FSX-SE Amelia "Rose" Earhart's PC-12

[P_7878 6,556]

In 2014, Amelia"Rose" Earhart, a Private Pilot, from Denver, Colorado, completed a circumnavigation of the globe with her co-pilot Shane Jordan. She accomplished this remarkable feat in a single-engine PC-12. Please note, she is no relation to the original Amelia "Mary" Earhart, but her mother just happened to give her this name. She was a former TV traffic/weather reporter in Denver. Having got tired of the question, "Are you a pilot yet?", she started learning to fly at the age of 21, and obtained her private pilot license in a Cessna 172. In 2012, she fulfilled her instrument training hours in a Cirrus SR22, and then, in 2014, at the age of 31, embarked on her global flight. For her flight, she closely replicated the original flight plan of her namesake, and, in doing so, became the (2nd) youngest woman to fly around the world in a single-engine aircraft. Please refer to "http://www.flywithamelia.org/flight-around-the-world/" for further fascinating details/routes of the flight, which was a marvelous example of flawless planning and execution by her team (Pilatus aircraft included, that impeccably stood up to the challenge). The flight covered a total of 24,300 nautical miles in 16 legs over 108.6 flight hours. She and her co-pilot, Shane Jordan, recall that the most incredible moment of the flight was over the tiny Howland Island in the Pacific, where, in 1937, (the original) Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan had mysteriously disappeared in their Lockheed Electra-10E (Amelia's radio broadcast was heard, but the plane never arrived).

This SIM flight is no replication of these flights, but merely uses the PC-12 livery applicable to Amelia "Rose" Earhart's around-the-world tour. The texture (and Pilot images) are from the flightsim.com file (amelia_earhart_pc-12_repaint.zip), thanks to Alan W. The scenery tested here is one of my least-used Orbx add-ons (EU Wales). It tracks the Wales borderline (along the Severn River) from Gloucestershire (EGBJ) to the Wales Capital city of Cardiff (EGFF). In one of the shots, you can see the first (of the two) Motorway Bridges over the (ever widening - see a shot of the widening river) River Severn estuary. Hope you enjoy these pictures. Thanks for viewing. [Carenado, Orbx, REX]

 

Edited December 29, 2018 by P_7878

[woodhick 504]

Nice indeed, both RW and flight sim.

[John F 2,406]

Excellent presentation and excellent pictures.

John

[Phantom88 3,284]

I always enjoy your interesting,informative posts.Thank You for sharing this story.

[P_7878 6,556]

Thanks for your interests in the RW story. As it made me further read a couple of her interviews. I was also beginning to appreciate the differences between SIM and RW.  Planning and flying around the world in our SIM is a wonderful and educative thing, but there are certain aspects we'll never know or experience without flying in "RW". [Have a great New Year!]

Here are a few of her comments:

"I realized that I had to take a flight lesson, even though I had no idea if I would be scared or get motion sickness. I had no clue. The first lesson began terribly... I realized that when I was in flight, I was responsible for my own life and anyone else that was in the aircraft. It was a joyful experience."

"I traveled through some massive 60,000-foot-high cumulus thunderstorms between Singapore and Australia. It's an incredibly intimidating part of the world when you're flying a small aircraft. Even worse, you can get to a point of no return when you can no longer continue flying without gliding back without an engine. For me that was about 70 miles offshore, and we were past 70 miles and there was a lot of turbulence."

"I'll be walking out to the plane and one of the airport officials will come up and ask me if I'm lost or if I'm looking for my husband. I answer, "I need fuel. I'm going to fly this thing.""

"The most joyful moments were watching the sun come up over the eastern horizon while flying over the ocean; there was a heightened sense of awareness around the undertaking. You're flying a plane with one engine and if that fails and you're over the ocean, you're going to have to use all your skills to ditch the plane in the water and then survive until somebody hopefully rescues you. The colors were brighter, the sounds more vibrant. Those images and feeling are so burned onto my heart."

Edited December 30, 2018 by P_7878