It's happened to you...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

OK, seem to have got the image size right now, 600x800, so will use that throughout in future.

Here we are warming up to leave Dorval:



BOAC 7C with the shorter nose there on our starboard side.



I think the red stripe Convairs were Trans Canada Air planes. There was a bit of a wait at Runway 6R. They seemed to want to squeeze me in between a couple of landings, but I held back.



Here's a Viscount coming in:



And a shot of it from the virtual flightdeck (which I'm working on improving thanks to kind advice from TG). God knows where Dirk, my First Officer, had gone to at this rather critical moment!



A bit of a queue* built up behind us, one of those Trans Canadas:





Then I ventured out, hoping to get airborne before the next arrival, um, arrived:



He had to abort. Not that it was deliberate, but I'm afraid I find it quite funny when that happens to AI, having done plenty enough go-arounds myself!

*Queue: French = tail; British English = line

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Since Cees asked, will explain a little about the climb proceedure. (I'll also resist the childish urge to call this post How to get it up).

You can set the correct nose-up trim simply by clicking on the lettering TAKEOFF TRIM there to the left of the pitch indicator above the icons on the 2-D screen:



Note the half open cowl flaps, though I haven't YET set the wing flaps down one notch for takeoff. Mixture at full rich on those four red levers up on the throttle quadrant (with the Saitek yoke you can do all this on your toy quadrant!) Here we are just leaving the ground:



It's going at 121 kias which is just about right. You'll feel it start to part company with the ground, then you can pull back a little.



It will be observed that we still had some runway left, always nice! Here's KLM One-niner-five-seven in the climb:



That's a good speed of nearly 180 kias. It's still set at Takeoff Trim. Here's the levelling off at 19000 ft:



Cowl flaps are closed and the mixture has been thinned. It will speed up and fly along quite nicely at about 70% throttle, but you do have to make small heading adjustments. Time to check the map to make sure we are travelling in the right direction:



That's OK, airspeed improving too. Now you can switch seats and check fuel pressure from Dirk's side:



There you see it at 825 PPH, a bit high - around 750 would be nearer the mark, but still (it didn't break up). I don't set absolutely 100% realism, but do try to be relatively accurate and, as I hope the pictures prove, do 'fly' every inch of these journeys. Here's level flight:



Time to give the Carters their cheese:



Note the whisky, note the great big ashtrays. How unlike I our own dear air travel half a century later, (though at least gay stewards had already discovered their life's vocation; it looks like Liberace and Valerie Singleton doing a double act. Maybe it was?).

[Jagdflieger]

Ah... To travel on the "Le fromage exprès" to Europe. What a joy that would be.

"Monsieur steward, what wine goes well with this Gouda?"

Speaking of Anchorage, Alaska; I've been through there many times en route to points west in the Orient. I remember that big polar bear well. I don't recall seeing it on my last couple of trips through though.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Still having problems getting all the pictures the same size, but it should be OK after Gander. We left around 14:50 with an ETA of 17:55. Evening falls early up there:



Needless to say, the Carters got the Aurora Borealis. Mrs C nailed this fantastic wonder as being more beautiful than words can describe and not at all as you see it from the ground. Right, let's all remember that moving description next time it pops up on us. (The Carters were actually more interested in their "SleepAir" seats at that moment, having had their fill of you-know-what.) I liked it when Philbert Desanex was in the Soviet Gulag:



They made him shift snow in the Arctic Circle:



For some reason, the Northern Lights also makes me think of...



Joanna Lumley. Age cannot whither her, nor the years condemn as Shakespeare said of Cleopatra. Quite apart from still being an Uberbabe on the wrong side of 60, AND fighting for the Gurkhas (and winning!), she once went to look at one of the few natural phenomena lovelier than herself:



Worth seeing that documentary if it ever comes to a TV near you. (Obviously she had to wear a lot of clothes to go to Lapland, but sometimes you see her starting to take them off in a hotel room and telling the camera crew to go away... Certainly paid more attention than I would have done if it'd been ol' David Attenborough.)

