Towerguys World Tour

[ZK-TJL]

Awesome stuff Craig........love this thread, great story, awesome pics........but on top of that I'm learning lots from it. Thanks mate

[towerguy]

The forecast looked good last night and on checking with Recife center by phone this morning it remained that way so I made the decision to go. It was a fairly simple plan to file - take off, fly straight (or great circle) for 1105nm and then land. Estimated time 6hrs and 8 mins.

There was a weak front about two thirds of the way along route. The winds at SBFN were a light easterly but Ascension is reporting light and variable on the ground and westerlies aloft.

After working out my figures I found that due to the high temp here , a balmy 30 deg C , I had a high density altitude and needed to reduce weight. So repacking quickly I sorted out all that I did not really mind never seeing again and put it into the one suitcase and entrusted it to the local airline agent. It will be interesting to see which of us gets home first.

Some of the people I'd met at the hotel had come out to see me off .They just had to see with their own eyes, this crazy kiwi, setting off out into the Atlantic on his own in such a small craft. We exchanged addresses along with promises to keep in touch as you do, probably knowing full well that this hardly ever happens.

Taxiing out I paid extra careful attention to the runups and double checked I had all my paperwork with CP, PNR etc all to hand. Final checks - hat, shirt, bata bullets, wallet- yep good to go!



Climbing out to the southeast ATC gave me a hold down at 5000ft due to traffic descending to 6000 but I never saw them. Eventually up at 9000ft and engines set for the cruise I opened up the latest copy of computerpilot magazine that Julie had forwarded on to me and settled in. Even here at 9000ft the temperature was still registering a shade under 15 deg C and with the sun beating down I was soon down to just shorts and a t-shirt and a liberal dose of sunscreen. Looking down even the Atlantic below seemed to be in a benign mood basking in the late autumn sun.



So my journey continued, making the occasional position report, filling in the log and writing up the trip diary and a few letters to be posted from Ascension. The radio was quiet with just the odd call from high fliers overhead passing my messages back and forth or chatting on the common frequency amongst themselves.

Due to the additional 2 hours time difference it was late afternoon before I arrived at TOD. and got in contact with Wideawake airfield.



Not much moves or speaks anywhere on this side of the world without it going through one of the aerials on Ascension. They were expecting my arrival so had someone on duty for a met update. It was light and variable on the ground so I could expect a visual straight in. Breaking through a few final puffs I completed the Visual and with a squeak of the tires I was on the ground and taxiing in to the ramp.
FS9

FS9 with sth atlantic addon

real view


Waiting by the fuel bowsers was a bloke with a beat up landcruiser who turned out to be Customs, Imigration, refueller, baggage handler,taxi driver and accomodation arranger all rolled into one small weather and time worn package.



TGY secured for the night, we set off through the gathering dusk for Georgetown.



It was like driving across the surface of some science fiction set. An alien planet transplanted down to earth, it just needed a few clouds of toxic gas and a space suit to set the scene.



It was here that they brought the Lunar lander vehicles for their trials. Everywhere you look there are aerials of all shapes and sizes, a real conspiracy theorists paradise.

Everything was shut by the time we got into town so George dropped me at a hostel he recommended and arranged to pick me up in half an hour. "Time to freshen up lad, then few pints wiff Yanks over at club 'n' spot of grub, tha'll see ya right." He was right too. Great social atmosphere and it was quite late (or early?) before I got to bed with a promise of a tour of the Island tomorrow - or is that later today?

Some history.
Ascension Island has quite an interesting history for such an out of the way place. Discovered by the portuguese, it was a victualling depot for their ships. After swapping hands amongst the various European parties it ended up in the hands of the British. In 1815 it was garisoned with Marines as a deterent to the French from making a rescue attempt on Napoleon who was in exile on St Helena Island 700nm further south.
The Island is volcanic in origin and has over 40 craters scattered over it. It is also very dry and gets little annual rainfall. The highest peak is called 'Green Mountain'



and was the site of an experiment by the 'Kew gardens' to grow tropical plants. Long abandoned now, the vegetation has taken over and the upper reaches has a tropical environment as this area is the only place that gets a regular rainfall. At one stage the authorities dug a tunnel through the hill and concreted most of the floor of one of the valleys to collect the rainfall in a man made catchment. The troops used water barrels carried by donkeys to fetch the water 5 miles back to town. The descendants of these donkeys still roam about. Also roaming about up on the hill are enormous land crabs. They were so numerous at one stage, nearly over running the island, that authorities had a huge hunt and nearly exterminated them.
Wideawake airfield was built during WW2 by the United States and they had nearly 4000 personnel stationed here at it's height.



