2007 - Boeing 777 - Cancer Research Uk
Sydney-Darwin-Davao-Nanjiing-Vladivostok-Blagoveshchensk-Yakutsk-Bratsk-Novosibirsk-Ufa-Moscow-Odesa-Limnos-Amman-Riyadh-Jeddah-Tripoli-Lisbon-Prague-Amsterdam-Birmingham-Glasgow-Keflavik-Gander Bay-Montreal-Washington-Birmingham-Miami-St Maarten-Oranjestad-Mexico City-Phoenix-Vancouver-Anchorage-Anadyr-Petropavlovsk-Nagasaki-Taipei-Bangkok-Manila-Surabaya-Learmonth-Perth-Adelaide-Melbourne-Sydney
11/11/2007 12:05z - We have Landed!
Well we are now on the ground in Sydney after 2 barrel rols, a dive under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a loop! More information will follow. For now we are off for a rest. Thanks to everyone for thier support! We did it!
11/11/2007 09:55z - FINAL LEG update
In the early hours of the 11th we flew across Australia from West to East and we are now in the cruise enroute to Sydney at FL330 with an estimated arrival of 10:20. Good to see a large number of aircraft in the sky with us.
11/11/2007 02:35z - Blinking Beautiful British Boys
An uneventful flight at FL410 until the descent when we encountered an uncommanded flap extension which was quickly spotted by the Captain due to the First Officer (Gary) being pre-occupied drinking a can of Fosters beer to celebrate his arrival into Australia. An interesting final approach on runway 03 on which a housing estate seemed to have been built overnight....An interesting and somewhat varied flight.
10/11/2007 2252z - Oz here we come!
We are about 30 minutes from landfall back in Australia. Ralph and Ian are now guiding Speedbird 37C to Learmonth.
10/11/2007 2050z - Landed at Surabaya
Landed runway 28 on a visual approach which was interesting with dense traffic and bad visability. Well flown by F/O Dan. Crew now preparing for a on-time departure. Unfortunately we were slightly late due to ATC putting us in a hold at 10,000ft 100 miles from the airport. Thankfully the Ozzies took over and sorted the mess out. Thanks guys!
10/11/2007 1650z - Take off from Manilla
Dense smoke entered the cockpit and filtered back into the passenger cabin. The Flight Crew remained calm and safely flew the aircraft whilst the cabin crew went to investigate. We discovered that some wag was "testing" a smoke generating machine. We have forward called the authorities and they will be waiting for him on our arrival in Surabaya. A custodial sentence methinks!
10/11/2007 1541z - Manilla
An absolute peach of a landing by First Officer Tom Evans. It has probably got something to do with the fact that he holds a Commercial Pilots License!
10/11/2007 1025z - Welcome to Taiwan
A nice approach and landing into Taipei was performed by Chris. There was also some interesting Terrain radar during the approach. We're now enroute Bangkok.
10/11/2007 0535z - Taipei Here we Come!
We are just obtaining ATC clearence, we have all the passengers loaded then we will be off to Tokyo.
10/11/2007 0505z - Welcome to Nagasaki
A very busy flight down through Japan with over 100knot headwinds all the way made us 40 minutes late. We are now turning the A/C around ASAP to get off to Taipei
10/11/2007 0402z- Somewhere over Japan?
We have just been given our decent in to RJFU captain is Dan Tirel, First officer is Gary Oliver
Wow we are up at FL370 with a headwind of 119 Knots!
09/11/07 2300z - Petropavlovsk
We are now on approach to UHPP, unfortunately the airspace seems a little congested as shown by this radio transmission:-
BAW37C: "Approach BAW37C Looking for lower"
ATC: "Keep Looking"
09/11/07 1708z - Anadyr
Another visual landing was performed in UHMA. Excellently done Mark.
09/11/07 1708z - Anchorage Stitch up!
During descent into Anchorage we were hoping to get a visual approach into RWY25L. We were told to expect 07R, unfortunately it appears that the controller heard us say this. So at 3 nm from 25L we were vectored down to 1500ft and told to take the visual approach to 25L. Some skillful flying by Mark got us right on the numbers. Video is on its way. Thanks Scottish World Flight ATC Team!
