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| Round The World Progress Map |
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| Round The World Progress Map |
This page will give the highlights and progress of the Round The World flight.
Leg 88: Edinburgh to Southampton (Great Britain)
Date: TBA
Leg 87: Sumburgh to Edinburgh (Great Britain)
Date: 12th April 2003
Getting even closer! Finally getting to places I have visited in person again. After a flight across the North Sea, a trip down the Firth of Forth, over the rail and road Forth bridges (took some photo's, see the pictures page) and on to land on the South shore.
It's the Final Leg next!!!
Leg 86: Vagar to Sumburgh (Great Britain)
Date: 12th April 2003
Getting ever closer to home at last, an hour and a half flight from the Faroe to the Shetland Islands. Again the Scottish Isles are famous for their "challenging" weather, but once again pleasantly surprising at a tropical 9 deg C and only a few clouds.
So we are back in Blighty again, for the first time in 11 months!
Leg 85: Keflavik to Vagar (Faroe Islands)
Date: 12th April 2003
Woke up this morning to the sounds of hail bouncing off the top of the aircraft. Still bobbing up and down off the coast of Iceland after last nights landing in darkness. I could just about see the coast now it was daylight.
Once we took off it was pretty much straight into the clouds, all the way to Vagar. The Faroe Islands are notorious for their bad weather so it was a plesant surprise to have almost clear skies on landing. Parked up on a Island in the bay.
Leg 84: Narssarssuaq to Keflavik (Iceland)
Date: 11th April 2003
After being holed up in Greenland due to snow and strong winds I finally decided to make a break for it. Clear Skies and 3 knots of wind finally arrived in the afternoon today.
The first obstacle was making it across Greenland, this was no mean feat as the Glacier covered mountains go up to 8,000 feet in this part of the world, which is my normal cruising altitude, so we had to to climb to the heady heights of 9,500 feet to be on the safe side (even colder up there!).
Having left Greenland at 2 pm for a scheduled 4 and a half hour flight we should have arrived nicely as the sun goes down in Iceland, but a combination of strong headwinds and the three hour timezone difference meant I actually arrived just before 10 pm, with almost no gas left in the tank.
So another pitch black landing off the coast at Keflavik, not much fun at sea where the landing lights touch the sea about 50 ft above the surface. I will find out tomorrow just how far off the coast I am, so it's a night bobbing around in the Atlantic Ocean, waiting for a refuelling boat to arrive...
Leg 83: Williams Harbour to Narssarssuaq (Greenland)
Date: 6th April 2003
A four and a half hour flight out of mainland America into Greenland. Most of the way was just a large expanse of water before getting to about 20 miles off the coast of Greenland when the weather took a real turn for the worse.
Snow moved in, cutting the visibility down to a mere 1,000 ft and the cloud base down to 500 ft. This was not a good sign as the approach to Narssarssuaq (maximum word score in Scrabble?), is through a maze of Fjords with mountains either side.
It was down to surface skimming and keeping your eyes out to make sure you go down the right Fjord. Anyway it was scary but eventually we found our way to the airport and landed in the bay to recover from the ordeal.
Looks like the weather has closed in, here and in Keflavik (the next stop) so we might be here for a few days...
I took a picture of the Clipper in a snowy Greenland and put it on the photo's page
Leg 82: Sydney to Williams Harbour (Canada)
Date: 5th April 2003
A three hour flight from Nova Scotia to New Foundland. Winds were getting up to 30 knot gusting along the way, made landing just a bit tricky! At least the skies were clear for a change and we could see the ground most of the way, even if it was generally a blanket of snow...
Leg 81: Halifax to Sydney (Canada)
Date: 5th April 2003
Still flying up the Eastern coast of Nova Scotia, lots of snow and lakes to see for miles and miles, getting colder still, -9 deg in Sydney (wish I was at the other Sydney in Australia!)
Leg 80: Yarmouth to Halifax (Canada)
Date: 5th April 2003
Now this is what I call cold, -22 deg C at 8,000 feet. I think I will need to pack a hot water bottle if it keeps on like this. Still heading further and further North, it seems strange that the the UK is just as far North and is currently getting temperatures of 15 deg and here it is -3 deg C in Halifax!
Leg 79: Rockland to Yarmouth (Canada)
Date: 29th March 2003
Out of the USA for the last time on this round the world adventure and into Canada. Things are certainly getting cold and snowy up here. Down to minus one and a blanket of snow on ladning in Nova Scotia.
Leg 78: Nantucket to Rockland (Maine)
Date: 28th March 2003
Another flight further up the Eastern seaboard of the USA, this time into Rockland, a coastal town in Maine. Nothing really to report, lots of sea and for a change clear skies on landing.
Leg 77: Brooklyn to Nantucket (Massachusetts)
Date: 26th March 2003
A misty day taking off from Jamaica Bay, so I hugged the coast line, heading in the opposite direction to my intended route so I can do a quick sight seeing trip around the Statue of Liberty. As you can see from the Photo's page, I tracked the lady down and took a picture of the misty skyscraper skyline of New York before getting back on course.
Spent most of the flight above the clouds but things cleared up towards the end, surprisingly (considering the good weather back in the UK), there was snow on the ground in Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. I guess snow will be the order of the day as I go North.
Leg 76: Dover to Brooklyn (New York)
Date: 24th March 2003
Another short flight, this time to the Big Apple. Could not see much of the ground until approach New York, to land at Jamaica Bay seaplane base, although it was hard to know where the sea plane base was in FS2002.
Off to go and buzz the Statue of Liberty tomorrow, assuming I can find it!
Leg 75: Norfolk to Dover (Delaware)
Date: 23rd March 2003
At last, I have got to the bottom of the technical problems, no thanks to the folks at Creative (read sound card problems :-( ). So we are back motoring again.
A pleasant and shortish flight in the less well known parts of the USA (at least to me they are), at least the names of the places are familiar, even if their namesakes are in the UK!
Leg 74: Beaufort to Norfolk (Virginia)
Date: 22nd March 2003
Still having technical problems, at least I have isolated it to Game Commander (program to use voice to generate those tricky key sequences), locking the PC up solid. So until I find what is wrong with that it is out with the octopus fingers to get the various panels up on the Clipper.
The flight was good, a lot of crosswind up at 8,000 feet and a lot of clouds so not much sight seeing.
Leg 73: Georgetown to Beaufort (North Carolina)
Date: 22nd March 2003
Well it is now Spring (according to Flight Simulator 2002), the grass is now a bit greener but otherwise you would not really know it.
The old computer has been having a few teething problems (caused by a new sound card and DirectX 9 I suspect), so there have been a few aborted attempts at this flight over the last week.
Still I made it eventually.
Leg 72: Brunswick to Georgetown (South Carolina)
Date: 16th March 2003
Still not might sight seeing to be had, clouds and rain were the order of the day. I managed to skirt most of the rain clouds but the weather definitely reminds me of home, it is also now down to 12 deg C, so I think we have seen the last of the warm weather for this Round the World Flight :-(
Leg 71: Merritt Island to Brunswick (Georgia)
Date: 16th March 2003
"Misty and Murky" is the best way I can describe this flight. I am not sure I saw much of the ground along the flight path.
Visibility was down to half a mile and the clouds were overcast down to 500 feet when I landed at Brunswick. A case of descend until you see the dark blue stuff and then head towards land!
Links to older leg progress reports
| Legs 1-10 | Legs 11-20 | Legs 21-30 | Legs 31-40 | Legs 41-50 | Legs 51-60 | Legs 61-70 |
Author/Pilot: Barry Perfect