B-17G World Tour (@ Pyongyang)

[CafeRacer500]

Link to cockpits http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... =weathered

They look excellent

[CafeRacer500]

Last flight in Asia for a while, going to check out Darwin, Australia next!

Following a jet heading to Darwin, going to get there a bit faster than us I guess...


Take off just after 5:00 AM, nice weather predicted


Beautiful sunrise


Last look at land before flying over water for a couple of hours


Timor sea, nothing much to see... glad i had Banner Saga on my iPad to keep me busy


Land ahoy! Darwin airport also in sight. Heading for a right downwind to rw 29


Really bumpy approach after such a smooth flight, dropped the plane really hard on to the pavement


Parked, no new damage. Oil leak and landing gear will be fixed over night

[Medtner]

Great stuff!

That cockpit looks great when in night time!

[CafeRacer500]

Time to start the Australian adventure!

First leg, Darwin to Argyle


Went ahead and bought Orbx AU in hopes of nicer scenery and as soon as I was in the air I could see a huge difference to the default map


Joseph Bonaparte gulf, scenery is still green but I expect it to look like Mars in a few hours


Now it's starting to look like how I imagined the Australian desert! City of Kununurra below


Turning to final at Argyle


Parked, really hot out there


Next leg, Argyle to Ayer's Rock. This is one that I've been looking forward to, I hope Uluru looks nice in the sim!


Took off early in the morning, Argyle mine on the right


Beautiful weather to fly


Flying over Wolfe Creek crater


And there is the Ayer's Rock airport, not going to land though because I wanted to see...


...this! Really strange feeling seeing it on the horizon, everywhere else is flat and then boom! A huge rock


Not dissappointed this time, looks really nice!


Landed after a couple of laps. Damaged the left gear on landing, will have to repair it soon. The mechanics here didn't have spares...


Then a shortish hop to south coast, next destination is Forrest airport


Last look at Uluru


An uneventful flight later we spotted the airport


Safely landed. No parts here either, have to carry on...

[Medtner]

Fantastic! I'm sure Australia would look fantastically boring without some addon scenery.

How does the machines take the temperatures?

[CafeRacer500]

Yep, that's what I thought too and the scenery isn't that expensive when you consider it covers the whole continent.

On hotter days (above 30C) it takes some effort to keep the engines cool on the ground but it's manageable. Just use full rich setting and air filters off (I wonder if that gives problems in the long run? We'll see I guess...). It got a lot cooler on the way south, I think the temperature at Forrest was just 15C when I landed in the middle of the day.

[robert41]

Great scenery.

[Lewis - A2A]

The rock image is really great

Thanks,
Lewis


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cflord]

I've been following this post and I find it very interesting. Absolutely beautiful screen shots and the trip looks like great fun. Of all my A2A aircraft, the B-17 is my favorite. She flies so smooth and the interactive crew is fun to listen to. I do find the copilot and Engineer needs more training on when to make the landing gear not down call, should it be forgotten. Keep enjoying your flights!

Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!

Ret SMSgt Cliff Lord - C-130 Flight Engineer & Mechanic

[CafeRacer500]

Yes, it's a nice crew although I'm wondering how many times can my tail gunner leave his backpack on the ramp before he learns to take care of his stuff

[CafeRacer500]

Next leg, Forrest to Port Lincoln!


Starting up with the first rays of the sun, weather is going to be nice as it's been all the time here in Australia


Climbing out off Forrest, plan is to head south-east to the coast and then just follow the coastline


Nothing much to see on the south coast it seems, but nice weather anyway


Even so nice that I had time to check out the local towns, that's Streaky Bay down there


Not a lot of lics of the landing... listened to atis maybe half an hour before seeing the field and during that time the nice headwind I was expecting to runway 19 had shifted to a 19knot sidewind from the east which I certainly noticed trying to hit the runway at a ridiculous angle... decided to go aroud and try a different runway


Got it down on the grass strip and after a quick check on the ground found out that both main wheels are in need of repairs. I have spares ordered to Sydney, hope they will make it there...