09/11/07 1000z - US West Coast
We are cruising over the west coast of the USA heading up toward Vancouver.
09/11/07 1000z - Phoenix
We are now departing Phoenix to Vancouver after a successful couple of flights overnight.
09/11/07 0130z - Enroute to Mexico!
We are now into our second to last full day of World-Flight 2007. Craig and Tim are taking the plane to Mexico City. The sim is performing well. More pictures have been uploaded.
08/11/07 2350z - Busy Aruba
We managed to get out of St Maartin which was totally gridlocked with aircraft littering the taxiways. Once arriving in Aruba on time we had to park up at what is now effectively an aircraft "park where you like bit of tarmac". This should be interesting getting out!
08/11/07 1917z - St Maarten
A perfect approach, (Autopilot flying), perfectly lined up with the runway, (Autopilot flying), perfect height, (Autopilot flying), perfect speed, (Autopilot flying), perfect aircraft configuration, (Autopilot flying)......Yawn.....ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.......Disconnected Autopilot only to find that the flight controls were inoperative. An orderly, calm efficient go-around was executed, (actually it was sheer panic - Ed).
Second time around we nearly rammed an ozzie who was slow vacating the runway. Our laid back antipodean cousins have no sense of urgency :-)
08/11/07 1400z - Enroute to St Maarten
More repairs to the aircraft. Throttles needed minor repairs due to nearly 4 days of continous use. Blimey, we have been operating for four days non-stop and are only 20 minutes late!
08/11/07 1717z - Departing Miami
Cleared to depart on Rwy 27R, the First Officer taxis out but thinks he has made a mistake and is approaching Rwy 30. He asks to change his departure to Rwy 30, which is approved. He pulls onto the the Runway only to discover that he is on Rwy27R after all. You just can't get the staff these days!
08/11/07 1700z - Miami
Uneventful, smooth flight. First time we have executed a Flaps 30 landing.
08/11/07 1500z - Alabama to Miami
On departing Alabama we discovered that we could not retract the landing gear and we had to maintain 250 knots or less to avoid further damage. It was susequently established that the gear had been damaged by an excessively forceful landing by Nigel when coming into Alabama. Our First Officer put aside all thoughts of danger to himself and heroically climbed down into the gear well and manually cranked the gear up. It took him a while, mind you, to crank the main gear and he actually lost 3 stone in body weight doing it. Problem now is that whenever he gets up to leave the Flightdeck his trousers fall down.
08/11/07 1400z - Progress Report
Sorry for the lack of updates.
We left Iceland enroute to Gander and arrived almost on time. We then routed over Canada to Montreal and on to Washington. We are just about to land in Alabama.
We have had a few technical issues enroute. Currently we need to stop here for 20 minutes whilst engineering fix the trim switch on the yoke, and do a software update to some of the aircrafts TCAS components due to issues being caused by other aircraft around us. Hopefully this will not take too long and we plan to depart about 10 minutes late.
More pictures will be added later. We are still editing our videos.
07/11/07 2358z - Iceland
We had a brilliant flight to Iceland blasting Rule Britannia through the cockpit as we climbed above and overtook the others enroute to Keflavik at 42,000ft. We even saw a shooting star!. We are now on stand only a few minutes late after firm but smooth landing.
07/11/07 2125z - Och'Aye to Glasgee
After a slight traffic jam on the way to the rwy at Birmingham we had a nice calm flight into Glasgow and we're now parked up on stand 44. The only thing to really report was some great looking weather radar during the Birmingham departure.
07/11/07 1910z - Welcome to Birmingham
We are now on stand at Birmingham refueling for the leg to Glasgow. Some amazing ATC and traffic in the UK.
07/11/07 1758z - Departure from Amsterdam
Gary decided he knew better than dispatch and directed the first officer to turn right instead of left to follow the 30 other aircraft all departing from the same runway. After protesting he knew a shortcut and that he wanted to jump the queue we went on a complete orbit of Amsterdam. It was lovely for the first officer seeing every gate, taxiway and apron before stumbling on the runway. Over a tonne of fuel later we were ready to depart some 20 minutes late.
