Random Ramble Round the World

TangoAlpha3d · October 4, 2020, 5:26pm

RAF Abingdon to Elmsett
EGUD - BNN - BPK - LAM - EGST
92nm 0.9h

“Ginger,” I said, speaking to my slightly rotund copilot, “Ever fancied doing one of those round the world trips?”
“What, you mean spend 6 months on one of those gargantuan ocean liners, all 5-star accommodation, pampered tours of exotic places, and all the food you can eat?”
“Kinda,” I replied, “but without the liner and the other stuff.”
Ginger’s face fell, but only for a moment. “We’ll fly! What’ll we fly in?”
“Whatever we can grab off the apron,” I said.
“Where will we go?”
I shrugged. “Press the Randomizer. Wherever it leads, we will follow.”
Ginger hit the button, and looked at the results…

The first press of the button gave us our departure point. The next, our first destination. From there, we’ll just keep on pressing the button. To count as a “round the world” there are some rules (aren’t there always?). But they’re fairly simple:

Must finish where you started
Must cross every meridian of longitude
Must be at least 19,850nm (length of the Tropic of Cancer)

We’re using the first leg to determine which way round we’re going - east or west. Turns out it’s east.

We’re starting from RAF Abingdon, a one-time bomber station, and now an army barracks and part time helicopter drop zone. It’s only open to the public one day a year, in May, for the annual air show. So naturally Ginger and I had to sneak in under the wire.

Departing out over the town of Abingdon-on-Thames, heading towards London.

RNAS Culham, aka HMS Hornbill, a former Naval Air Station. It’s now the Culham Science Centre, housing research into fusion energy, rocket motors, and space exploration.

Don’t you just love how seamlessly the scenery tiles blend into each other? Me neither!

The town of St Albans. We’re under the London TMA here - Class A from 2500ft and up. So we’ve gotta stay low, since we’re VFR at this point.

Ginger’s flying the plane, and I’m happily watching the scenery, when I look down at a nearby field. “Isn’t that the runway?” I remark.
“What, eh?” from Ginger doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
“I have control!” I say decisively, taking back control of the aircraft.

“I knew what I was doing,” Ginger muttered sulkily. I flew a perfect circuit to land on runway 23, although unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!), there was no one around to see it.

TangoAlpha3d · October 5, 2020, 6:39pm

Elmsett to Abbeville
EGST - CLN - DVR - ING - LFOI
124nm 0.9h (216nm 1.8h)

Ginger is in the left seat today - he was wise enough to stay off the strong beers in the pub last night. But me… you know I could swear the wings were at the top of the plane when we got out. Ah well!

Looks kinda busy over London way. Fortunately today’s roll of the dice takes us south.

“You know,” I muse as we climb out and Ginger raises the flaps, “don’t we get some kind of award for landing on a grass runway?”
“Ya’d think,” he says. “But given the quality of your landings, it’s a wonder we don’t get a bill for filling in the holes!”

Quickly changing the subject, I point down the estuary. “That’s Felixtowe over there. Biggest container port in the country.” Ginger says nothing. I must be really impressing him with my knowledge.

Looking back towards London, the number of aircraft buzzing around seems to be multiplying. And a lot seem to be heading south, just like us.

London Information gives us a Basic Service, but there’s not a lot to say - we’re well clear of any traffic.

We coast out over the famous White Cliffs, er, green banks of Dover… Information asks us to report reaching the FIR boundary.

22 miles across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes (and not a single ship in sight!). We’ve climbed to FL055 for the crossing. Mid Channel we switch frequencies to Paris, who don’t seem that interested in talking to us.

Vive La France! So many memories of crossing the channel from Horizon photoscenery in FSX, or more recently Orbx True Earth and reaching incredibly dull default scenery in mainland Europe. Now it looks way better.

It looks like there’s an invasion force behind us!

I guess they’re all heading towards Paris. No wonder they didn’t want to talk to us on the radio! Our destination is just to the left of that inlet. La Baie de Somme.

Abbeville it turns out is a pretty uninteresting airport. The hard runway is closed, and there’s a shed with a marshaller outside. Let’s see where tomorrow’s flight takes us…