The Mighty Howard II

[Willy]

Flew this one earlier today. Left Lisbon and headed on to Malaga on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Working on where to go from here.

[Milton Shupe]

Great stuff Willy. :-)

As I said before, I would recommend Valencia, Barcelona, then maybe Nice, before heading north to experience the French Altiports, Swiss, Austrian, and Italian Alps before heading south over the central Italian hills then across the Aegean Sea to Greece and then north across the the "Old Country" hills and on to the Bavarians before you revisit some of your old German towns of yesteryear. :-)

If you have any money left for fuel, then I would visit the Baltic states and move over to Norway. It's a great time of the year to go up the west coastal mountains and Fjords to see some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

[Blackbird686]

Great shots, Willy. If I didn't know any better I would have guessed that you weren't a real big fan of the Howard... lol!

BB686

[Willy]

I left Malaga and headed on to Genoa, Italy (LIMJ). I was practicing my RTW race setup and thought the Howard did pretty good on this one, but I will admit that the tailwind helped a bunch. I'm getting pretty close to the "sweet spot" now.

[Willy]

Nothing like crossing the Alps before 6am while listening to the Byrds.

[Willy]

Decided to fly up to Zurich (LSZH), taking off just before daylight. The weather wasn't too bad coming out of Italy, but as I got over Switzerland and had to descend into the Alps, darn if the fog didn't roll in. Nothing like flying through cumulogranite with low viz. I even turned on the landing lights as a kind of last ditch "maybe I'll have just enough time to avoid the mountain" thing. I was sure glad to get to the valley that Zurich is in and then find the airport.

Milton has about talked me into something here that I might end up regretting. I've got a practice route of airports in the Alps (actually, I think I got it from him) and I'm seriously thinking about flying it. Zurich is the starting point. Some of these airports, I doubt if you'd see a Howard 500 at as they're kind of short runways, but what the heck. The brake pads are virtual and I don't have to buy them. Last time I flew this was in a P-38 and it was kind of dicey in it.

[Willy]

Left Zurich for Zellweg Austria (LOXZ) to begin the Alps run. This was just a straight shot over the Alps although the weather was kind of sucky (meteorological term) on descent. Hung around Zellweg for a few minutes and then it was off again for the short flight to Klagenfurt (LOWK). It was low viz the whole way.

Think I'm going to park here for a bit before starting off again.

[Willy]

Left Klagenfurt and headed on west to Zell Am See (LOWZ). Not a bad little airport, but when I went to take off there was a powerline in the way. The Howard hopped right over that no problem though. Next stop was Innsbruck (LOWI) where I'm going to park for the night.

[Milton Shupe]

Great flights Willy. Yes, I remember the Alps run we did a few years ago. Those are my favorite places to fly in that part of the world; awesome scenery there. Love LOWZ as a small airport too.

You should post that route so others may enjoy it. :-)

EDIT: Here is the route Willy is referring to.

[Willy]

Yep, that's the route. I'm thinking it would be even more fun if it was flown in DC-3s and altitudes were kept below 12,000ft so you'd have to hunt for passes to go through without breaking the altitude restriction.

I took off from Innsbruck and headed down some valleys to Bolzano, Italy (LIPB). After landing there, I hung around for a few minutes and took back off down the valley to Matterello (LIDT). Kind of a foggy morning in the Alps, but not too bad and by staying down in the valleys I didn't have to worry about descending through the clouds into some cumulogranite.

The pics got scrambled up. The first one should have been the middle one.

[Willy]

Too hot outside to do much, so I thought I'd do a little flying.

Left Italy and headed back into Switzerland with my first stop at Samedan (LSZS) and then it was on to Ambri (LSPM). Ambri kind of snuck up on me and I had to "dive bomb it" down a mountainside to make it in there.

Off again here in a few minutes...

[Willy]

I've added an extra stop that's not on Milton's list. I left Ambri and flew into Interlaken (LSMI). Stopped for a minute then made the "interesting" take off towards the mountain. Good thing the Howard is not underpowered. Then it was on to Bern (LSZB) which after all this mountain hopping was about as easy as getting into bed. The airport was a bit deserted when I got there, but it started filling up after I parked, so I stuck around and watched all the traffic come in.

[Milton Shupe]

Great stuff Willy. Ambri will indeed be a surprise if you are not expecting it, or have never been there. Nice traffic you have there too. :-)))

[TuFun]

I thought I would drop by and say hello... been following your flight in the Howard. Very cool!

I've only flown the Howard around South America for the long hauls... mostly in Brazil... particular near the coastline.

That peak just above the right rudder is the Christ the Redeemer statue location, and heading south to Sao Paulo in my private 500. Flown last year around December.

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[Willy]

Milton, one thing I have found about your aircraft is that not only are they great as user flyable, but work well as AI too.