Around the world in 175 days part 7, Seattle, British Columbia, "Official" Start

July 21, 20178 yr

April 6, 1924: The preparations had been made and the flyers were ready to start their flight. The route had been organized into seven divisions for planning purposes and the first division was from Seattle to Attu in the Aleutian islands. The pilots had been instructed to name there planes after American cities on the four points of the compass, Major Martin named his plane ‘Seattle’, Lt. Smith named his plane ‘Chicago’, Lt Wade named his ‘Boston’ and Lt Nelson chose ‘New Orleans’. Sgt. Turner became ill just before departure and felt to weak to continue so Lt Smith chose alternate pilot Lt Leslie Arnold to be his co-pilot/mechanic. They wanted to depart on April 4th but bad weather reports caused them to cancel. On April 5th Major Martin tried to take off but his propeller broke with a loud crack and repairs took till the next day. Finally on the 6th, in front large crowds, the four planes taxied out and one by one took off. The planes were at maximum weight and Boston could not get airborne. Lt Wade taxied back to the dock, where they made some adjustments and unloaded some gear including their rifle, a small anchor and some extra clothing. An hour behind the others they took off and were on there way to Prince Rupert Canada, 650 miles away.

June 11, 2017: The flyers took about 8 hours to fly from Seattle to Prince Rupert, not having that much time today I decided to break the trip into three smaller legs. Since they had switched there planes from wheels to floats, I will use float planes on these first legs. The aircraft I have chosen is the Ryan B-5 Brougham by Golden Age Simulations. The Brougham was a very popular small airliner that was used in Alaska but also China and Central America. The model is very good, flying it is easy but side visibility is a bit restricted, but thats the way it was built. My destination for today is Comox, British Columbia, on the eastern coast of Victoria Island, 170 nm away. Flying conditions are again good, scattered clouds and 5-6 kn. winds, the flight was uneventful and I arrived after 1.7 hours of flying. Here are a few pictures from the flight:

Ready for takeoff.

Climbing out of Renton Municipal Airport.

Flying over Downtown Seattle

View along the way.

Another along the way.

Yet another along the way.

The destination is in site.

Landing at Comox

April 6, 1924: Lt Wade few solo to Prince Rupert through thick fog an dead calm. “I flew right down on the water so glassy that I was constantly fearful of slapping the surface.” Wade said. “I used the tree line on my left as a guide and followed it for a long way. In skimming over Johnstone Strait, we almost collided with ships twice”....

June 15, 2017: Today I got ready the Monocoupe 90, a two seat cabin monoplane, which first flew in 1927. Various versions were in production until the late 1940's, and over 300 were built. The version I am using today was made by Golden Age Simulations and is very good, the package includes the Monocoupe 90, 110 and 125 and has both wheeled and float versions.

I readied for flight the float plane version of of the 90 in a nice blue color. I had tried this flight two days before but the sim crashed so to make up time I did resort to some time acceleration. My plan today is to fly to Bella Bella, British Columbia, 191 nm away. Weather today is a bit more challenging than the previous flights, conditions in Comox were 14kn winds with cloud level at between 800-3000 feet. I headed north west following the Discovery Passage to the Johnstone strait, keeping between 1000-1500 feet to stay below the clouds, in the Johnstone strait the clouds got heavier and in I dropped to 800 ft and spent some time flying through rain. Once I reached the pacific things cleared up a bit, however once I reached the Burke Channel the clouds closed in again and I had to drop to about 500 feet to stay in clear air. I found the passage on the south side of Denny Island and followed it around to Bella Bella. The Monocoupe came in a bit fast and it took a few attempts to get the landing right. One problem with sea plane airports is its a bit harder to identify them, there are two of in this little bay and I ended up stopping next to the wrong one, but they are all pretty close together and as far as the FSAirlines client was concerned it was close enough and the flight got recorded. Flight time 1.9 hours. Here are a few screen shots from the flight:

Ready to depart.