The field got its name from the thousands of small birds or 'Turns' known locally as 'wideawakes'. Vast numbers of personnel, supplies and aircraft travelled via the Carribbean and Brazil to Ascension and then onwards through Africa to the main theatres of war in Europe.
During the war nearly 25000 flights passed through.
After 1947 Ascension resumed it's quiet way of life until the mid 60's when an 'Apollo and Deep space' tracking station was built to support the early 'surveyor' missions building up to the moon landings.



As well as NASA, the CIA, NSA, the BBC and various other alphabet soups all have their aerials planted and'listening' or doing whatever they are doing.



Ascensions latest call to arms was in 1982 when it was the vital forward staging area for the British during the Falklands war. Without Ascension it is considered doubtful that Britain could have even prosecuted an engagement let alone win it.
It has only been over the last few decades that the Island has opened up from it's closed shop military existence and started to actively market itself as a tourist getaway. It is a shame that I cannot stay longer but over the northern horizon the continent of Africa beckons.



This leg. 6.4 hrs 1104.8nm
Totals. 78.0 hrs 11,215.2nm

Acknowledgements. The photo above of the Island with Wideawake airfield is crown copyright to the government of Ascension Island and was obtained through wikipaedia. A couple of the screen shots of the airfield are from the file s_atlcV2.zip by J.C.F.Howell and is available on Avsim. To them "thank you".The rest of the photos I'm not sure about but if you recognise them then "thank you" and I hope you do not mind the way I have put them here. If you do then just contact me and I shall ensure they are removed. No commercial gain is being made - at least none I know of.
Cheers.

[ardypilot]

Very interesting report on Ascension Island there Craig. The other day I downloaded some Falkland Island scenery and was reading up on Wikipedia about them, and found a link to Ascension about the RAF weekly flights that stop off there on the way to London.

I must take a flight there myself sometime, thanks for the inspiration.

[scon]

Yet another great story.

If you have ever read the book Pandora's Box by Jon. J. Nance it involved a 747 crashing on Ascension Island

[Charl]

Wow the tour is hotting up - sights, history, the lot.
2c Trivia:
One of those antenna arrays is also one of the three kingpins operating the US Global Positioning System.

[ZK-KAG]

Mr Towerguy the history teacher...

Great stories Craig , Im loving the tour and looking forward to what Africa beckons...

~ZK-KAG~

[towerguy]

Thanks guys - was going to do a bit more tonight but went out to NZAA to meet Tim ( G-HEVN) and help get him on his flight instead. He's safely on his way, via LA instead of VHHH much to his disgust.

[JonARNZ]

The great tour (and reporting) continues. Good to hear Tim has headed home, I caught up with him a few weeks back and his foot was still like a football. Hel'' be pleased to head home.

So roll on Africa!

[scon]

Great tour

Where do you plan to end up towerguy ??

[towerguy]

due to work I will be 'delayed' for a few days on the next instalment. something special coming up in the next few legs possibly, i hope you will enjoy, if not then - don't click on the link. remember I 've never done this before.
cheers.

[G-HEVN]

Back in Blighty now, thanks guys LAX wasn't the problem I thought it'd be, thanks to the power of Business! - it only took 5 minutes to be cleared into the holding cell ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H transit area, although they were still processing cattle class an hour later. Interesting to observe planes are now being towed to the stand. Presumably they are now afraid of 777-driving ram raiders

Good to meet Jon and Craig. Hopefully I'll get to meet more of you next time - if I can keep out of the hospital!

I'm already planning my route back in the SF260. Anybody know the best way to get it to Antarctica?......

[towerguy]

Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, USA, Mexico, South America to Patagonia region of Chile and across to Antarctica that way. .... EASY!

[towerguy]

Ascension Island was fun. Even more so than I thought it was going to be. If you are into seafood, hiking or generally fossicking about then this is a great place to be.

Saying my goodbyes I got dropped at the airfield and made my final preparations. The Weather was nice with a slight southeasterly and just some scattered Cu. Further north it was okay, but there were thunderstorms forecast.



