By Art Burke

Why oh why did I fly a light plane around the world? It certainly seemed like the thing to do at the time! This is actually the third "project" I've undertaken in flightsimming. Project number one was flying a DC-3 to every state capitol in the original 48 states. (I couldn't figure out how to get the "stock" DC-3 to Hawaii!) Then I duplicated that endeavor with the Pilatus PC-12. (No, I'm not fixated with Pilatus - am I?)

When the Porter was introduced, it became an instant hit among those of us who enjoy "bush flying" in Alaska (and Canada and Montana and...). The characteristics of the plane permit really low and really slow flight. For a plane capable of carrying half a dozen or more people (more than 800 miles in the ER version), the short field capability is stunning. So, about the second week I had the plane I thought of this project. On New Year's Day, 2001, I took off from KLEE (Leesburg Regional in Central Florida), northbound for Norfolk, VA. (Hey, if we're going to do something weird, let's do it in the middle of winter!)

Leg distances varied from a low of 165 nm (London Gatwick to Evreux, France) to a high of 857 nm (Tel Aviv, Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). Legs were mixed between VFR and IFR. If weather permitted, I flew VFR at 12,000 feet or less. Only 16 of 41 legs were flown in IMC. That longest leg took almost seven hours - a long doggone time to sit behind the wheel at about 100 knots!

The worst weather (and the "dumb" part of the flight) was from Goose Bay, Labrador to Narsarsuaq, Greenland. The forecast called for broken clouds with low visibility (something on the order of three miles). As I approached BGBW, visibility deteriorated seriously and within ten or fifteen minutes billowed into a full-blown blizzard! I'm sure those guys at the airport were surprised when I showed up. Heck, I was surprised too!

The route started in Central Florida and ran northward into Canada (Prince Edward Island and Goose Bay) across Greenland (two stops there) to Iceland. Then to the Shetland Islands, down to Gatwick and across the Channel to Evreux (I used to live there so this was purely a sentimental stop!), then on to Nice. Across Southern Europe (Italy, Cyprus) into southwest Asia. From Israel to Saudi Arabia, Iran and through Myanmar (Burma), not forgetting two stops in India. Though Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Russia before arriving back in the US via Adak Island. The trip totaled 21,990 nautical miles, 6,276 gallons of avgas and 177 hours in the air.

Rather than attempt to display everything here, I've uploaded data to the files area here at FlightSim.Com. There is a narrative, logbook (both in Excel and a .jpg file for those without Excel) and numerous screen shots. Some of the screen shots poke fun at Eddie Denney. I've labeled a couple of them as "Eddie's Ditches." This is indeed just in fun. Eddie has done a masterful job with the RealScene Mesh Terrain. Sometimes an occasional error pops up (mostly due to missing data in the files the mesh guys deal with) and a huge hole appears. I named them "Eddie's Ditches" just because I liked the alliteration!

I also set a few personal "rules" just to have standards of some sort. I don't mean to imply everyone should do it this way - this was just my personal preference and is as follows:

1. Real time - no accelerated flights
2. Real Weather - I used FSMeteo (thanks to Marc Philibert for his excellent program)
3. Each leg had to be terminated at an airfield and that field had to have a fuel stop. It took a little longer to plan, but not much. FSNavigator was my flight planner (thanks there to Helge Schroeder).
4. No extra fuel loaded in the plane. In my case, the "stock" Pilatus Porter ER has a recorded range of approximately 800 nm. That may be somewhat conservative. Additionally, by flying west to east I was often flying with relatively significant tailwinds.

   Last and certainly not least, thanks to the FSD team of Jim Goldman, Yannick Lavigne, Steve Small, Fred Banting and Marco Rensen. While there's a lot of good payware/shareware out there in the simming world, this plane proves how terrific freeware can be.

   Art Burke
   Rocky Mount, NC
   ABurkeNC@aol.com

   Download FSD's extended range Pilatus Porter.

   Download Art's log, screen shots, etc.

   
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