The Windsor's Watering Hole

[Moses03]

Had a great tailwind from Baghdad to Jask but we got a late start and had to land in the dark. Worked up a good sweat getting her down in one piece.

[EdGeneer]

Great Dawn/Dusk Enviro Textures Moses....

Flight from Yangoon to Thailand, over some hills that on almost met the bottom of the dc3 at 6,000ft. no need for change in altitude, some nice valleys leading into Bangkok. No visibility issues on this very short leg, but the headwinds were horrible... Quartering headwind at as much as 18 knots.... at 6,000 feet!!! then crosswinds, but a sustained quartering headwind at 12 knots... most of the trip, then in the last 20 minutes, a slight tailwind... (Thanks....)

[salt_air]

Running joke about hitting granite trees or granite filled clouds not all that funny when you come up on one....:isadizzy:.

Check out this monument to Mother Nature I found, almost the hard way, as I started getting close to Selaparang (WRRA).

There's a shot is of me climbing out during take off from runway 9 at WRRA, on my next leg, and the "tree" I'm talking about is at my 7 o'clock on the small island just before Lombok.

If you drew an imaginary line out into the water behind the airport to replicate the flight path you would be on for final to RWY 9,,,,and,,then drew another line from the far end of that one to Singapore it would pass directly through that monolith.

Good thing I was off course (one) and (two) a good thing I had clear skies because a soon as the Mataram NDB (330.0 GA) at WRRA came into range (75NM) and I turned, to a course that was just a bit right of the signal to allow for a straight in final, that also had me headed right for it!

[Note] Terrain issues on the North and west sides of WRRA. If you're instead thinking of an approach to RWY 27 make sure you do a left turn pattern South of the airport with a shallow downwind and short base say 3 to 4 NM radius of the airport. I think much more may find trouble for you....

If your reading this and if you plan on flying a leg from Singapore to Lombok (WSSL-WRRA),,,,Watch Out!! I used FSNav for planning and it doesn't show at all. The thing has got to be at least 9000' and over 2 NM across the base.

The city at the Selaprang airport has the name Rambang and I'm sure that the locals gave it that name in the early years of flight due to all of the noises that were made by aircraft running into this mountian in the middle of nowhere....

Happy Trails

[srgalahad]

We had to leave one driver behind as he's got commitments 'at home' but he sent us all a nice photo so show he's doing fine without us..



Go Mark, go!

[PRB]

Latest Kodaks: 1) Flying over the Straight of Hormuz, next to the desert. 2) Landing at Jask, on the coast, near the desert. 3) Flying over the deep desert. 4) landing at another airport in the desert (OPGD). Can’t wait to get out of the desert!!

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

Rob you should have taken him with you - he ain't gonna catch my guy - Jimmie Johnson!

-Ed-

[arrvoo]

Yangon International, Burma(VYYY) to Seletar, Singapore (WSSL)
This was another long leg and i was risking it a bit as there were headwinds forecast all the way. But throttling back did the trick even though we only had 22 gallons of fuel left. Navigation was nice and easy even with a couple of stretches over open water.
Nice flight.
A few pictures from along the way
1. Dawn at Yangon
2. Leaving Yangon with my fiance watching over me
3. Clouds over the ocean
4. Chumphon, Thailand. Now i know i'm on course

[Willy]

Made it to the first checkpoint despite Duenna. Right now I'm having a run in with Customs and the race inspectors. Seems they can't make up their minds whether they want that crate opened up or not. I've already told them that I'm just delivering it to Melbourne. If they want it opened, they're going to have to open it while I go stand a long ways away.....

[srgalahad]

Well, time to jump over to Melbo to watch salt_air come in, but I'm not sure we will... the 1/10th mile of vis may deter the screenshots, but the pourin grain may keep the lens clean.

Press crews have been alerted!

[srgalahad]

Rather amazing that Moses could leave Jask, I could pull a Melrose out of some camel-lot on the Pakistani coast and Dave could run all night from ORBS (with a pause) and we all arrive in OPKC within 10 minutes of each other.

Camera ran out of film just before landing.. why did I bother with those desert pics??

Lots of barren land from OPJI...

[Spookster67]

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 along the Iranian coast!

[EdGeneer]

That water looks awesome!!!

[MM]

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.

[EdGeneer]

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

[Willy]

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.

[Moses03]

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.

[PRB]

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?

[Willy]

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/ShowF...GzNd39934p4pn8

I swear I didn't get drunk in Agra! Heck I never got below 9000ft there.

[Willy]

Found this parked in Calcutta. Makes me wonder just how many red Staggerwings are flying in this race... :d

[PRB]

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.

[Willy]

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.

[EdGeneer]

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

[srgalahad]

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!

[donlimpio]

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

[Willy]

Off to Malayasia here after while, then tomorrow should be on to Singapore. If you're still there, I'll be looking for you.