Can you download the Northern Lights into fs9? We'll just have to make do with what Mrs Carter would have called 'a nice sunset':



We fly over Miramichi (which you'd think would be in Japan with a name like that):



The Gulf of St Lawrence with Newfoundland ahead. Here we are over the Cabot Strait:



Do you like the Newfoundland dog? One of my favourite breeds; here's a portrait of local lothario (I drive past his home every day going to work) Lord Byron's Boatswain:



And here's his tomb at Newstead Abbey (the dog's, not the poet's):



As you can see, he came from Newfoundland (with the Royal Navy), so maybe this isn't as irrelevant as it might seem. Anyway, it IS Christmas!

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Ah... To travel on the "Le fromage exprès" to Europe. What a joy that would be.

"Monsieur steward, what wine goes well with this Gouda?"

Speaking of Anchorage, Alaska; I've been through there many times en route to points west in the Orient. I remember that big polar bear well. I don't recall seeing it on my last couple of trips through though.

But do you remember Mrs Chong?

We always get a decent Brie whenever we go on the Booze Cruise to Calais or the Eurostar to Gare du Nord... (Glad I'm not on it at this precise moment, however).

PS: Bier met Gouda!

[Ralf Roggeveen]

It is Christmas Eve here in Nottingham, the Sheriff, King John & Sir Guy of Gisborne are holed up in the castle, having banned all celebrations. Norman soldiers stalk the streets, intimidating peasants. Robin, Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett, Alan A Dale, Maid Marian & the Merry Men are busy feasting on the king's venison down in Sherwood Forest. They have made a huge roaring fire out of a couple of oak trees, also the property of King John; I can see it burning from here...

But I'd better not leave the Carters up there at 19000 feet, even if they are snoring away in their special "SleepAir" seats.

ATC gets busy as we approach Gander. Incidentally, when we briefly went back over the US, we got Boston Centre for a while; this shows the crossing from Quebec into Maine:



After that we got good old Moncton again, which you may remember from the Speedbird RTW. Talking of Speedbirds, we overheard this above Newfoundland:



Think it was another Seven Seas, but it can't have been the same one we left behind at Dorval. Approach map for Gander showing most of Newfoundland:



Descending there. View on Final:



The flaps are down two notches, but that is still a bit fast at only 600ft. Nor do those red lights bode well, 8 degrees out! But I did get it onto the concrete.



Perhaps over-compensated a bit too far to the right. There are our main landing lights deployed - they hadn't yet been turned on in the previous 2-D panel shot (switch above the Autopilot). Here's the terminal:



Some attractive AI:



That must be Speedbird 632:



And we park in our place next to him:



Dirk & I were just agreeing that it was good to break the flight up into smaller sections like this, when our Stewardess, Miss Schripsema, came into the cabin, very agitated.

'Oh Captain Roggeveen! Something terrible has happened!' (This scene is getting to be an occupational hazard on these flights).

'What is it, Henriette?'

'We've RUN OUT of Gouda! I can't understand it; there was enough to fly half way round the world when we left Houston, but now - for the first time ever in the whole forty year history of KLM - a Dutch aircraft is completely out of one of the national cheeses... It's almost unbelievable; and on my watch.'

It was a crisis, we'd never be able to replenish stocks here in Gander; but I kept my cool and simply asked the most important question:




'How are we for Edam?'

[tgibson]

Hi Ralf,

LOL! Out of Gouda on Christmas Day (at least around here it is) - what a disaster! Those Carters...

BTW, I have seen the Northern Lights in default FS9, but it's rare.

A little plane spotting:

The DC-3 taking off at Houston is Continental Air Lines, departing for Austin.

The Trans Canada (TCA) aircraft on the tarmac at Montreal was another Viscount. They were the first North American airline to buy them, and gave many other US airlines the confidence to buy them too. There was also a Quebecair DC-3 there.

On take off you were followed by a TCA DC-4m, a Canadair produced DC-4 with RR Merlin engines and pressurization. They were called Argonauts by BOAC.

Right now you are parked next to an Eastern Provincial DC-3, which provided local service in the Maritime provinces of Canada.

