Recently I tried my hand at making two short YouTube videos to visualize two of the flights from In a Moon’s Course, my flightsim ebook about the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA). So I thought I would share links to them here.
The first video ‘
’ is one of my favorite scenic routings – a flight in a PBY ‘Catalina’ flying boat north from Greenock, a key centre for Catalina ferry deliveries, to Sullom Voe in The Shetlands.
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The picturesque route
My first flight into Kai Tak airport so many years ago was just what you would want – a late afternoon descent through cloud into Runway 13. Suddenly the ground was in sight, the buildings were dramatically close and, sitting in a window seat on the left side of the aircraft, I saw the chequerboard clearly as the 747 turned on to final.
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Approaching the Fukuoka beacon before the turn out to sea.
My flight into Fukuoka airport on the west coast of Japan las
April 2013 was the end of the 75th anniversary year of flying for Air Canada (the airline began celebrating this milestone in 2012 at a special web site). There it looks at both its history and the future, in which the Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner’ features as the next element of innovation.
In 1954 its predecessor Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA) showed considerable innovation in being the first North American airline to buy the Vickers Viscount turboprop - the plane which, between the era of DC-
It was the clarity of the northern shoreline of the Brest Peninsula last week that made me think of Adrian Warburton. I was travelling on AC 877 en route from Frankfurt to Toronto. We were at 34000 ft. according to the screen at my seat and the view was crystal clear; a photoreconnaissance pilot's delight when over the target. I was malingering on the flight attendant's request to lower the window shade at least until we had only ocean below. Commercial air travel these days is for moles and
Despite a ‘bookful’ of flight simulations of the Air Transport Auxiliary (see In a Moon’s Course) I continue to be fascinated by the flights from this brief era of aviation. In part it is the aspect that these pilots flew advanced (for the period) aircraft with minimal training and sometimes little prior experience in the type. It is also that these VFR flights were often made in borderline weather conditions without recourse to instrument flying or radio assistance.
This flight story
At the ‘Timetable List’ web site is a small map of the 1930s routes of an airline that began with a long name but soon became abbreviated to its initials, Q.A.N.T.A.S. Just like many airlines today Qantas Empire Airways Ltd., as it was then called, showed their routes (as solid lines) and those of partner airlines (as dashed lines). It excludes the Americas but covers Africa, Europe and Asia.
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This short flight from Regina, Saskatchewan to the small community of Liberty further north was the precursor of the Saskatchewan Air Ambulance Service. Now known as LIFEGUARD, it is the oldest non-military air ambulance service in the world. Given the vast scale of this Canadian province and its low population density, it was – and is – a vital medical air service.
The flight to Liberty was made in a Noorduyn Norseman (there are some in the library for both FS2004 and FSX) from Regina,
After a visit some years ago to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago I made a remark to a colleague that, for facility standing on the largest freshwater lake system on the planet, it had rather a lot of saltwater tropical fish on display. Which is a little unfair; the Chicago Aquarium has a global focus on aquatic life. He smiled and said, “It’s the bright colours; they bring in the visitors, and that brings in the money.â€
It’s the same in aviation museums and, to some degree, in flight si
In February 1979, Wing Commander (Natty) Nadkarni of the Indian Air Force and three colleagues were assigned to conversion training on SEPECAT Jaguars in Britain, fighter aircraft newly-acquired for squadrons of the Indian Air Force. Nadkarni was part of the first ferry flight of these aircraft home to India. The Indian Air Force still uses this fighter type today.
More used to the heat extremes of India, the four Indian Air Force pilots went through a number of preparations on arrival in
The Air Transport Auxiliary used to deliver Westland Lysanders; after all, the ATA were delivering around 140 aircraft types and the Lysander was used in a variety of roles in World War II (such as reconnaissance and Search & Rescue). Its most well-known role was the delivery and collection of personnel behind enemy lines in France for the Special Operations Executive.
My book In a Moon’s Course is titled from an epitaph, but these SOE flights were literally about flying in moonlight b
If you are like me, simming of flights from history are a good reason to enjoy flight simulation. That is why I have been writing the Fly & Deliver series of articles.
To coax a ‘Liberator’ into the virtual air is interesting in its own right; after all, these aircraft are really not that interested in being coaxed vertically. To try to reproduce Jimmy Munshi’s flight (South from Chakeri) and know he was a DC-3 pilot making his first B-24 flight unaided adds something, for me at le
