Between the war years was the golden age of passenger transportation. People of means could travel the world to far off places only previously dreamed of or read about in books. Imperial Airways catered to this market, and one of the first destinations they offered was to India, the jewel in the crown of colonial empire.
The route changed over the years depending on prevailing political tensions and was flown using predominantly the Handley Page HP42, a four engine bi-plane airliner. The aircraft carried between 18 to 24 passengers in Pullman class luxury, initially with no seat belts.
For my version I will be flying the TBM attempting to adhere to the route as closely as possible. All legs take around an hour to complete, plus or minus up to 20 minutes or so and as such are ideal for the casual armchair pilot.
The original departure point was Croydon airport. Unfortunately that aerodrome has long since been redeveloped so I decided to use the equally historic landmark of Biggin Hill however my initial starting point is my own home airstrip in West Wales. All flights were conducted using Live weather and were flown over a timespan incorporating various software versions which exhibited the various bugs and foibles inherent at the time.
I took of on 17 October 2020 IFR with an ETE of 74 minutes for the 194 mile flight. Fortunately I had a good tail wind and ended up touching down in 56 minutes
Unfortunately on approach I hit the all too common bug back then of the frozen PFD. I went into the flightplan and deleted the previous waypoint which fortunately cleared the problem and successfully landed in Kent, ready for my grand tour.
Arriving at Paris I found the ILS was misaligned to the runway by 180 degrees and so had to land manually with no problems. Flight time 62 minutes. The tour operators were very happy with me.
Leg 3 Orly (LFPO) to Basle Mulhouse (France) LFSB.
The flight was flown on 21 October 2020.This was a flight of 219 miles which was estimated to take me 62 minutes again. Basle Mulhouse is a peculiarity in that it stands at the intersection of France, Switzerland and Germany and administered as the Franco Swiss EuroAirport although technically within France.
Leg 4 Basle Mulhouse (LFSB) to Treviso, Italy (LIPH)
This was a flight of 248 miles over the Alps, and some stunning scenery, and was scheduled to take me 81 minutes. The flight took place on 22 October 2020.
I experienced some crazy tail winds and the flight ended up taking just 57 minutes. I landed north of Venice again with no technical issues, the flying gods were smiling on me but that was about to change.
27 October, following a brief hiatus I continued on southwards down the Adriatic coast of Italy. My first evening flight and I had estimated the 223 miles would take me 72 minutes.
Once again I experienced some fierce tail winds and reached Pescara in just 57 minutes. Unfortunately those fierce winds continued down to ground level and I had to execute a fairly hairy landing with a 20 knot crosswind at almost 90 degrees to the runway. Fortunately by now my leet flying skillz allowed this without having to execute a go around.
The previous leg and this leg were a short diversion off the Imperial Airways route as I believe more often than not the passengers were transferred into a flying boat and took off from Venice direct to Athens. The length of this leg made me seek out an alternative picturesque routing.
On 28 October I took off for the Albanian capital some 257 miles away across the Adriatic. Flying into a strong head wind the whole way I was pessimistic of my ETE of 52 minutes. The moon was beautiful however.
Sure enough, the flight ended up taking 70 minutes and on top of that the PDF froze again on approach. No amount of jiggery pokery could solve the issue this time and on top of that the ATC also stopped responding and the ILs didn’t show up for work either. I ended up flying a visual approach into Tirana and took this shot the next day.
This was the longest leg of the journey at 416 miles and it was expected to take 80 minutes. On 2 November I took off and flew over some spectacular scenery.
However I ended up landing in one of the fabled clear sky thunderstorms having taken 81 minutes for the trip. No issues were encountered en route and the ILS landing went off perfectly.
This was my first RNAV approach on the trip having previously preferred ILS when available while operating with ATC. On this occasion the trip of 167 miles took 44 minutes compared with my pre flight estimate of 35 minutes and ended up with no issues although the RNAV flight path did prove to be a little low.