Climbing away I felt a strange sensation, almost like I was leaving home. It's an unusual place that leaves its mark on each traveller in a different way.

Once in the cruise I settled into my now familiar ocean crossing mode. Engines set and checked, compasses and GPS double checked, extra suntan lotion on, logs and letters out and ready and magazines ready at hand.

A few hours later and the cloud was beginning to build with some huge CB's towering ahead.



Control was good and permission to deviate for weather avoidance was readily forthcoming. Finally after nearly 6 1/2 hours I crossed the coast. 'TGY feet dry' I thought to myself.



I was lucky even for that small glimpse as by now I was mostly IMC and starting vectors for the ILS 21 approach at Accra.
Flying into these unfamiliar places is difficult enough, but in these conditions it's doubly so. Add to that the thick accent of the controllers and I was really starting to sweat. You can imagine how I felt as I broke into a gap in the cloud to see a B747 slide past behind my tail, and a 'lot' closer than I think he should have been! Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss!



Fully configured I slid down final. At two miles I got the word 'Baron Zulu Golf Yankee Go Around!" No explanation but more vectors back for another attempt.



This time around things went smoothly and the weather had broken slightly, I was visual most of the way down.



With a rumble of tires I arrived in Africa.



A new continent to explore, albeit briefly. Later on Julie will rejoin me to show me around the land of her birth. Kenya.

For now though it was taxi in to park and secure the aircraft and find customs and immigration.



There were a couple of 'extra' payments to be made that I think will never be seen in the account books. Oh well 'that's Africa'.



This leg 1177nm 7 hrs 20 mins
Totals 12392.2nm 85.3 hrs

[G-HEVN]

Scotland, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, USA, Mexico, South America to Patagonia region of Chile and across to Antarctica that way. .... EASY!

Perhaps I should have been more specific. The plane is in Welly and going the other way....

[ardypilot]

Congrats on compleating the Atlantic crossing!

That's something I am still yet to achieve in FS.

[towerguy]

Ghana is a pretty good introduction to Africa. Its like easing into a spa pool. The people are friendly and politically stable and it's HOT! Its a tropical equatorial climate - hot year round with seasonal rains. I met those yesterday!
It's mostly savannah in the north and great palm fringed beaches along the coast.

Accra itself is just a huge sprawling shambles, 2 million people spread over 25km of shanty towns. So big that outlying towns have now become outer suburbs.

Ghana is the country in which a 1/2 scottish flight lieutenant, named Jerry Rawlings, led a military coup. He and the AFRC overthrew the government in 1979. After 'cleaning out' corruption he handed back power to the civilians but after that fell apart he again seized power. In 1992 he bowed to pressure and held elections and was voted back in, eventually having to retire in 2000 but with many reforms in place and the country in a better state than it had been.

Dodging showers I had a wander around town and the markets, not really buying anything but just people watching. I did have a feed of 'Omo tuo', mashed rice balls with a meat soup and cinnamon bread. Mmmmmmmm delicious!

Back at the Airport early afternoon, I filed VFR along the coast. It's not a long leg and I wanted to see some of the scenery.



Cruising along eastbound I lost count of the number of white sandy beaches with hardly anyone on them.



I had filed 3500' but cloud dictated otherwise and forced me initially to 2000 and then down to 1500 feet and even lower in some patches. I could hardly even see Lake Volta off to the north in the haze.


oops sorry- dropped the camera.



Passing into Togo you don't want to blink or you'll miss it. The country is 600km north to south but only 56km wide at the coast. It's politiclly unstable and just not on my itinerary.



Benin next door is just the opposite and is stable and doing well economically. It used to be named Dahommey but was changed in 1975 after another military coup.



It was historically known as the 'slave coast'. Dahommian kings would sell captured slaves for guns so they could fight their neighbours for more land and slaves.



It is the home of the Voodoo religion which was carried with the slaves to their new locations in the Carribbean and the Americas, especially Haiti.

Approaching Lagos I joined the traffic inbound and nearly had to call IFR due to the haze and smog nearly obliterating the city.



Lagos is the largest city in Africa and the UN expects that by 2025 it will be the largest in the world with a population by then of 24 million.



Taxiing on the ground here is like driving on the roads here. The fastest and the most aggressive wins.