Happy Holidays,

Tom Gibson
CalClassic Propliners
www.calclassic.com

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Hi Tom! Thanks for i/d'ing your AI - we have a few nice ones coming up at the end of this leg (Shannon), especially for fans of Pan Am... You will also see that I took your advice about rearranging the DC7 files, improving the virtual cockpit and giving us...



...steps! Yay! (and chocks).

It will be recalled that the plan is to break Montreal - Schiphol again, flying Gander - Shannon which is supposed to take about six hours.



Due to the notorious MS Atlantic IFR glitch I had to navigate myself, flying a heading of 90 - 110 degrees all the way. The idea is that once we get to Shannon, the next stage, into Schiphol, will at least get proper ATC guidance. That was a Trans Canada Viscount leaving just ahead of us, they became Air Canada in '64. What was this parked on the other side?



An Eastern Provincial Airways DC-3; they're now part of Canadian Pacific. (Mustn't forget to switch that autopilot off before we start to taxi). Here we are following the Viscount out to a bleak runway:



Outside view:



It may not have been quite so cold, but we have had similar weather here in England over Christmas - I spent some time shovelling snow like Philbert Desanex, and scattering the ashes from last night's open fire to give some grip on the ice, both for pedestrians and cars.



He's just leaving. This shot shows us heading out to sea, leaving the North American mainland behind - next continent Europe!



It had just reached cruise altitude of 19,000 ft. Mrs Carter does, in an uncharacteristically aviation-minded moment, once mention being at 24,000 ft; but I stayed low due to (justified) worries about our descent on the other side.

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Having spent Reality Boxing Day morning rearranging my DC-7 files, didn't leave Gander till after lunch, around 14:00 hrs. Here it is in level flight and still in daylight:



Wonder if I'll ever be privileged to see the MS default Aurora Borealis? (Do have a job to do with a Canadian Pacific DC-6 even further north, so may yet get lucky). Anyway, having left so late, of course it went dark again:



Subsequent legs will be shorter, and I promise they'll be flown in daylight too! On a real flight the stars do look fantastic from the middle of the Atlantic (or presumably any big sea). Think I once before told the story about sitting beside a stupid (British) policeman on a Virgin transatlantic flight and remarking, halfway over, 'Look how beautiful the stars are,' to which he replied 'Well they should be. It's night.'

What a sad man. It was just a few days after 9/11, which pinpoints the year... anyhow, let's stick with the 20th Century:



It was dark. We did hear a little bit of radio chatter on the way over, something about Pan Am 707s, which seemed exciting, though I didn't actually see any other aircraft till we were over Ireland.

This map shows our approach and the whole of the British Isles, in fact most of Western Europe including Iceland:



Britain isn't really that big compared with France & Spain, but the British managed to make sure that everyone usually uses the Mercator projection which not only puts the UK bang in the middle, but also exaggerates its size! The universally-accepted Zero (Greenwich) Meridian does of course run through London, so it makes sense, as does GM (Zulu) Time. Here's a little light relief:



KLM stewardess Marie Cref-Coeur has just delivered the Barakats' baby boy! (Luckily for everyone concerned, this was not on one of the Carters' flights). Anyone recognise the aircraft interior? It may be a DC-7. Presumably the baby decided to arrive well in advance of his ETA, but it seems surprising that a heavily-pregnant woman was allowed to fly. Wonder if they called him Douglas?



Not that I was worried about babies; without IFR, getting in touch with Shannon in plenty of time to make the approach descent was more important! But by the time I did make contact...



...we were too close and too high. Bah! A BIG loop and descent to get in late, around 20:55, annoying as we were spot on time in both previous legs.



The moment of crossing the coast of Ireland:



Oddly enough, there was much more light down there in the rather sparsely-populated West of Ireland than we saw that time from the Comet near Tokyo. Very strange.