The flight was 360 miles and I expected it to take 87 minutes. In the end I was a little late at 91 minutes, the longest leg timewise of the trip so far. The approach was another RNAV but this time the autopilot failed to lock on to the glidepath and I ended up landing the TBM manually.
On 7 November I took the short hop of 99 miles to Cairo. The flight was only expected to take 26 minutes and I planned a little sightseeing later in the day
Unfortunately the ILS approach to 23L seemed to be reversed, rather like at Orly earlier, meaning that I needed to cancel IFR and fly a visual approach. I ended up taking 33 minutes but otherwise there were no issues.
While at Cairo I felt it would be remiss of me not to see the pyramids so I hopped in a local rental and buzzed them. It’s a shame that Cairo has encroached so much on them over the years. You really need to choose your camera angle wisely if you visit on foot.
The next leg posed a bit of a problem as Gaza airport was a bit of a bomb site, literally. So the decision was made to fly to El Arish in Egypt which effectively supplies the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The flight was 153 miles and the ETE was 38 minutes.
The tower was unmanned so the RNAV approach provided us with no formal landing clearance and there was nothing provided at the airport to encourage us to hang around after 74 minutes in the air.
The number 13 is unlucky for some, and for us it really was unlucky as we were forced to hunker down in the desolate wastes of Turaif for a week while we ironed out issues with a software patch. Finally, on 17 November we took off looking for a hot bath in the comparative luxury of Baghdad.
Unfortunately the 294 mile flight which was due to take us 70 minutes was conducted at a mere 5,000 feet over the flattest, most boring terrain under a cloudless sky. Added to that a slight head wind meant that we ended up arriving five minutes later than envisioned.
Finally turning south again over Iraq heading towards a trip of the Gulf states. Arriving at Basrah I found the ILS on 32 was reversed and had to manually align myself onto the approach to land. Touched down 10 minutes early,
From altitude you could still make out a lot of the blackened landscape previously fought over. Arriving at Kuwait unfortunately the RNAV didn’t work and had to declare a missed approach to go around before the second approach finally did work.
Whether it was the heat, I don’t know, but for some reason I had not designated an arrival on my IFR clearance and so upon arriving at Bahrain I was assigned a VOR approach. The controllers were probably laughing themselves silly in the tower.
The longest flight (timewise) on the entire trip on 25 November. It was 326 miles out over the Gulf before swinging back into Sharjah taking 94 minutes
Something strange happened at Sharjah in that I was executing a perfect approach and had been given clearance to land when suddenly an aircraft turned on to the runway and I was ordered to execute a missed approach and go around. Being an amateur I didn’t have the missed approach procedure programmed into the FMC so had to manually fly the TBM around to attempt the approach again. Really annoyed you don’t have the ability to complain bitterly to the controllers or other pilots when this happens. I was literally about half a mile from the threshold!
While I was sitting in Sharjah the approval of my application to change the registration of 0RJ came through. My pretty red, white and blue TBM was now called G-YPSY. Quite apt I thought for a world traveller. A new paint job would have to wait until I returned to Blighty but I had the locals re-brand the fuselage with the new registration.
This took a few days so it wasn’t until 3 December that Pappa Sierra Yankee took off for the 393 mile flight across the Gulf to Gwandar in Pakistan.
Gwandar was one of the original airports visited by Imperial Airways back in the 1930s however in the intervening years it turns out the infrastructure has deteriorated a little notwithstanding the airport still designates itself as an “international” airport.
The best arrival I could manage was an old school NDB approach however after 81 minutes flying it turned out the tower was unmanned after darkness and on top of that the controllers had turned off all the airport lights so I was flying into what looked like a black featureless void with no navigation assistance whatsoever. I did consider turning back and attempting again early the next day but in the end I decided to rely entirely on the synthetic vision of my Garmin and the radar altimeter. Fortunately everything worked out and my landing lights picked up the runway at about 50 feet.
As the airport was shut up for the night I wasn’t even able to find lodgings so had to sleep in PSY for the night and take a shot of her at the pumps in the morning.
