Flight 11: Shanghai to Taitung Taiwan

Date: Monday October 27th 2008

Departure: 06:08 local Shanghai time

Routing: South along the eastern coast of China, then west over Taipei and down the "Spine" of Taiwan.

Aircraft: Skipper Avaiation Dash-8

Altitude: 5,000 feet, then up to 10,000 over Taiwan

Miles: 556

Arrival Stats: Arrived at 08:33 Monday morning. That's 2.5 hours or 222 mph.

Notes: Departure from Shanghai was just before sunrise. I then skirted along the eastern coast down as far as Fuzhou before turning west to Taipei. From Taipei I climbed up to 10,000 feet

and rode down the bumpy (turbulence) mountainous spine of Taiwan. Eventually I had to disconnect the autopilot and fly by hand to weave and bob through the mountains. I managed to stay at 10,000 feet but it wasn't an easy job to pull off!

Finally clear of the mountains I dropped back down to 5,000 feet and rode along the eastern shores down to Taitung, landing at "Fengnin" airport.

I noted something interesting in FS9 as I was taxiing back to the terminal and that is across the runway from all the buildings MS has put in a BUNCH of taxiways criss-crossing this way and that ... leading to dead-end parking areas and the like. Very odd! But I taxied over near the tower and shut down at 08:33.

Flight 10: Pyongyang to Shanghai

Date: Sunday October 26 2008

Departure: 13:00 local time

Routing: West into China and down the eastern coast - bypassing Beijing.

Aircraft: DeHavilland Dash-8 House Colors

Altitude: 5,000 feet but then had to increase to 9,000 for safety

Miles: 680

Arrival Stats: Much better on the gas this time, 680 miles and still had 21% in the tanks. Three hours equals 226 mph.

Notes: It was a pretty short stop in Pyongyang, just enough time to grab some lunch and make the CFG changes to this unstable little pup - then I was off to Shanghai China! Interesting note about the airport in Pyongyang, the diagonal runway is like two miles from the terminal - weird!

The first half of the flight was uneventful, then the fog or smog or haze set in ... let the video speak for the landing!!

Flight 9: Kagoshima Japan to Pyongyang North Korea

Date: Sunday October 26 2008

Departure: 06:30 local time

Routing: Northwest (near Nagasaki) over Pusan and Seoul.

Aircraft: DeHavilland Dash-8 House Colors

Altitude: 5,000 feet

Miles: 511

Arrival Stats: I landed just 2.5 hours later because I was out of gas. That works to just 204 mph - miserable!

Notes: Now ... I know this is a small plane but really, shouldn't it have more than 500 miles total range? On departure and especially on landing I found this little plane to be very unstable and "twitchy", very difficult to fly even when trimmed out.

So I landed, made some changes to the CFG file for both handling and fuel economy - I also grabbed some lunch before setting off into China.

Flight 8: Matsumoto to Kagoshima Japan

Date: Friday October 24 2008

Departure: 15:00 local time

Routing: South over Osaka down to Kagoshima

Aircraft: All Nippon Airways Q400

Altitude: 8,000 feet to avoid terrain

Miles: 455

Arrival Stats: Under 2 hours works out to 260 mph

Notes: After lunch and a quick (4 hour) city tour I was back into the Q400 finishing my tour of Japan. I planned to spend the weekend in a place that http://www.toomuchfs.com/ toured back in 2006. Not a long or difficult flight down, just one hour and 45 minutes.

Flight 7: Khabarovsk Russia to Matsumoto Japan

Date: Friday October 24, 2008

Departure: 08:00 local time

Routing: East over Sakhalinsk and then south to Japan crossing Fukushima north of Tokyo.

Aircraft: All Nippon Airways Q400

Altitude: 15,000 feet

Miles: 1045

Arrival Stats: 3.5 hours which works out to 294 mph

Notes: After my harrowing arrival into Khabarovsk just after sunset Thursday I spent the first couple of hours on the ground doing paperwork, then I was off into town to find food and a room. Early Friday morning I was back out at the airport to take an ANA Q400 into central Japan. Departure was clear and breezy and I immediately turned east to cross the southern tip of Sakhalin Island before turning south to Japan. It really is amazing to realize how close Russia and Japan really are. Plenty of water today and not much "texture" over the southern tip of Sakhalin Island so I set cruise at 15,000 feet - at least until we were over Japan. I rode down the eastern flank of the Japan mountain range, a bit south of Tokyo actually to my lunchtime stopover in Matsumoto. The new city of Matsumoto is the city comprising the mergers of the old city of Matsumoto and four villages.