07/11/07 1544z - Flaps Fixed
Engineering have resolved the issue with the flaps. We are running late again..
07/11/07 1507z - Prague
We have just landing in Prague. We will be delaying boarding for 10 minutes whilst engineering attend to our loose flap lever and shortly be on our way to Amsterdam.
07/11/07 1225z - Lisbon to Prague
We are now in the cruise to Prague, expecting 10 mins late.
Henry Kellys interview is now on the press page. Thanks to BBC Radio Berkshire for their support
07/11/07 0845z - Tripoli to Lisbon.
We are currently cruising at FL380 Mach 0.840 after a swift departure from the runway. Our Captain, (Tom), hand flew the aircraft all the way up to 38,000 feet - it stopped him getting bored / falling asleep! Captain and First officer are estimating an on time landing if not 10 minutes early. Currently the weather is clear and an arrival onto runway 03 at Lisbon is expected.
07/11/07 0428z - Tripoli's Landing Competition
As is always on World-Flight there was time for a bit of friendly banter between Teams. On approach to Tripoli, HLA3AB (Scottish Team) were in front of us and QF25 (World Flight Australia) were behind.
It was decided we were to have a competition to see who could get off the runway at the nearest exit. HLA3AB went first and managed to get off within about 20 seconds at Kilo Exit.
We used all we had (Max Autobrake, full reverse and speedbrake, Anchor, Feet, you name it!) to try and get off one before at the runway intersection. Unfortunately we were still doing 70knots at the runway intersection but we made it off at Kilo.
Not to be outdone the ozzies managed to get off at the RWY intersection although there are unconfirmed reports of cheating. No-one has any videos to prove it but the top of the runway approach lights seem to be missing??? Oh Well!
07/11/07 0428z - Still Enroute to Tripoli
We have just switched from Cairo Centre to Tripoli Centre, the sun is starting to come up on BAW37C and the Captain is currently estimating an on-time arrival at 0620z.
07/11/07 0258z - Enroute to Tripoli
The night shift are currently in the cruise heading towards Tripoli, Libya. We are running about 20 minutes ahead of schedule, with no problems to report.
07/11/07 0121z - Welcome to Jeddah
After flying an autoland at Riyhad the flight crew made the most of some manual flying, flying for a good 40 minutes manually, swapping between the Captain and F/O.
Despite a few communication difficulties due to a bird striking the radio antennae a smooth landing was performed 20 minutes ahead of schedule.
We are now awaiting the Captain for the next leg.
06/11/07 2203z - Landed at Riyhad
After a routine flight to Riyhad we performed a full autoland on rwy 15L.
06/11/07 1850z - Landed Amman
Due to the slightly longer turn around time on this leg we'll be departing on time for Riyadh.
06/11/07 1753z - Enroute Amman
We're catching up. We should only be arriving 30 mins (or so) later than scheduled, meaning we'll be able to leave on time for Riyadh. And on a lighter note, we did get a couple of TCAS warnings during the first part of the cruise. More importantly the flight crew have now been fed and watered.... so their happy.!
06/11/07 1549z - Into Limnos
Approaching Limnos we had to make a few circuits in the hold before being cleared for a visual approach to rwy 4R. We found a nice parking space next to QF25.
06/11/07 1459z - Celebrity Guest
We have just had Henry Kelly on the flightdeck to do an interview for radio. He seemed to be impressed with the simulator and the event. We have uploaded the pictures to the website. We are trying to make up time on our way to Limnos.
06/11/07 1409z - On the Ground at Odessa
We are now taxiiing onto stand.
06/11/07 1405z - Enroute to Odessa
We are running about 01:30 late now, and have just had to do a goaround due to someone turning the runway lights off! Mick and Mark are poised to turn the aircraft around in record time to try and catch up some of the time.
