*YAWN*
I didn't get a good night's sleep in Italy. It took me a while to get used to my bed, and even then I didn't get to sleep. Damn coffee!!
****
The alarm went off at 8:00am, and I felt awful. I must have had 2 hours sleep, but if I wanted to stick to my schedule I had to fly.
Mitchell and I had some breakfast, a few coffees cups of water and got on board.
Then we had to get out again and buy some foos for the trip ahead, as we had forgotten to prepare the night before.
Soon enough, we had bought food and water, the radio, some books, a few pillows and some blankets.
We were already running late. After firing up the engines, I checked my watch. 10 minutes late, not overly bad. But judging by the lenght of yesterday's 5 hour flight, I planned to go a little faster.
Another queue. Before this, I was sat behind these two aircraft and suddenly a MASSIVE 777 roars overhead. "That woke us up," Mitchell joked. I agreed, and prepared to take off.
Here we were at 7000ft, looking down at the clouds. The tops of the clouds were at about 6,000ft, and the cloudbase was at 2,000ft!!
Yup, still going, but at good pace; this time round at a good 220 knots.
The blue waters of the medditerranean, very calming sight. I was looking down at the sea, watching the glisten of the sun.
Slowly the sea became blacker and blacker, as did my surroundigs.......
From here I don't know what happened, so from here until picture number 6 is what I was told happened....
Land Ahoy!!
Mitchell was in control of the aircraft now, apparently he had put me in one of the passenger seats. He told me that the plane was flying along nicely until PRRT!! Number one engine had stopped. Mitchell ran the standard start-up procedure, and, with a bone-chilling grinding noise, the engine was running again. "Thank God," he thought, "that was a close one."
5 minutes later 'The Close One' just got closer, as number 1 engine began to make those grinding sounds again and stopped. Mitchell decided enough was enough and radioed to a small airport (ID being LGKC I think) and told them to prepare an engineer crew, as no. 1 engine was playing up.
He tried to re-start no. 1 engine, and with another grind, she spluttered to life.
"Charlie.....Charlie......"
I jerked up. It was Mitchell calling me to wake up. I looked around, tried to grab a yoke and pull up, but it wasn't there. I was in a passenger seat. "What happened? Are we there?"
"No," he said, "Number 1 engine is playing up. We are landing at LGKC to get it looked at."
"Okay, let me land her," I said, as we both re-entered the cockpit. I rubbed my eyes; ahead of me, about 4nm away was a small airstrip.....with a sheer cliff looming towards us. "If we get this too low," I said, "it could be the end of the trip."
"I noticed that," Mitchell said, almost mocking me.
But, the landing was rather safe, the wheels hit the ground with a hard thud, and we skidded to a halt. "Open the cowl flaps," I told Mitchell. He opened them as we pulled up to a stop, and suddenly:
A MASSIVE plume of noxious smoke was coughed out of the flaps, and that was it for engine 1. She spluttered to a halt.
I leapt out, and there was a band of Greek mechanics. "We're in Greece," I said to myself. I hope the mechanics can fix up our old girl......
The end of our journey? Will we be stuck in the middle of the Med? Find out next time...