Next leg was a short hop over the water to Adelaide, waving to a few ladies that watched as we taxied to runway


Lined up and ready to go and this guy announces he is going to land from the opposite direction... decided to go-around at the very last moment


Climbing out happy about not being crashed into...


On final to Adelaide


Next leg was a bit longer, from Adelaide to Redcliffe on the west coast


Loaded into this sight, all I was thinking was "please don't back up into the plane"... luckily he didn't, another crash avoided. Australia is a dangerous place...


And crowded, there is a line of planes taxiing to runway


Finally it would be my turn but now the landing planes just keep on coming...


...and coming.


After waiting for about 15 minutes I finally had take off clearance


Nice views


Finding my way through the clouds


Flying over Brisbane on the way to Redcliffe


The runway seems tiny, also trees right at the end of the runway and quite nice left sidewind... thought about diverting for a while but decided to try it even once


Success! not the prettiest of my landings but who cares... felt a bit too big for the place though... Also now I think I have a hydraulic leak AND an oil leak on #3, one leg to go before service break in Sydney


Redcliffe to Sydney


Take off


The nicest views in Australia so far, east coast rocks!


Sydney skyscrapers in sight


Checking out the sight on downwind, quite a lot of traffic here too


On final

Made an extremely smooth landing this time, wasn't even sure if I touched down or not!

Service break for a few days, landing gear needs some tlc and also I was right about the leaks i suspected.

[Medtner]

You're doing many legs in a row! I'm glad you made it to Sydney to get a service on that machine! That heat must be in the problematic range when waiting for a quarter of an hour to be allowed to take off!

Looking forward to see more posts!

[CafeRacer500]

These were flown in maybe two weeks, I'm just too lazy to update after every leg

Not too hot out there luckily, 20-25C feels cold after the 35-40C in Asia a while back

[CafeRacer500]

Sydney to Melbourne:


Had to stay a little longer than I expected, when the Fort was ok to fly there was a thunderstorm. Decided to wait for it to end before continuing... cool tower at Sydney


Still a bit cloudy but we'll manage


Sky starts to clear up as we climb to cruise


Pretty uneventful flight, descending to Melbourne


Safely parked, nothing to report.


Next was a short hop to Tasmania:


Couple of small friends had arrived during the night


I was taxiing along as I was told to hold position, this guy in a van comes from right and turn straight to where I'm coming from and then just stops there... come on, idiot! Told my waist gunners to get out and move the car out of the way


Finally taking off and leaving Australia behind, will visit again some time!


Over Bass Strait and Tasmania in sight


Following Tamar river to Launceston airport


Parked for the night


Next stop in Queenstown, NZ


Early morning start for a change, should be a nice day to fly. A bit worried about the crossing of the Tasman sea...


dat night lighting <3


Sunrise takeoff


Few minutes later we're already over the ocean, heading into the sun


Cruising, finding a way through the scattered clouds


Suddenly I realise the hydraulic pump seems to run more than it should, quick check on the gauge shows that the pressure is not rising as high as it should and drops faster than normal. I think we have a leak... Also we should have picked up the VOR an hour or so ago, getting worried now.


There it is! Can't believe I almost missed NZ completely, I'm almost 150 miles too south! Kind of makes me wonder if I'm going to be ok in the Pacific islands...


Stewart Island, what a relief... the leak doesn't seem too bad, we'll have it looked at at Auckland


Welcome to defaul landclass -land, oh how I've missed you... Invercargill on the right


On final to Queenstown


Aucland next, for a leak repair. Next planned service break is at Hawaii, so I hope it's only a small problem


Leaving Queenstown


Global is doing it's best with defaul landclass, it's not that bad... don't want to spend on NZ regions as I only make two stops here. Maybe next time?




Mount Taranaki greets us as we cross the Cook Strait
http://s189.photobucket.com/user/aloppo ... sort=3&o=2

Sun set descent into Auckland, beautiful


Mechanics confirm my suspicion, and find a bunch of other stuff as well... no time to fix those, just make sure the hydraulics are ok. Other repairs have to wait a couple more legs.

[Tug002]

Great story board. Thanks for sharing.

Keep smiling
Tug