OK, here we are again, but as Pär already said he got lost, but good thing is that it was nothing serious on his end like a hardware failure or similar.
Well, Stefaan was excused as he is struggling with a cold and Vic also had some real world stuff to do, so only Pär Dave and myself were joining the MP Session.
Indeed I used the time and weather from Friday at around 21:00 or 22:00 Zulu time, but it appeared to be a good choice, as I had very good weather during the whole flight.
The route today took us from New Kotlik (2A9) to Tin City (PATC) and we will cover about 744 NM! That is a quite long trip and it was not really recommended to use slow speed aircraft. Pär opted for the Vought Corsair and Dave for the Raytheon Starship. I took the FW190D9 once more as I recently discovered it has the most powerful engine.
First here is a map of the route.
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Then close to 18:00Z real time it was time to taxi to the active runway (for me), which was RWY 16.
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After departure a little climb to app. 3500 feet for the flight to Anvik.
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We reached Anvik really quick and here I had already performed my touch and go and next I was passing below Dave.
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Nice fast overhead at Grayling, whilst we were following the Yukon to YUCON intersection.
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I love this kind of IFR flying. I Follow River is always fun especially if you fly really low. Unfortunately it is not shown in the pictures due to safety reasons, but I can tell you that I was flying really low and compared to that Pär was flying at 400 feet MSL and it appeared he was in outer space.
This kind of flying was really to my liking and it was real fun and in fact Pär was flying such a nice machine.
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Then after passing YUCON Intersection Pär disappeared somehow at 19:05Z.
This only left Dave and me in the MP Session and we continued.
The winds were in favor for RWY 08 at Unalakleet and the touch and go was really quick.
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Next was Moses Point and first I wanted to only overhead it, but later decided against it and so I flew a touch and go.
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Next would be a touch and go at Elim.
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Flying through certain altitudes with different temperatures causes some smoke from my engine, which looks pretty cool.
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Another touch and go, this time at New Golovin (N93).
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Dave is making his attempt for the touch and go and in the background on the right side you can already see the Checkpoint for the Iditarod - a little bit early.
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The quick flight from Golovin to Nome at low altitude and high speed.
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Final to Nome runway 27 still a bit high that will be corrected very soon.
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Taxi in and it is no secret where we are right now.
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I decided to make a full stop here as I need to refuel to be able to continue.
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Refueling didn't take long and so we were ready to go after few minutes on the ground.
Line up and off we went again.
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For the flight from Nome to Savoonga (PASA) we had to climb to FL130, but we climbed higher. I think Dave climbed to FS255 and I climbed to about FL218 (6650 meters).
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As you might have discovered I had taken a lot of pictures. I think I have to compensate the missing pictures from Pär and Stefaan.
After the flight across the Norton Sound at a higher altitude we reached Savoonga and here I am done with my touch and go as the gear is coming up.
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Low level flight to Gambell, which is about 33 NM away from Savoonga.
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The sun is almost about to disappear again. Not much daylight up here in the North.
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I am done with the touch and go at Gambell and I am climbing out, but Dave was still looking for the runway. He finally found it.
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Climbing above the little clouds and heading for Russia this time. Next destination would be Provideniya.
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There it is:
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Touch and go is almost done and Dave is closing in.
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Climb out to FL281 (6650 m) again and full speed to Tin City.
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I picked up a really good tailwind at altitude giving me a ground speed of 413 knots.
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Well, did I already mention that the days are quite short up here?
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Descend for the approach to Tin City's runway 34 with some really nice light effects
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Final to RWY 34.
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The final took a little bit of time as I had wind 360@35 knots
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And it was quite cold resulting again in a little bit smoke coming from the engine.
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Final picture of a flight that lasted for 3:17, and a block to block time of 3:34. I was really thankful that we had some faster aircrafts again.
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I hope that next week everybody will be back again.
See you all...