High mountain flying & landings

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OUT OF AFRICA: The Groot Randkant

South Africa and Namibia are a Gliders heaven: here we fly 600km with ridge-lift along SAs Great Escarpment:

put in a strong wind from the south and start surfing. If you are insecure: take a glider with motors :thinking:



SAFRICA_GLIDER.PLN (3.4 KB)

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NEPAL: Tired of Lukla?

This flight takes you to nine destinations in the green belt of the Himalayas (altitude 6000ft). You pass lush forests, yellow fields and small villages, the high peaks are at the horizon.
The runways are short (400m) so the Porter is the plane of choice.




NEP_PROMONTORY.PLN (3.4 KB)
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Fieseler Storch: Mountain Rescue, Ambulance & SAR

The Luftwaffe used the Storch in the upper roles to support outposts 1942 in the Caucasus.


Storch_caucasus.PLN (4.0 KB)

Postwar - before the chopper days- the Fi-156 was operated in the same way by several countries.

Switzerland was the instigator:


It was the beginning of the Swiss Air-Rescue-Service (Schweizerische Rettungsflugwacht) using the Fi-156 until 1963.
Get as close as you can to the Dakota lying at an altitude of 11.000ft on the sloped glacier.


STORCH_CH_GAULI.PLN (2.3 KB)

France:
…tests here a surplus Navy plane in the La Meije range. “MS500 Criquets” were Fieselers produced 1942-65 by the french company Morane-Saulnier. Landings (L!) are tough, even for a STOL legend.



STORCH_FRA.PLN (5.9 KB)

Norway:
1945 the Germans left 35 Storks behind (which they had used for 5 years to search for Norwegian underground resistance groups hiding in the mountains).
The NAF operated some of these “Kjellers” for the next 10 years.
Two test&eval SAR flights in the south & north respectively:


STORCH_NOR_N.PLN (4.2 KB)

STORCH_NOR_S.PLN (3.9 KB)

Sweden:
used them 1943-60. We fly along the famous hiking trail “Kungsleden” (King’s Way) bringing supplies to the tourist huts (all in the sim, land on grass nearby) and looking for trekkers in distress.
As the route is also a winter ski-adventure you might set up snow/weather to your liking.



STORCH_SWE_KUNG.PLN (4.2 KB)
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Norway: Operation Ball

Bernt Balchen was a Norwegian-born legendary inter-war, both-poles and trans-ocean aviator with unparalleled skill as a pilot.
A bigger-than-life figure, he joined the French foreign legion in 1917, was cavalryman in Finland 1918, olympic boxer, marksman, skier, musher, 1931 advisor of A.Earhart, 1941 Colonel in the USAAF, 1942-1956 developer of arctic rescue techniques, multi-medalist and much more.

Starting June 1944 - in perpetual daylight- he used six “Carpetbagger” B-24s from Scotland to support the underground in occupied Norway. The Germans had good radar, fighter and flak coverage so he came ducking in and out of fjords and flying at fifty foot altitudes along the mountain ridges. Equipment was dropped at 100 feet and agents at 400.

Here we make two typical “Ball” flights:
South:
we drop agents (who will trek over the Fjell to the Heavy Water Plant at Vemork) and food canisters for a road watcher team hiding south of Trondheim.




B24_NORW_1.PLN (4.1 KB)

North:
avoiding Bodo we fly the Lib along the Swedish border, parachute first saboteurs near the Narvik Iron Ore railway, then drop new radios to OSS operatives who monitor movements of the battleship Tirpitz in the Trondheim Fjords.




B24_NORW_2.PLN (3.6 KB)
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Saving a Colonel

This a semi-fictional re-hash of events around the recent rescue of the F-15E WSO in Iran.
It follows this link:

Only the LZ and the extraction point are known, all ingress/exit routes are based on my imagination - and made to see the dramatic landscape of the Zagros mountains: after all in the sim we have to fly NOE in daylight.

A. Getting the pilot out - fast.
This was done by HH-60 Blackhawks, but why not use the MH-47D.
You come in from Kuwait, his location is to the west of the WSO



Iran_rescue_0.PLN (2.3 KB)

B. Bring in the Combat Talons
Start in Iraq, hug the valleys of the Zagros, the LZ is the real thing, you can see the farm mentioned.
Unload the MH-6/500s (currently discounted) or use the Cabri.



Iran_rescue_1.PLN (2.1 KB)

C. Circle of the Little Birds
Locate the man, but approaching bad guys force you to make a short deception route first
Pickup on his ridge, view towards the MC-130s:



Iran_rescue_2.PLN (2.1 KB)

D. Bring it all home
Small Turboprops come to the rescue, in/out from the Gulf.
The IRL type is not clear yet - you can take the Dash-8 or the ATR.



Iran_rescue_3.PLN (2.1 KB)