Kwitcherbitchin around the world - Complete!

[AviationAtWar]

Another successful trip today.

Leaving EKVG.




I noticed some smoke at high power after takeoff but it went away during climb. When I landed and did a compression test number 6 has dropped to 48 PSI and is now yellow so that is likely the reason. Too bad it couldn't just show smoke from that cylinder's stack.




Approaching Scotland.



Leaving England.




31,000 feet over Paris.




Descending to land over central France.



On the ground at LFOA, an Armée de l'Air base in Avord, France. Apparently they welcome stray P-51's flown by silly American pilots who don't plan their flights and land wherever they see fit. I realized it looked like a military base just before landing but my flight was getting buggy and I wanted to get down before FSX crashed.



This leg was 3.1 hours covering just over 1100 miles, burning 217 gallons of fuel.

[Roadburner426]

Not a bad leg at all. I hate when the game starts glitching like that and it becomes an all out effort to try and land or save before it crashes. At least the French military is being good to you. Got to love how nice Europe looks. I might have to get UTX Europe and round out my GEX collection since they have the world covered and make the world tour in the P-51 finally like I have been kicking around since it was released all those years ago.

[AviationAtWar]

...and make the world tour in the P-51 finally like I have been kicking around....

Do it!

I did my longest flight in quite a while today. It was getting a little choppy at the end as it was loading dense scenery but no crash.

I started the flight at imaginary dawn (just after noon real time but I set the time of day to dawn in the simulator).

Takeoff at LFOA.



Nearing the mountains as I cross into Italy.








Leaving land in northeast Italy.



I made it all the way to southern Greece.



This is part of Athens.



A pass down the runway before break at LGAV, Athens International.



Safely on the ground for some fuel at Athens.


As I mentioned this leg was 3.7 hours. I burned 233 gallons, landing with 36 gallons left. This leg was 1,250 miles plus a little for course corrections and a the lap I made around the Athens area. The airplane was still happy when I landed, minus the lowering compression I already knew about.

[Roadburner426]

This weekend myself did KPHF to KMMV (Virginia to Oregon) to check out a freeware scenery for McMinnville, Oregon that has the Evergreen Aviation Museum in it. Is a life long dream to go there in person to see the Spruce Goose. Doing the flight back to Virginia now with the good old P-51 civ, and 275nm from home at the moment.

Athens is a good place to visit. Been to Greece a few times in real life. In the simulator when I have flown that way going to Dubai I usually stop in Chania which is on one of the other Greek islands. You must be using pretty high power settings to be losing compression. With 330 hours on the civ over its life I still have the original engine, and all the PSI's are all in the low to mid 60's. I use 100LL fuel, and the recommended max 55" of manifold pressure though for take off. I usually try to fly for the best combo of fuel economy/cruise speed. However doing the trans Atlantic flights I usually go down to 1800RPM and 30" manifold pressure to get the max range.

[AviationAtWar]

I made a quick .9 hour hop over to Turkey tonight.

Leaving Greece.








Approaching the Turkish coast.



Milas-Bodrum Internatiional Airport, LTFE.










58 gallons burned and covered about 210 miles. Total for the trip so far is 6300 miles.

[Piper_EEWL]

Wow you are really covering some serious ground there! Very impressive. But then again the P-51 is probably the fastest hire we have in the stable (so far ).

How is the engine doing? Any considerable wear yet?

[AviationAtWar]

The engine is doing ok. The oil filter went yellow and compression has dropped under 50 PSI on a few cylinders now but I didn't start the trip with a fresh engine either.

[Roadburner426]

Tracking straight for Iran and Afghanistan the way you are going. Not sure where you will find friendly airports or avgas there. Good thing is FSX at least. Definitely covering impressive amounts of ground though.

[AviationAtWar]

Yeah, I've been looking at that and I'm not sure exactly where I'm going from here - it's going to depend on the time I have available for my next flight. If I don't have much time then I might stay in Turkey and move east, if I have more time I might go down to Egypt. I'm tentatively planning to make my way through Australia and PNG, through Japan somehow and up to Russia, coming back into the US through Alaska.

[Roadburner426]

Yeah when I flew that way I play real life and go around all the war torn countries. Knowing my luck now with the worn parts I have on my Mustang that would be the choice where she chooses to have a major malfunction that forces me to land. If you go down to Egypt you can cross Saudi Arabia in to the UAE and land in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Just playing on Google Maps looks like 2,000mi from Cairo to Abu Dhabi using friendly skies. OERK in Saudi Arabia seems to be a good place to stop as well. Is their capitol and the airport offers 100LL in real life.

So can go from where you are in Turkey to Cairo which is only a few hundred nautical miles, then go to OERK which is 1500ish. Can hop to Abu Dhabi, and then on to Mumbai India all while staying within safe fuel usage. From there though looks like it is going to get very sketchy. Looks like from Mumbai that Columbo in Sri Lanka is an easy one to hit at 1000nm. From there Singapore is 1,692nm. Always wanted to land at Kai Tak. From there though you have a lot of directions you could go, and the distances start increasing rapidly between countries it seems.

[AviationAtWar]

I decided to go to Egypt and headed to Cairo tonight. 1.7 hours and 120 gallons burned.







The northern coast of Egypt.



Cairo International.

[joespeed52]

Wow, lookin' good!

Have fun. I'm not bold enough to travel around the world. From one side of the U.S. to the other, however, I could do!

[AviationAtWar]

Finally back in the cockpit after vacation with the kids.

I flew 1.2 hours tonight to OETB, Takuk Regional/Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Airport in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.

Just after takeoff in Cairo.






The Gulf of Suez



Coming into Tabuk

[AviationAtWar]

I got another 1.6 hours in tonight.

Flying over the sandbox.




Starting a high speed low pass over the runway before the break.



Touchdown.



On the ground at OEDM in Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia.

[Lewis - A2A]

Good stuff, the shots look great