Now come on, you knew I'd have to do this. Somebody has to, and I don't mind taking the flak for it, after all I am known as a not-very-serious simmer <grin>.

Obviously I tried this just out of curiosity, but to my surprise only a little bit of cheating was necessary. I suspect a whole lot more would be needed to get off the ground again, but then I don't know how deep the water is around here. Maybe at low tide I could just taxi all the way back to the mainland.

I just started the flight in the air having selected EGHE as "arrival" from the world map, which has the advantage of at least starting me off lined up correctly for landing. I find if I do that for these sort of trips that's half the battle sorted straight away - as long as I don't let the thing wander too much it's just a question of trying to get the speed and height right. And actually, after my exploits with the C-17 in my previous post, that was sufficiently easy that I managed to put her down ok first time (to my surprise and relief)

Nasty old lump of rock at the front of the runway, but I managed to miss it

Bit of a shock for those little pixel plane-spotters, I suspect

Up over the hump to the level bit of the runway

And this is where I had to cheat a bit. She almost managed to slow down before the end of the runway, but not quite, so I had to go into active pause for a minute or so while the last of the speed bled off and then slew back from her "nose hanging over the end" position to the turning off point. Better than life, eh?

Big girl, ain't she?

OK, let's get her unloaded

After a couple of minutes I realised why there is the option for "real time" or "fast" on the EFB for all the cargo and door related stuff. Boy does it all go slowly in real time.

Kneeling now, and the ramp almost down

And that's why we had to make this flight. This weekend is the annual Pirate festival and that needs a lot of beer!

"Are we supposed to unload all that on these little trucks!?!?!"

But not to worry, while they were arguing over who was going to unload it all  .  .  . it vanished!

Actually, it was "appropriated" and removed surreptitiously when nobody was looking. Well, I did say it was the pirate festival <grin>

Fly safe, and don't try this at home, children!

 

Wonderful commentary...laughing all the way...

This time, Andy, I see you've (safely) made it on to Runway 32....🙂.... making it all look so easy compared to the difficulty I'd with my Cessna Skyhawk...and I know you might ask, "What's that NDB thing again ...?" ....🙂...

Humor aside, always wonderful to see the An-225 Mriya .... great set of pictures with it ...!

In your last shot, it's easy to forget that there are more (big) engines...one on each side...out-of-view ...

Great - You are truly an exceptional pilot when you can land such a monster airplane on such a small airfield..🙃

By the way this aircraft is a masterpiece of artwork from Inibuilds - IMO !

cheers 😉

Edited April 28, 20242 yr by pmplayer

Great shots and commentary, Andy. I have heard they have a Yeti festival coming up at Lukla and they urgently need liquid sustenance. Can you help them? 🙂

5 hours ago, bernd1151 said:

Great shots and commentary, Andy. I have heard they have a Yeti festival coming up at Lukla and they urgently need liquid sustenance. Can you help them? 🙂

Always happy to help out, Bernd!

(spent ages playing with slew mode before I realised that every time I did it pulled the undercarriage up. Got nicely line up and when I got the drone cam out I could see I was about to do a belly-flop. Then I thought - Doh! Just set it up to take off from that end!)

1 hour ago, andy1252 said:

spent ages playing with slew mode before I realised that every time I did it pulled the undercarriage up.

Same here 😄😄