Part 1 - Africa or Bust - Diary
Sunday 14th May 20.35 - Event Complete - Parked at Cape Town
After recieving some great ATC all the way from FAJS to FACT with 5 aircraft following Gary completed a visual approach right on the numbers on RWY01 at Cape Town, some might say the best landing of the Event.
We Landed 7 mins ahead of Schedule on stand A2 and have parked the aircraft up until Simfest 2006 Part II.
Thanks again to all the ATC, Pilots and Crew. Until Next Time....
Sunday 14th May 20.35 - Final Leg
We are now on our Final Leg from J'burg to Cape Town.
Thanks for all the pilots who are flying along with us and a special thanks to the Air Traffic Controllers from VATSAF who have been brilliant. Tom, Lee and Andre!
The scenery is amazing and everything is going REALLY well, although we have had a minor malfunction with the side views... but they should be working again by the time we land in Cape Town.
Webcams are still online....
Sunday 14th May 13.56 - Update
Having taken 2 attempts to land at Mauritius due to extremely bad weather with 200ft visibility and thunderclouds all around the airfield we arrived at Mauritius 15 minutes late.
During the turn around we experienced a delay whilst Mark tried to fix the route disappearing bug, unfortunately this broke most of the other aircraft systems so we had to change this back.
We departed Mauritius in horrendously bad weather and are now enroute with some nice clear skies to Madagascar. Arrival is expected on time.
More Pictures have been added to the Latest Pics Page.
Sunday 14th May 11.06 - Saturday Update
We are now enroute to Mauritius after some excellent flying. The sim is running exceptionally well.
We experienced some amazing thunderstorms around Kenya making the approach very interesting with 100ft Visibility yesterday.
Unfortunately we were too busy to post updates about yesterdays flights, although we have kept a flight log on the previous flights page which we are keeping up to date. We are also posting pictures on the sim pics page.
This morning we were fogged in at Dar Es Salaam with only about 20ft visibility but made an attempt at finding the runway and took of 18 mins behind schedule.
We have taken some amazing videos on our trip and will be uploading these during the week.
Keep following our progress online on the Live Progress page, the webcam is also online still.
Saturday 13th May 08.28 - Good Morning!
Ben and Scott are currently enroute to Athens, having departed more or less on time only 8 minutes late....
possibly due to late arrival of the flight crew... lazy gits!
They have executed an excellent departure and are looking at an almost on time arrival into Athens.
Yesterdays Flight Reports
Flight NumberDeptArrivalDept TimeArr TimeFuel BurnLate?
BA9201HeathrowAmsterdam164617486.7 Tonnes2 Mins Early
BA9202AmsterdamMunich1833202312 Tonnes43 Mins Late
BA9203MunichAthens2105223613 Tonnes1hr 1 min Late
BA9201
2 Pens Found INOP, Resolved by scribbling harder
Spider Found in Cockpit, Presumed Dead
Discovered minor issues with Flight Controllers commanding full left wing down for no reason, Pilot Blamed for Error
BA9202
Took Captain 10 minutes to reply to clearance as the whole crew were cracking up over the PAMPAS 1V Departure, in the end sounded like his voice was breaking when replying.
Captains skills went right out the window after than with the FO single handedly flying the plane
Squawk box hung during arrival into Munich, unfortunately keeping our mics open, apologies to the controller. Steps have been taken to resolve this issue
Landed extremely late after resolving issues.
BA9203
Flight was delayed due to previous sector
Route Kept disappearing from the FMC and Nav Displays, but Engineering resolved the issue
Captain discovered NOT to press the Terrain button or his displays disappear also!
Friday 12th May 22.55 - Parked up at Rome For The Night
We have arrived in Rome an hour late due to ATC delays.
Friday 12th May 20.51 - Finally at Munich
After the captain and FO cracking up in the cockpit unable to readback our clearence on the PAMPUS departure we departed Amsterdam on schedule.
After some issues with Squawkbox hanging and causing us to have an open mic on the channel (appologies) we finally had to land offline.
We are now refueling (both food and plane!) and will soon be off to Rome slightly behind schedule.
Ben is now king of the BBQ:-
Friday 12th May 17:25 - Airbourne!
We are half way enroute to Amsterdam after some last minute glitches before the flight, Craig and Sean pushed back 10 minutes early. Videos and Pictures to follow.
Thanks to the following controllers: Menno Alting, Nick Taylor and EGLL_TWR.
And Tom Haug who is flying along side us.
Thursday 11th May 22:00 - Final Preperations Underway
We are adding the finishing touches to the Simulator, everything is going well with no major issues found. We are still getting the webcams installed and online, why do Maplins run out of USB extension leads the day you need them?. We also borrowed a video camera off Adam today and will be uploading videos of everyones landings as the event unfolds.
The side views are working, infact here is a picture!
light NumberDeptArrivalDept Time UTCArr Time UTCFuel BurnDelay
BA9201HeathrowAmsterdam16:4617:486.7 Tonnes-2 Mins
BA9202AmsterdamMunich18:3320:2312 Tonnes+43 Mins
BA9203MunichRome21:0522:3613 Tonnes+61 Mins
BA9204RomeAthens08:0810:1415.5 Tonnes+34 Mins
BA9205AthensBeirut10:3912:2412.1 Tonnes+0 Mins
BA9206BeirutCairo12:3913:548.5 Tonnes+19 Mins
BA9207CairoLuxor14:1515:188.0 Tonnes+3 Mins
BA9208LuxorKhartoum15:4917:2711.9 Tonnes-16 Mins
BA9209KhartoumAddis Ababa17:5019:2011.0 Tonnes-35 Mins
BA9210Addis AbabaNiarobi19:3921:3312.0 Tonnes-42 Mins
BA9211NiarobiDar Es Salaam21.5823.158.0 Tonnes-115 Mins
BA9212Dar Es SalaamMoroni, Comoros08.1709.3311.0 Tonnes+23 Mins
BA9213Moroni ComorosMauritius09.5712.3516.3 Tonnes+10 Mins
BA9214MauritiusMadagascar13.2014.5211.0+7 Mins
BA9215MadagascarMopatu15.3818.0018.00+5 Mins
BA9216MopatuJ'Burg18.2419.299.0-1 Min
BA9216J'BurgCape Town19.5821.5812.9-7 Mins
Total Fuel BurnTotal Delay
198.0 Tonnes-7 Mins