It is surrounded by mountains and is acclaimed for its beautiful views.

Hiking and climbing locations in the mountains are readily accessible by local bus transportation. Matsumoto is attractive to travellers not only because of the traditional culture but also its calm climate and its products.

Flight 6: Magadan to Khabarovsk, Russia

Prelude: Upon my arrival into Magadan (Mid-Day Tuesday) I had asked the aircraft maintanence folks to "check out the plane" (following my brush landing between legs 4 and 5). Wasn't I shocked 5 hours later to return to the airport to see my number two engine lying on the floor in pieces! "Visually!" I shouted. "Check it all out VISUALLY!" Hoover Dam! Now I was stranded in Magadan.

Date: Thursday October 23, 2008

Departure: 15:15 local time

Routing: South across the Sea of Okhotsk to Khabarovsk

Aircraft: Flight Club Red Dash-8

Altitude: 22,000 feet

Miles: 863

Arrival Stats: 17:30 local time, which works out to about 265 mph

Notes: Real-Weather was still showing clear skies Thursday afternoon - I'd been in Magadan for about 50 hours. So far as anyone could tell my plane was back in smooth working order and I was ready to go. The route today was pretty simple, head south across the Sea of Okhotsk making landfall near the River "reka" Amur and following that south to Khabarovsk a city that Wikipedia describes as, "the administrative center and the largest city of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some 30 km from the Chinese boarder and is the second largest city in the Russian Far East after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia in 2002 with a population estimated at 579,000."

Take off was uneventful, and I climbed through 4,000 feet before being cleared to turn south and pick up my GPS route. I continued climbing up to 22,000 feet and settled in for a comfortable three-hour cruise.

"Three-hour cruise" should give some warning as to what happened next. I was watching the beautiful sunset, some 210 miles from Khabarovsk when the horizon began buffeting around. Turbulance? Outside view showed a smooth flight but inside was horrible. I checked the gauges and found that the torque of my number two engine was about half that of number one. Sure enough, my number two was dis-assembling right there in mid flight at 22,000 feet! I tried pulling the throttles back with no effect. I tried the prop-sync switch off and on with no effect. Back to outside view and I had smoke now trailing from the engine. I pulled the fuel and condition levers back and shut down the motor. Then, I commenced a slow (200-300 fpm) descent to 5,000 feet.

Around 150 miles I began noticing some odd flashes outside the window. Was the video card going out now too? Nope, I was skirting some local thundershowers! This was just great!! I continued on ...

I had the VOR on the gauge and finally the ILS for 23L came alive. I disconnected the autopilot at 15 miles and trimmed out at 2,500 feet. Lightning still flashed about but not too near. I gradually added flaps and retrimmed. Finally at around 10 miles I had the runways in sight and headed in for runway 23R (the shorter, smaller, non-ILS runway) figuring if I botched it up the airport could remain open.

The gear dropped down on schedule. I kept my approach on the steep side so that I didn't have to add throttle and yaw myself out of position. I flared with heavy left rudder and glided down smoothly. Spoilers up but only reverese idle to slow down. I was able to taxi off at mid-field and headed over the the emergency vehicles that were standing by.

Wow ~ That was some fun!

Flight 5: Manily to Magadan, Russia

Date: Tuesday October 21, 2008
Departure: 13:33
Routing: Continuing southwest to Magadan

Aircraft: Flight Club Red Dash-8
Altitude: 10,000 feet
Miles: 310
Arrival Stats: 14:59 is about 1.5 hours or 206 mph.
Notes: What can I say here? Finally with some fuel on board I fired the big turboprops and took off, downhill, just after lunch on Tuesday local time. (This was posted from Magadan Tuesday night, showing up on the blog as Monday) It was pretty breezy in Magadan but I was cleared to enter the pattern and land to the northeast behind a departing 737.



I taxied straight over near the repair hangar and asked them to, "Check everything out carefully."

Then, I hopped a bus and headed into town for a shower and a good bed. (Yes, this is a photo of the local bus!)