Cheers!    I was puzzled by the wind change, it was over mist covered mountains and I had to climb and descend to  clear the peaks ... I wonder if the winds were at different directions at different altitudes, or if ASN really is replaying recorded winds changing direction. 

 

I'm sure I'll find the answer on further flights. 

Crossing the Taurus Mountains.

 

 

Amy tried to climb over cloud, but at 10,000' the engine spluttered and forced her weave between the peaks. Crossing these mountains was challenging, but extremely enjoyable. The winds were blowing 25 knots at Kayseri, unflyable weather really, the plane lifted up when I taxied and I had a prop strike... with a new prop (Fly Now) I set off, winds at the surface (3000') were 25 knots, at 4000 - 5000' they were 18 knots and at 6000' and up they were 30 knots. So I was stuck at 5000' for a long time and had to negotiate the highest peaks through valleys.

 

Later as the winds at altitude eased off I was able to climb over the highest peaks, but at 12,000' my engine cut out and the only way I could get it started again was to put it into a steep dive. Not good!

 

I've been compensating for wind drift constantly, but at my main waypoint the lakes I expected were nowhere in sight, but the nearby airfield was. I started panicking again, and desperatly searched the horizon and the surrounding valleys for the missing lakes. Checking the airfield again, I figured it was the right one. On Wikipedia I found out the lakes were resevoirs constructed in 1990, but they weren't represented in FSX. Well, they weren't there in 1930 either ....

 

Navigating gets easier now, following the big rivers and the coastlines. My objectives now are Baghdad and Basra!

Happily making the desert crossing between the Euphrates and Tigris, en route from Baghdad to Basra. Navigation is a breeze! Amy was forced down by a desert storm and almost lost the plane. 

 

Five minutes later, the engine cuts out and wont restart. I'm out of fuel!! I forgot to refuel at Baghdad yesterday! Oh no! Luckily made a perfect landing in the desert. I will have to start my next flight several hours later to replicate the time spent getting local Iraqis to bring me fuel from the nearest town of Diwaniyah.. :(

Great story!  You read accounts of people "forgetting" to top off their fuel and ending up with a fuel crisis and wonder, "Now why did they do that??"

 

After several months of flying nothing but dead reckoning I hand flew once with VOR.  Afterward I wondered, "Now why did I do that??" 

 

Hook

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing your progress.

 

Is there any way to tweak your aircraft cfg to get 8-9 hours worth of fuel for the sake of replicating her flight more accurately? I have never tried to tweak fuel capacity, so I wish I could offer some advice.

 

Keep it up!

 

And can I have some of your free time since you have so much to spare? 

This is awesome. Thanks for sharing your progress.

 

Is there any way to tweak your aircraft cfg to get 8-9 hours worth of fuel for the sake of replicating her flight more accurately? I have never tried to tweak fuel capacity, so I wish I could offer some advice.

 

Keep it up!

 

And can I have some of your free time since you have so much to spare? 

Hi, I believe there is, by tweaking the aircraft.cfg, but to be honest I can't spare time for 8-9 hour flights consequtively, whereas 2 and a half (or 3 if I get lost!!) hour flights I can do daily, or every other day. On the fuel issue, I save my flight after I park up, switch off the fuel tap, engines off and fold the wings. When I restart the flight, I advance the date to the afternoon or next morning, check the weather is historical, reset tanks to 100% then start the engine. I suppose it was easy back then to assume the locals refuelled the plane, and on Amy's journey, although she was qualified sometimes she was a bit intimidated by local ground crew or too tired after 10 hour flight to overhaul the engine. 

 

As a point of interest, a few years later Amy and her husband Jim entered the England to Australia Air Race in a Comet, but having problems with navigation, they landed near a small town in India and had to top up tanks with bus fuel, the only thing they could find. It killed their engines and they dropped out of the race. 

crossing the ocean going to be  a challenge

It is if I keep forgetting to fill up! If I crash ... I crash, end of flight.

 

Trying to land at Bandar Abbas, an oil town on Iran's southern coast. Thick mist covered the city and I flew most of the approach in cloud, preying I'd pop into clear air under 1000'. It was more like 500'. A grievous 15 knot crosswind almost tipped me up on touch down, so I had to go around ... twice, before I gingerly landed. Running so low on fuel, there's just no option. I am landing. Luckily with the Gipsy Moth, I can land on taxiways, or open grass if need be. 

Awesome!

Paul, you're experiencing not only the difficulty of making such a flight with what was available at the time, but the thrill and excitement of completing each leg safely and successfully!!

 

One could only hope (and speculate) that Ms. Johnson felt the same thrills, apprehension and joy that you're experiencing.

 

Thanks so much for bringing us along on the ride!

 

Thanks! I was going to buy the maps on Amazon and mark out route (I would have preferred that), but cost pushed me to using my RemoteFlight Map app for the iPad, with my location turned off, so its now just a map on the screen. 

 

The navigating is hardest, at the moment in Syria-Iraq and toward India it's easy, just follow giant rivers in the desert and the coastline. In Europe and I guess across India it is very difficult. Give me a coastline to follow any day! 

 

Last night I flew from Bandar Abbas to a small strip on the Pakistani coast called Gwadar, and just made it with 3% (around 6 minutes flying time) of fuel left. That was nerve wracking! The landscape here is rougher than Iraq and I'm not keen on forced landings, seeing how regular landings on runways can be so tricky with the Moth...

Just for anyone interested, I found the Gipsy Moth and Amy Johnson 'Jason' repaint here on AVSIM: http://library.avsim.net/search.php?SearchTerm=moth&CatID=root&Sort=Name&ScanMode=0&Page=2

Good job

The map situation is interesting. I have just flown a short leg from Karachi Intl airport to Hyderbad on the banks of the River Indus and alot of fog and mist hung over that area. I was forced to fly low over the desert, around 1000' , until the mist cleared and I followed a single highway that my VFR route had listed, taking me directly there. But the nagging doubt is that the FSX roads and rivers and lakes and coastline and cities and towns aren't in the right places, or lead in the right directions. Conversely I know that my digital map is 100% accurate.

 

This is the opposite of Amy's 1930 situation, where the landscape was 100% accurate (obviously!) and her maps were accurate for the day (the AA had just published new maps and gave them to Amy, hence the AA logo on the front of her plane), but they still contained many omissions and inaccuracies. She must have always wondered if the map was correct when she thought she was lost. I always suspect FSX!!

Really interesting attempt. I'm a fan of the actor Will Hay. I understand that Will Hay, who was a keen aviator, gave flying lessons to Amy Johnson.

 

Good luck with the remaining flights Paul.

 

All the best