Pole to Pole!

[Staiduk]

'Allo!
Inspired by the challenges others have given them selves and talked about here; I thought it'd be neat to conduct one of my own.
I decided to fly from pole to pole; North to South. More specifically; from Alert on Baffin Island to McMurdo Station; Antarctica.
With modern instruments and your choice of weather conditions; it's really not too difficult; just time-consuming. So I decided 'what the hell; go all out'.
I decided on the following format: I'll fly the venerable DC-3; in the red-and-yellow paint scheme to aid in visibility in case I go down in the polar regions. For weight; in addition to myself and a copilot I'm carrying 2000 lbs. of gear (including survival equipment if required) and 1500lb. of spare fuel in drums in the back; just in case I can't reach an airport. Should I need to put down and use the spare fuel; it'll be added to the tanks and deducted from the weight, of course. Doing so will take 2 hrs.per 500lb.
I fly under full realism; with max autogen enabled; plus realistic weather on and set to update every 15 minutes. Also; I fly strictly from the VC; no extras - such as the status bar - enabled. Navigation is by ground alone; using the map beforehand to plot my next leg.
Whooo - this is gonna be tough!
Anyhoo; just finished the first leg; a short shakedown hop from Alert (CYLT) to Thule Greenland (BGTL). Distance; around 400mi. This was the one and only time I set the time; I set it for a noon takeoff - the rest will be system time. (Needed the visibility for an accurate shakedown - only flown the Gooney Bird twice before. LOL!) Time at touchdown; 14:18. Moderate to heavy turbulence encountered during the flight with poor visibility on approach into Thule - fortunately it cleared within 15,000' of the ground.
Hee hee - this is gonna take a while; but man, will it be fun! If you want; I'll keep you posted.

[Meyekul]

Wow that seems really hard to fly with your full-real settings, I usually end up looking at the map every once in a while  Sounds good though, cant wait to hear more!  

[atotti2000]

sounding great. if posible post some screenshots of your trips on the screenshot forums
Thanks

Ant

[Staiduk]

Will do!
Yah, navigation's tricky; especially since I went into the Panel file and disabled the GPS. Might not've been a good idea; but it's even easier following that purple line - that might be realistic; but I've sort of set this in the '50's; when the GPS didn't exist. I'm a good real-life navigator; so this will be a real challenge. Obviously; I'm travelling down the Americas; largely following the west coastline.
I turned around and took right off again after a quick break; thanks to the extreme latitude it was still quite bright at 2am.
Leg 2 was the first really long one - from Thule, back across the water to Puvirnituq, Nunavut (cypx) - the closest airfield with Avgas facilities. T/O from Thule was at 2:45am. After a nailbitingly long flight back across the water; I made for the small field of Pond Inlet (CYIO). I knew it wouldn't have avgas facilities; but I'd be able to stop, stretch my legs and fill up using the reserve drums.
Made it with no fuel problems; though due to the distortion of the map at the top of the globe I made a mistake in navigation; winding up almost a hundred miles off course around the wrong island. I had to cruise the coastline at 5000' to find the airfield. Turbulence remained heavy; but the Dakota shoulders through bumpy air easily.
After six hours on the ground transferring the entire 1500 lbs. of fuel into the tanks (In real-life; I set the alarm and went to bed), I took off again for  Puvirnituq. ('Poo-VIR-ni-took'.) Fortunately; it lies on the northwest coast of Hudson's Bay; so it was easy to fly straight to it. A good thing too - I landed with a total of 14 gallons in the tanks! I finally touched down and taxiied off the runway almost exactly 12 hours after leaving at 14:48pm. I also filled the resrve drums - as soon as I reach civilization, I plan to buy enough drums for another 1000lbs.
Deciding that following the coast of Hudson's Bay was way easy; I took off again into a light overcast and headed south at 15:15pm.  I only made it as far as Umiujaq (CYMU) due to boredom; I landed at 16:05.
Next leg will take me to Moosonee the southern tip of Hudson's Bay.
Cheers!

[atotti2000]

by gooly. how fast are you flying.  ;D

i know where your coming from. Im doing the same thing on my round the world trip. At the moment im in the very south of Chad!
Ive just had to land quickly and refill using the spare drums of fuel as i was quickly running out.
Try landing at night on a runway which has no lights in a place foreign to you. Not very nice. lol.
luckily im all refuelled and ready to take the next step into The Camaroon  ;D
thanks

Ant

[tsunami_KNUW]

Good luck! I've been to the South Pole but never attempted the North Pole. So what other cities will you be flying to?  :)

[Staiduk]

Hi again!
Tsunami: I'm heading down Hudson's Bay to Toronto; then down the east coast of the United States; hop-skip-jump my way across the caribbean to South America; then wend my way down to Cape Horn. Aside from Toronto, NY/NY and Ft. Lauderdale Florida (and Key Largo); no real plans to stop at any particular cities - I sorta plan as I go.
Now it I had proper AIR5000's for the entire route; I would be able to plan better; but it's more fun this way.
Stormtrooper: Thanx for the warning; I jope it don't happen, though I've so far cruised all around the poles sightseeing and nothing weird's happened yet; other than the way the compass works (and by extension; many of the nav functions in FS9). That's expected - I navigate via the ground; so that shouldn't have much effect. Still; if any other weird stuff happens - such as falling up - I'll at least be able to get some kewl screenshots before I die.
Cheers!

[Ace_777]

Good luck !!! It sounds tough but im sure you'll get through it. Keep me posted bro

                    your friend ace  8)