runway at Mandalay and folded up the right main gear. Nothing a little duct tape and bubble gum can't fix though. Thought I had a pic of the "bonfire" on the runway where I set it down, but must have missed it somehow.

[PRB]

Willy's wasn't the only mishap on this flight. Mine started on the take off roll at Yangon, where some genius put a building right on the runway. I guess they painted it red and white so knucklehead pilots would see it... One might be tempted to inquire what I was doing taking off from the right side of the runway, but I can explain that too. You see, we were doing one of our usual “modified section” takeoffs, and I had the right side. And since the Canberra's engines take about 45 minutes to spin up to 100% when you advance the throttles, I was staring at the engine gauges as I started my take off run, instead of looking out the window. So you see how accidents are a “chain of events”, none of which were my fault, of course.

[Taco]

:isadizzy:Hey PRB, hehe, me, I was looking out the window instead of watching my airspeed, and guess what, there are a few less trees and buildings on the the approach to VYCZ. Dumb me I stalled the bloody thing. (My Bad) A few pictures before my screw up.

Taco with chili

[Moses03]

Heading towards the hump...

[Willy]

Another fun and interesting flight. Just after takeoff, I almost had a mid air with the Meteor. Fortunately I saw him in just enough time to miss him. After that it was just the usual fun and games all the way to Chabua India where we're due to change over to prop engined transport and fly some cargo east.

Almost forgot. Just as I started up the saved flight from yesterday this Avro York ran over me on the tarmac...

[Willy]

We've got a new gig. A quick cargo hauling job from Chabua over some lil ol' hills to Kunming China. I won this R5C Commando in a card game with some Marines and it should work out fine for this job. Getting ready to start loading it up.

[Willy]

We had a great flight over the "hills" on into China. These C-46s are a hoot to fly. On to Kunming next!

[PRB]

We had a most enjoyable flight from Chabua to Xichang, in the Yalong Valley. Between those two places were some rather tallish hills of the eastern Himalayas. 15000 feet was sort of more or less good to clear them, as it turned out, but I was at 18,500 most of the way. As we cleared the last ridge line before descending into the Yalong valley, we were only about 30 miles from the airport. Some opted to swing east to allow for a less stressful descent and approach to the airport. I decided on a "combat tactical landing. That's what I called it anyway, because it sounds cool. It was a pretty steep descent. I did make the landing, but it was less than pretty. My speed was good, and steady, until the final few minutes, when it was clear that I would land really long. Steepening the descent brought my speed up a bit too much, but all ended well.

[Willy]

We took off for Kunming to finish the Hump flight. I got most of the way there, then something took me out. Fortunately, I didn't have to walk far.

We're getting ready to head a bit south for some "bidness" with an independent contractor. Got my "light twin" ready to go.

Pics are backwards, again...

[Willy]

We put Kunming behind us and headed south to Dien Bien VietNam. Nice flight over some pretty rough country. Due to rain and low visibility, the approach into VVDB was rather interesting, but nothing unfortunate happened. I think this is the first plank runway I've ran into in FS.

[Willy]

We left VietNam for now and headed on down into Laos. Nice flight with a couple of flyovers on the way. The first one I kind of committed myself into doing a touch n go and the darn runway was in the bottom of a pit. I almost wasn't able to climb my way back out of it. The next one, I just did a somewhat lowish pass over the airport.

To be contd...

[Willy]

Contd..

From there it was on to VLVT. It was actually looking good on approach until I got to final and the fog came in with a vengance. I got to looking around after we'd parked and I remembered this one as I'd stopped here once before on an around the world flight in the Howard 500. Any way, I got some more shots of the airport, the people and the local traffic. I did notice a Boeing 307 Stratoliner in the back of the last shot that I'm thinking about seeing what kind of deal I can make on. This part of the world was the last area where Stratoliners were operated in the 1960s and 70s (although there's rumors of one being spotted in the mid 80s)

[Willy]

Operating on the theory that bigger is better and size does matter, I traded up to a Boeing.

[Taco]

Howdy All,:salute:

Darn Willy, I was thinking about going smaller hehe! This was a very nice flight and fun one. But, need to pickup some more cargo here for shipment to any where. The coins in my war chest is getting real low, and fuel prices are increasing all over the bloodly place. Maybe Willy is right, bigger is better!

[Taco]

Just a few more snaps, Hehe I just had to put in the Western's DC-6B for old times sakes.


Taco with green chili

[MM]

In Vientiane, I met a hardened older gentleman who needed a new pilot. Apparently the last fellow caught a lethal dose of lead poisoning. (How do you get lead poisoning in Laos?)

The company, registered in Taipei but with some sort of American connection, wishes me to pilot the aircraft through parts of Southeast Asia. It seems that they are exploring new routes. Odd, though. The list of destinations seems somewhat mysterious.

[Moses03]

Typical steamy day on the road to Bangkok.

[Willy]

Nice flight to Bangkok, although I had my time set to dusk. Which was okay, as I'm working on a scheme for doing instrument landings without ILS and VTBD was perfect for the first test (The big Boeing isn't equipped for ILS). It's not perfect, but based on tonights flight, it's doable. Now to wait for the next Flt 19 weather to crop up on approach.

[Willy]

Nice flight from Bangkok to Phenom Penn, Cambodia. Still working on my non-ILS instrument approaches and this one wasn't that pretty, but that's part of the learning curve I guess. Only had one NDB to work with and I overshot my pre-selected turning point on the Mekong river which got me off course. It sure looked different on the map beforehand.

[Willy]

We had a great flight to Saigon. The weather wasn't the best, but we still had fun.

Attachment 71724

[Willy]

We left Saigon and headed up the Mekong river to Pakse Laos. We're crossing so many borders, I'd be surprised if Interpol wasn't looking at us for smuggling. Not that we'd do such a thing of course.

[Moses03]

More from along the Mekong...

[Willy]

Picked up this old DC-7 freighter. It looks a little rough, but flies good. Just the thing for smuggl... er.... the import/export trade. Anyway, we left Laos and headed back to VietNam, DaNang this time. It got a little dark on me enroute (again). Anyway, as always, a good time was had by all.