Some of the GA aircraft parked around the place look like they came off second best. One cessna that taxiied past me had no doors, one of the windows missing and rust everywhere. Oil caked all the bottom and - I'm not kidding - a dent the size of a
football in the side forward of the tail. The African pilot wearing a pair of bright shorts and some Raybans and nothing else grinned a huge white grin and waved as he passed. I just waved back and thought "good luck mate", what else can you do?.

After parking and the usual 'payment' I caught a taxi into town. I'm staying at the 'Eko Hotel' just a short walk back from Bar Beach. It sounds like my sort of place.





This leg 1.2 hrs 217.5 nm
Total 86.5 hrs 12609.7 nm

[ardypilot]

I'm learning more in this thread than I ever did during two years of social studies at high school!

Interesting you flew into Lago airport, I read an article on it last year in Airliner World.

[HardCorePawn]

Interesting to observe planes are now being towed to the stand. Presumably they are now afraid of 777-driving ram raiders

nope... because of the layout of the gates, they cannot "drive" in as the jetblast does bad things to the surrounding buildings/equipment/aircraft...

they actually explained it to us when I was flying KEWR to KLAX earlier this year... they warned passengers that the captain was going to stop and shut down the engines, but that didnt mean we were parked at the gate, so everyone should remain seated...

typically, everyone ignored the announcement and started retrieving overhead luggage as soon as the captain stopped and shut down the engines...

[towerguy]

Pulling up a stool in the hotel bar I ordered my usual Bacardi dark. A rather hasselled sounding American business type was engaged in a heated debate on his cellphone as I sat and looked out the front window at most of Africa parading by outside.
"Blo0dy pilots! you're nothing but trouble!" Slamming down his phone he waved for another drink.
I really could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd just shut up, enoyed my drink and let it go! But no ...
"trouble eh?" I asked.
"yeah, damned company plane is broken and our charter pilot just quit! Now I've got to get to Port Harcourt, organise another charter and get back here by tomorrow night to catch a plane to London for a meeting and then New York by the morning after that. Easy!" boy this guy was steamed.
"you don't happen to know where I can get a pilot at short notice do you?"
"Port Harcourt you say? Thats over east on the Delta isn't it?"
"Thats right."
"Well I wasn't actually stopping there but it's not too far off track,I suppose I could drop you off."
He looked like a kid at christmas.
"Thats great, we need to be off early, can you take three people? Myself, hi I'm Tony by the way, and those two over there?" He pointed towards two nearby mountain gorillas that had been moving toward us. I'm 6'3" and fairly solid but these two looked like the front row of a super 14 pack. Each! both in tan slacks and white open collared business shirts they screamed 'Security'.
"These are my 'minders', I call them 'Bill and Ben'. He shrugged apologetically " they're always changing."
The taller of the two came forward. Indicating his partner, "This is Ben and I'm Mike" he said, glancing at Tony.
"Hi Mike" I said " I'm Craig, looks like I'm going to be flying you guys down to Harcourt tomorrow."
We talked for a while about places we'd been and what I'd been doing on my trip so far. It was obviously an impromtu background check and they'd probably have everything verified in triplicate by morning if they were any good at their job, and they looked like they were.
We agreed that I'd meet Mike in the lobby after breakfast while Tony did some early phone calls. Then he and Ben would meet us at the airport.
Turning in I thought "no problems, drop them off, pick up some gas and head for Douala in Cameroon. Be there in time for a late lunch." and promptly fell asleep.

Next day was fine but hazy with a few puffs of Cumulus at about 3000'. A nice day for it. After breakfast we headed for the airport, preflighted and filed the plan 5000ft IFR direct. Tony and Ben eventually joined us and we got underway.



When we were in the cruise Tony sprang his first little surprise on me.



"This is really great of you. The company will reimburse you all expenses of course, and pay for another night in the hotel in Lagos for you tonight, Oh and a full tank of fuel for your next leg."
"Another night in Lagos?" I thought I was just dropping them off!
"Yes, well, by the time we get to Port Harcourt and you take us down to the Delta and back, and then get back to Lagos, it will be nearly dark and I didn't think you'd want to be leaving at night."
Blo0dy heck I thought, now I'm flying a survey as well?
"Well.." I said " A Barons not exactly the best aircraft for doing an aerial survey in, you really want a high wing job for that." Maybe that would put him off.
"Oh thats okay you can use the companys Cessna 210 thats there, that should suit us nicely."
Ben and Mike were exchanging glances in the back and I thought to myself "hmm now just why exactly did that other pilot quit?"
Outside it was getting a bit murky, lots of haze and there were oil wells and gas flares in every direction.
As I was getting busy we didn't talk much more on our way into Harcourt, and on the ground Ben and Tony dissappeared into some offices on 'Business'.
While we waited Mike and I checked out the C210.