Of course, if you are Dutch you may also be worrying about the critical cheese situation. Miss Schripsema was convinced that it would be an everlasting disgrace to arrive at Schiphol without any Gouda, but I believed that we still had one last chance to redeem ourselves and KLM One-niner-five-seven...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Got down onto Runway Four Zero, but slightly overshot and had to come back and cross the other, One Two Zero, which proved surprisingly busy at that time of night. Here's a Pan Am 707-120, which I only saw quite nearby when we were both still up there (you'll forgive me for not having taken a picture before; I was busy):



Makes a change to be in a propliner looking out for the odd jet, rather than the other way round, if you see what I mean. And this is a clearer view of him:



We had to wait there for not just one, but three lovelies:



A fellow-Seven Seas, again Pan Am, and - joy of joys! - a KLM L-1049B! (You know what they will have on board apart from sensible Dutch folk). Another shot of the 7C in Pan American livery:



Despite the long flight, having to make elaborate manoevers AND being late, didn't mind waiting for that particular beauty pageant to go by.



We dutifully followed.



Here we are parked at the end, next to the 70'. Can't remember where the other DC-7 was going, just parking on the other side I think. In this shot, below, you can see the Dutch Superconnie parked further down, and is that a TWA leaving?



One of the attractions of Shannon was the World's first ever Duty Free, opened in 1951:



Bridie Murphy holding back the crowds. Mrs Carter would probably have enquired about a doll in traditional Irish costume, though it looks as though she might have had to settle for a cuddly dog toy. National costume dolls really will feature in Mrs C's narrative (along with further praise for her addiction, our national product), but she makes no mention whatsoever of booze or ciggies, both of which were more popular in the '50s than even cheese.

Trust the Irish to invent Duty Free, in fact God Bless them for it. Mrs RR & I were once on the ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire, the port of Dublin. An old Irishman came up to the Duty Free, hoiked two empty suitcases onto the counter and proceeded to fill both with bottles of whiskey.



We certainly got our AI's-worth that time! Thank you, Tom.



Morgen Schiphol, as Dirk said, while Henriette rushed off to catch up with the Chief Steward from that Dutch L-1049.

[tgibson]

Hi,

No problem, glad to help. Be sure to press Shift E 2 to open the cargo bins (lit at night if you use the baggage compartment light switch in the small overhead or just press L to turn all the lights on), and Shift E 3 to open the crew door too. The cargo and crew need to get out too.

That Pan Am DC-7C is a freighter (note the blocked out windows), and was probably banished to the freight ramp.

Hope this helps,

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Like this:





Went back at dawn to check those doors. Nice !

All the Americans have departed in the night, but this interesting Irish International Connie was at Gate 7:

[tgibson]

Looking great, Ralf.

Looking forward to the rest of the trip!

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The best is yet to come...

Exciting contemporary picture of Shannon, possibly with an emphasis on the romantic possibilities of Esso:



The artist has left all product placement, apart from that of his commissioner (yes, Esso), out of it, but I'd say that was an Irish International Connie. Be there, or be square! Amazing what you can do with a peat bog.

This is the plan for Shannon to Schiphol:



My main problem with the DC7 has been getting it down properly, so wisely chose Low Altitude Airways, 11,000ft. It takes about two hours, flying in over South Wales (the original, not the New one in Australia), Bristol, southern England and pivoting on London itself for a straight run across the bottom end of the North Sea into Amsterdam.

Once you've set up the flight, the Seven Seas faithfully fires itself up as soon as you go to it:



This cheeky yellow Cub had to wait. The Shamrock Connie from that Esso ad apparently still taking on passengers at the teminal:



And we're off just after 10:30:



You can see that Shannon is in a remote spot, convenient for noisy old propliners coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Nearest large city is Limerick, a bit further up the River Shannon. It's in County Clare, and we also overflew Tipperary, Kilkenny and Wexford. You soon leave the eastern Irish coast behind...



...and quickly sight Wales in front:



We are crossing the St George's Channel towards Pembrokeshire. (The Comet 4 in last year's Speedbird Round the World approached Wales further to the north, over Cardigan Bay). It is quite a mountainous country, but the south's generally flatter.



Coming to Great Britain...

[tgibson]

I always feel a bit more secure once I reach Shannon and solid ground again.

I am thinking that the Connie in the Esso painting is probably a Pan Am L-049:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Pan-A...ion/1220382/L/

Hope this helps,