Flight 4: Nome, Alaska to Manily, Russia

Date: Sunday October 19, 2008
Departure: 11:17 local time
Routing: West out of Nome - it didn't take long to leave North America on the horizon.

Our second waypoint over Russia was Anadyr (See this interesting piece: http://mrobards.blogspot.com/2007/09/anadyr.html) and southwest to Manily.
Aircraft: Flight Club Red Dash-8



Altitude: 12,000 feet
Miles: 930 miles.
Cruise: 16,000 feet again
Arrival Stats: 11:45 Monday October 20th (Yep, another 3.5 hrs) That works out to 265 mph but I had to take some laps to find a spot to land!
Notes: The lesson today folks is even if you've only been in the air an hour or so, STOP FOR GAS! I had actually set in a route from Nome to Magadan Russia knowing that it might be too far. I found about three airports or NDBs along the route and figured we'd be fine ... we weren't. Over Anadyr I still had "plenty" of fuel and the day was still young so I continued on.

About half-way between Anadyr and Magadan I realized that I'd certainly be short on the fuel range. So the search started for alternate landing sites. The search revealed many NDBs including the one's on my flightplan, but NO AIRPORTS - not even any runways! My next waypoint by this point in time was a place called, "Manily".


Frantically I searched the web but there are no airports even listed for the area. I did find a weather report, mostly clear and 15*. (This confirmed that my Real-Weather downloads were still working at least!) I headed down for the NDB, finding the ... village, not too far inland sprawled along a gentle hillside. I looked around the FS World for a road or something but finally just opted for a wide open, grassy field free of trees and buildings - I hoped that it wasn't too muddy. The landing was gentle and smooth but WOW those locals were freaked out!





Here's the deal: I swapped a weeks'-worth of food and supplies for a fuel truck which took the better part of 24 hours to arrive. We pumped a few hundred gallons into the tanks and I took off again (downhill) Tuesday afternoon, to complete the 310 miles to Magadan.