Sunday 9th April. The Hump.

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ianfisher 101
Staff Sergeant
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Joined: 31 Jul 2019, 15:32
Location: Clevedon. UK

Sunday 9th April. The Hump.

Post by ianfisher 101 »

In mid-December 1941, in the wake of Japan’s massive land, sea, and air offensive in the Far East and its attack on Pearl Harbour, the Allies had no doubts about the need to support China fully to keep it in the war, and In any event, Gen. Claire Chennault’s China Air Task Force, the “Flying Tigers,” had to be supplied. Suddenly, in March 1942, supplying China became immeasurably harder. Japanese forces cut the Burma Road–the only overland path to China–and all land supply ceased. The Allies came back with a response unprecedented in scope and magnitude: They began to muster planes and pilots to fly over the world’s highest mountain range. The route over the Himalayas from India to Yunnanyi, Kunming, and other locations in China was immediately dubbed “the Hump” by those who flew it. Though relatively short, the route is considered the most dangerous ever assigned to air transport. The reason is apparent from this description contained in the official Air Force history:

“The distance from Dinjan to Kunming is some 500 miles. The Brahmaputra valley floor lies ninety feet above sea level at Chabua, a spot near Dinjan where the principal American valley base was constructed. From this level, the mountain wall surrounding the valley rises quickly to 10,000 feet and higher. Flying eastward out of the valley, the pilot first topped the Patkai Range, then passed over the upper Chindwin River valley, bounded on the east by a 14,000- foot ridge, the Kumon Mountains. He then crossed a series of 14,000-16,000-foot ridges separated by the valleys of the West Irrawaddy, East Irrawaddy, Salween, and Mekong Rivers. The main ‘Hump,’ which gave its name to the whole awesome mountainous mass and to the air route which crossed it, was the Santsung Range, often 15,000 feet high, between the Salween and Mekong Rivers.”

Pilots had to struggle to get their heavily laden planes to safe altitudes; there was always extreme turbulence, thunderstorms, and icing. On the ground, there was the heat and humidity and a monsoon season that, during a six-month period, poured 200 inches of rain on the bases in India and Burma. On 8th April 1942 the first of these relief flights took off from Chabua to Kunming. For this the US Army had created the Air Corps Ferrying Command which then grew into the US Air Transport Command, under the command of Maj. Gen. Harold L. George.

Today the A2A Misfit squadron are going to attempt to recreate this first relief flight using original WWII C-47's with no modern GPS's, just as they had back in April 1942. We take off from VECA before flying East to the PT NDB then onto our first stop at Lijiang. Here we'll off load some supplies and collect some aero engines to be delivered to our final stop in Kunming. The current airport there is ZPPP. The original one is further South in the town centre.

https://skyvector.com/?ll=26.2894750673 ... XFA%20ZPPP

Meet at: 1830z for a 1900z departure.

Meet on: Digital Theme Park on JoinFS.

Comms through A2A Discord channel.

Start at: Chabua Airport. VECA.

Aircraft: C-47

Local takeoff time: 0900.

Weather: real.
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Spitfire : P-51 : L-049 : C172 : C182 : PA-24 : PA-28 : T-6 : P-40 : V35B : J-3 : P-47 : Anson : 504K : Albatros : B377 : HE-219

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