Flying Home - Twin Otter Adventure

[stevekirks]

This post is sadly "picture poor" but I figured I had to write something...

Starting from LFGI Darois Airport in Dijon, France (mustard!) and flying to 46CA Penguin Central, I'm bringing a DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter over to the US. I figured that "heading east" would mean better winds and more money, and while that's true, it's been a long slog. Here's the route so far, with my last planned jobs landing me in Anchorage, AK.

Skyvector Link

The first leg was a necessary evil: get gas!

LFGI to LFSD - 9 miles on fumes to pick up JetA and jobs to start the trek eastbound. I hopped over the French Alps, the Sarajevo Bosnia and Herzegovina and on to Ukraine. These were the longer flights and super boring during the blackness of night. The approaches were also slightly insane, even in the direct GPS world of FSE and X-Plane. Most of the time, the weather was near minimums and X-Plane had planted trees on the approach and sometimes the runway!

After Ukraine was passed, it was miles and miles (or kilometer after kilometer) of Russia, Kazahstan, then entering northwestern China. Here's where charts became practically non-existent but the nav database in 10.45 is not that bad. I made decent money, keeping things afloat. I went straight east across mainland China, hopped over to south Korea and then the southwestern tip of Japan. Finally, the Pacific! But, here's where a fateful choice would lie: north or south?

North meant going up toward Alaska and plenty of jobs. South meant miniature islands in the south Pacific, little to no money, but maybe less work.

North!

I followed the Japan island back north to Russia (?) and then a long hop to Attu Station, the western most tip of the Aleutian Islands and finally back on US soil. Still far from home though.

I now understand why sim pilots love to fly in Alaska. Constantly challenging weather and terrain, tons of planning required. Still, great fun.

There's a freeware DHC-6 on the ORG site that's pretty darn good and a breeze to fly. Looking forward to dropping it in SoCal and putting it up for rent. With a passenger capacity of 19, it would be ideal for a multi-hop trip between Hawkeye FBOs and Penguin sites.

Can't wait to be back in the coverage area...missing ATC for sure...

I'll try to get some photos now that it's daylight again...

Steve

[stevekirks]

So far in the spreadsheet:

68 flight hours
10,175 nautical miles traveled
$197,862.58 in gross earnings (there were some mistakes on this...go with it)

Plane was purchased for $714,914

[Kyle.Sanders]

man... i couldn't do it.

[stevekirks]

yeah, I'm about bored senseless at this point. Alaska is filled with jobs, but I think I need a break. I might just load up on fuel and economy cruise as far as it can go just to get it home. I've made about $200,000 gross on the deal but I passed up plenty of "back and forth" local jobs just trying to get it home.

With some of the proceeds, I bought a Cirrus SR22G2 but had buyer's remorse. I've got the Carenado model for FSX, but as weird as this sounds, I can't fly it. I had a friend that had one and got himself killed on the way home from a ballgame. I didn't think it would affect me, but after loading it up, I just couldn't fly it.