06/11/07 0930z - Enroute to Moscow
Two hours late with a plane load of very merry travellers. We declined the Cossak dancers offer to take them along. In the cruise again at 38,000 feet.
06/11/07 0735z - Enroute to Ufa
Disaster!!! On Final Approach, with less than 1000 feet altitude we lost all communications and quite a few primary instruments. Thanks to excellent piloting skills we landed safely but had to spend over 2 hours repairing the plane. We kept our passengers quite happy with copious amounts of Vodka and entertainment from a travelling group of Cossak dancers who just happened along.
06/11/07 0057z - Enroute to Novosibirsk
We turned the plane round in 20 minutes, hoping to catch up time, and were away quite quickly. In the cruise once more.
06/11/07 0057z -At Bratsk
The last two landing were "interesting", someone stole the ILS equipment to start up a pirate radio station! The lack of ILS was more than made up for by the fantastic early morning views of the Siberian plains. We are running 17 minutes behind schedule due to being held on the ground for 40 minutes, such is the volume of traffic attracted by World Flight
05/11/07 2045z -Enrout to Yakutsk
Sorry for the lack of updates today. There really has been nothing to report. The weather has been a bit dark and thundery and the sims been behaving well. We have uploaded some photos.
05/11/07 1214z -At Nanjing
Mick and Craig departed Davao on schedule for a routine flight arriving in Nanjing, China at 1149z - 1 minute ahead of schedule. The only thing to report was a random 20 second TCAS warning cause by glitch in the TCAS data.Mick and Tom are now preparing to depart on the next leg to Vladivostok, Russian Federation.
05/11/07 0737z -At Davao
Simon and Ralph performed a perfect procedural approach at Davao in Thunderstorms. We seem to have arrived ahead of the rest of the crews. We are now planning on getting away on time again! Mick and Craig are preparing for departure.
05/11/07 0515z -Darwin to Davao
We are in the cruise over the pacific ocean to Davao level at 38,000 Feet. The crew are surviving the night of a diet of Tea, Coffee and cakes!
05/11/07 0345z - Sydney to Darwin
We managed to get away exactly on time before the rush out of Sydney, we left a queue of about 20 aircraft behind us.
Enroute it was discovered that we had broken the V/S mode on the MCP, so Gary yet again got the screwdriver out and had half the overhead down enroute to resolve the issue.
Enroute we were hitting 100knot headwinds which put as a little behind schedule with landing at 0313z. The landing was absolutely spot on with a visual approach to runway 29 at Darwin.
We are now parked up on stand (beating everyone else to get a finger on the main terminal). Ralph and Simon are preparing the aircraft for departure. Hopefully we will be on time!
04/11/07 2130z - Final Preperations
We are just filling up the plane with our supplys for the week and almost ready to go!
04/11/07 1900z - Total Panic!
With only 8 hours to go till departure Gary upgraded the firmware on the Simboards Input card which unfortunately cause it to die. This meant there were no flight controls or MCP controls working.
With only 4 hours before the event there was blind panic trying all sorts of ways to fix it. Luckily replacing both cards with Ralph's Simboards meant the sim is now back up and working again! Pictures of the panic repair are on our pictures page.
Meanwhile the rest of the team are chasing Gary round the garden with a hammer to clobber him with. Who said I.T guys do upgrades at the worst possible moment!
03/11/07 2255z - Almost Ready
We are almost ready for departure. We are having a few problems with the Simboards dropping out which are causing our flight controls to fail. We are hopeful that FDT support and ourselves can resolve the issue before tomorrow evening.
I have also uploaded some photos to the photo page to show how things are going.
02/11/07 2055z - 2 Days to Go
It's been a mad few days with the press coverage and preperations for departure. The sim and dispatch office are almost ready. We will post some pictures tomorrow of all the improvements we have made to the sim.
Thanks to everyone for their donations, we are now over 2300 pounds! Please keep donating.
24/10/07 2230z - Event Preperations
Preperations for this years event are coming together. The crew are currently making last minute preperations to the aircraft and dispatch office.
Donations are currently at 1300 Pounds. Keep that money rolling in for Cancer Research.