I just completed a few ‘firsts’ this week. Considering I’ve been doing this for more than 13 years, this is somewhat remarkable. I left the house at 0545 Wednesday morning, and walked back in about 5:15 pm Friday evening. That’s a total of just under 60 hours. In that time I flew from BOS to MEM and started my official pre-trip crew rest. At 0315 Thu morning we launched for NRT (New Tokyo International Airport - Narita)
The route is displayed here: http://is.gd/8w8J This is roughly the path and the speed we flew. While on a map, it appears to be that we ‘curved’ north - perhaps to follow a route close to land, the fact is, this is a ‘great circle route. If you were to take a piece of string and lay it on a globe from MEM to NRT, this is the path the string would show as the shortest distance between two points.
It was about 13:49 air time, (average 80 knots headwind) and 14:30 block time. As we landed in NRT on Friday morning (local time) the visibility and ceiling were unrestricted, thus allowing for a fabulous view of snow-capped Mount-Fuji shortly after sunrise. This is the longest flight I can recall doing since I’ve been flying. The other long flights I’ve operated are Paris to Manila, and Osaka to Memphis. I then waited in NRT about 4.5 hours, and took the next flight home… NWA 12 from NRT to DTW then BOS.
Mount Fuji
From the time I left MEM at 0320 and arrived in BOS at 1520 was about 36 hours. In that time, I spent about 28:45 on moving airplanes. OUCH! The big trick to surviving this is 1. Hydration. Lots and lots of water. 2. Good rest. While I can’t and DON’T take anything as an operating crew member, as a passenger on NWA, I did take a ’simply sleep’ and managed to get about 7.5 hours straight sleep on the flight from NRT to DTW.
While this type of flying is ‘once in a lifetime’ for many people, it’s just part of what I do. I frequently ride passenger carriers to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Frankfurt, Delhi, etc and get paid to do it. I try to always remain conscious of how special it is, and how lucky I am to get to do something that many people would love to do, but will never or only rarely have the opportunity.
It isn’t often anymore that I am TRULY AMAZED by a feat of aviation. Seriously, I’ve seen some astounding things over the years: A C-141 with a wing ‘blown off’ on the ramp because it was refuled without proper venting of the tanks. A mid-air between a jumper and a Pitts that killed both. A Harrier pilot bring a jet back safely inspite of one of his nozzles being stuck out of position. An F-15 landing with most of his righ wing missing (A real testament to MacAir’s design). But this is truly one of the most amazing feats I’ve ever seen / heard of. This took a lot of skill and even more good luck to pull off.
I had just awakened and looked out my hotel room window when I noticed what appeared to be the moon setting in an almost ’solar eclipsed’ position. It wasn’t until I put a 10X zoom on it that I was able to see the gondola hanging below and the flags hanging from the lines.
This photo was taken on 14 September from the Hotel Meridien Montparnasse in Paris, France.
Shot some stills and even managed a little video of an Antonov AN-22 Antheus today. Put the Russian Nat’l Anthem to it because I could… don’t read anything into it. It held the distinction as the largest airplane in the world from 1965 to 1969 when the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy came into service. It was a very big airplane, and it seemed to take as long as any I’ve ever seen to get off that runway. Once it did, it certainly didn’t ‘leap’ into the air. A very lumbering, cumbersome, lazy climb. From the start of the takeoff roll until it rotated was more than 40 seconds. I edited down for time, and because it took so long I was unable to maintain focus over the 3 miles or so distance as the aircraft climbed away. The final ’still’ is pulled from the video on departure.
Some of the other stills you’ll see are of the MMi-8 “Hip” helicopter, IL-76, and the TU-154 “727-ski”… a very close cousin of the Boeing 727!
Thanks for watching! I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.
An MI-8 Hip. This one has a UN paint scheme on it.
The designation Mi-17 is for export; Russian armed forces call it Mi-8MT. The Mi-17 can be recognized because it has the tail rotor on the port side instead of the starboard side, and dust shields in front of the engine intakes. Engine cowls are shorter than on the TV2 powered Mi-8, not extending as far over the cockpit, and an opening for bleed-valve outlet is present forward of the exhaust.
General characteristics
* Crew: Three – two pilots and one engineer
* Capacity: 32 passengers or 4,000 kg (8,800 lb) on internal/4,500
kg (10,250 lb) external hardpoints.
* Length: 18.42 m (60 ft 5 in)
* Rotor diameter: 21.352 m (69 ft 10 in)
* Height: 4.76 m (15 ft 7 in)
* Disc area: 356 m² (3,830 ft²)
* Empty weight: 7,100 kg (15,700 lb)
* Loaded weight: 11,100 kg (24,470 lb)
* Max takeoff weight: 13,000 kg (28,700 lb)
* Powerplant: 2× Klimov TV3-117VM turboshafts, 1,450 kW (2225 shp) each
Performance
* Maximum speed: 250 km/h (156 mph)
* Range: 950 km (594 miles)
* Service ceiling 6,000 m (19,690 ft)
* Rate of climb: 8 m/s (1,575 ft/min)
* Disc loading: 31 kg/m² (6 lb/ft²)
* Power/mass: 0.26 kW/kg (0.16 hp/lb)
* Fuel consumption: 600 kg/h (1,320 lb/h)
Armament
* up to 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) of disposable stores on six hardpoints, including bombs, rockets, and gunpods.
It held the distinction as the largest airplane in the world from 1965 to 1969 when the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy came into service. It was a very big airplane, and it seemed to take as long as any I’ve ever seen to get off that runway. Once it did, it certainly didn’t ‘leap’ into the air. A very lumbering, cumbersome, lazy climb. From the start of the takeoff roll until it rotated was more than 40 seconds. I edited down for time, and because it took so long I was unable to maintain focus over the 3 miles or so distance as the aircraft climbed away. The final ’still’ is pulled from the video on departure.