It was a pretty 'hard used' aeroplane but seemed to be airworthy and all the relevant documents were in the right places and seemed to be up to date. That made me feel a little better. Mike was a quiet type but seemed quite competent around the aircraft so at least I didn't have to worry about sick passengers.
"You ex military or something are you Mike?"
"Something like that" he replied and left it at that. Obviously not getting anymore I just shrugged and did the preflight while we waited.
Eventually tony reappeared carrying his laptop and a couple of small grab bags which he tossed to Ben and Mike. I didn't think anything of it at the time. We loaded and fired up.
We taxied out, me making a thorough check of the engines and controls while Tony made a thorough pigs ear of trying to fold the map of where he wanted to go. I had my backpack and got Ben to pass over my GPS. Taking the map from a relieved Tony I got him to point out the route and I programmed it in. Apparently just some islands in the Delta area, just swampland and forest, nothing special. 'Background information for head office' he called it.
Yeah right! This had my internal radar pinging overtime. 'just background info for head office' my arsse. They sent an obvious 'suit' half way round the world with two minders in tow just for background info they could have got off google earth? and a laptop that never leaves his side? Hmmm, now I REALLY wanted to see what was out there in the Delta! I should have known better, I should have listened to that little voice, I generally do. But this time I let curiosity get the better.



Departing VFR we levelled for a while at 1500' for Tony to take some photos.



This is oil country but also home to 30 odd million people jammed into some of the poorest slums, living amongst oil spills, gas flares and degradation of the worst sort. Virtually none of the millions of dollars in oil revenue that flows out of this area ever makes it back to those that live here. This has led to rampant corruption theft and increasing violence.
'Barging' is what they call it here. Oil is stolen, syphoned off pipelines into barges and then sailed away to be sold on the black market. The money is used to pay local officials, police and military to look the other way and even to buy weapons and fund revolutionary groups. Some of these groups just break away out of control while others are getting strong and organised, exploding bombs outside refineries and kidnapping workers. If I'd known even half of this beforehand I'd have kept my mouth shut in that bar and been at 10,000ft over the top of this place on my way somewhere else!


Delta country

Instead here we all were, with Tony looking at something on his laptop and motioning for me to go lower. We had been trolling around looking at all sorts of seemingly empty islets and stretches of nothing for about an hour when Tony pointed out the next two he wanted to look at.



Ben was dozing and Mike seemed to have that 'thousand yard stare' as he just looked out the window.
"Can you take us down over that wooded area over there, I think that looks like a good place" said Tony.
"Yeah sure" I replied. This area was made up of several hundred large islands, some mostly mangrove and others with substantial jungle growth. Between each was a tributary of foul looking river dotted with the occasional herd of Hippo.
Passing low over the indicated area tony remarked "Thats funny I thought... never mind, can you swing around for another look and maybe a bit slower this time?"
"Sure why not", we've just looked at half the bl00dy jungle so why not see it twice!
Dropping the gear and a notch of flap I set myself up - and how!



As we passed over the center of the island the tracer rounds burst from the tree tops, flicking past us on all sides. Pushing on full power and a boot full of rudder to try and confuse their aim, I pulled the gear and flap up and pushed forward to pick up speed and get out of there.



I had thought we'd got away with it when three rapid violent thumps shook the aircraft. Almost at once the engine felt like it was trying to shake itself free of the airframe and smoke started billowing back from under the engine cowling and it smelt like it was coming up from under the rudder pedals as well.
Pulling out the throttle eased the vibrations but only marginally, maybe the prop got hit as well? Being already low and with the aircraft obviously dying I looked ahead hoping for somewhere to put us down only to find an unbroken carpet of jungle.



I remember yelling to everyone " This is going to get ugly, belt up tight as you can and hang on!" Then I aimed for what I thought was the thinnest looking patch I could see.

To be continued.........maybe.

[Florian_S]

....good luck mate!!!