Flying "The Queen" down Africa’s Great Rift Valley

Our virtual adventure began as a tool of discovery. Initially it was designed to discover if I was as high maintenance as Linda proclaims me to be. I think we’ve answered that question. What this has turned into is a discovery of the people, places and critters we share this rock with.

 

Victoria Falls

 We were well aware at the beginning of this adventure that inside our flight simulator world we would not be treated to the spectacular visuals available to us at the places we'd travel to.

 

 

We've found our visual stimulations from sources outside of FSX SE.

A visitor outside of room at Nkamba Lodge

 

 

The Queen 200 AGL over Lake Malawi 

 

Our flight down the Great Rift Valley inside the sim was at times ...stunning.

 

 

 

M V Liemba ...inspiration for German Gunboat Luisa

 We didn’t realize Africa’s Great Rift Valley is over 3,700 miles long. We also came to learn that our Goose’s namesake, The African Queen, is a book penned in 1935. It takes place in the Great Rift Valley during WWI. “The Lake” in the book must refer to Lake Tanganyika. In 1914, when the story takes place, the Germans put a gunship, (named Luisa), on Lake Tanganyika. The lake and German gunboat frame the tale but “the lake” is never mentioned by name.

We now know that this part of our adventure is like Australia, it’s just too darn big to cover here. We’re going to have to come back and spend time exploring all the small towns, people and adventures awaiting us in the Great Rift Valley.

Fuel was our biggest issue on this flight. We could only carry 83% of our fuel capacity to allow for …stuff. It provided us with a challenge in gph usage and available fuel stops listed inside the flight sim program.

We left Bujumbura (HBBA) to follow the lake south. We then followed the rivers toward Lake Malawi flying the canyons between the two at 500 AGL. Fun and stimulating in an African wind and rain storm.

 

At the south end of Lake Malawi we turned west toward Lake Cahora Bassa. 

FLHN

 

We then followed the river at her western most ends to Victoria Falls where we turned north towards Livingston (FLHN) again flying the canyons leading into the falls at low levels ...it was just spectacular.

 

Goodbye to our African Queen

We’ll return the African Queen here then be introduced to our new Little Bird

...a 1993 Lear35.

Our adventure continues …homeward bound.

Paused in Burndi

It all started with Al asking why we chose the virtual bird we did to circumvent the globe. We talked about a faster bird like the Citation X. It started us down a rabbit hole to be sure.

Here's part of our discovery from Down the Rabbit Hole:
Mainly we found this blog and adventure is not about a Joliet-Oscar-Bravo. It's purely about a love of flying, adventure and education.

There are programs available to sim pilots which allow them to treat their sim experience as a real world J.O.B. They'll allow you to earn virtual monies by flying cargo or passengers into various locations. You can then use the virtual $ you earn to buy fuel and upgraded aircraft.

Honestly, if we're going to "pretend" to be flying, we're going to also pretend we've just won the biggest lottery ever held.




Travolta home



In that world ...we would not even consider turning our adventure into Joliet-Oscar-Bravo. 

We would however consider making John Travolta an offer on his Florida home.


Geny's Beach

Our African Queen has taken us from Goma, (FZNA), at the tip of Lake Kivu to Bujumbura, (HBBA), in Burni. It sits on the North shore of Lake Tanganika. Anyone who has been there has surly enjoyed a sunset meal at Geny's Beach. It's laid back and comfortable. The perfect place to watch an African sunset. A perfect place to pause and ponder.







"The Queen" parked outside of Geny's Beach Club.









We'll be back in the Goose shortly to continue our trip to Victoria Falls.








Once there we'll hand over our African Queen for our new to us 1993 Gates Lear 35. A new old analog bird ...just what the doctor ordered for someone who loves flying, adventure and discovering new things.

Our new "Little Bird"

... There is lot's of miles to go crossing Africa, with a small fuel tank
... it is an adventure in "The Queen".

This adventure continues.



A Blue Goose,our African Queen

While pondering our choices for Little Bird we've, once again, grabbed a Goose for our long awaited Congo adventure.

One of our must see places on the African continent is Victoria Falls. Our plan is to take this old Blue Grumman Goose and follow the falls water source from the top of Africa (Lake Victoria, Tanzania) down the continent into Zimbabwe. We've named this Goose our African Queen.

We’ll fly "The Queen" South over Lake Tanganyika to Lake Malawi then turn towards 260 to follow the Zambezi River to Victoria Falls. We will divert, when needed, towards the nearest fuel/rest stop.

Due to Linda’s …stuff …we are only able to carry 83% of our max fuel load. This is after cutting her …stuff weight …to 50% of what we’ve been carrying in Little Bird. I convinced her to do so by saying “…and besides baby, regardless of your supplies I guarantee you’ll be the prettiest woman flying over the Congo in a Grumman Goose”. She may have rolled her eyes but she did smile and cut her payload by 150 pounds.

Our African Queen

We left HTKJ and headed west towards Lake Victoria. We landed at the marina in Musoma, a town named after the spit its on (The name Musoma comes from the word Omusoma which means, a spit ...who'd of thought).

Musoma

Musoma is as far north as we’ll go on Lake Victoria. From here our flight path turns south. A little slower, a little lower and married to our fuel gauges.

Our adventure continues.

…also, if we can find runways without a turn in the middle of them …that’d be great.

Hey Buddy ...wanna buy a bird

Little Bird got us from Nosy-Be to HTKJ (Tanzania) as easily as piloting a daily driver to the local store. Our ILS landing and stop on 09 was textbook.


We have our desired adventures lined up and ready to share ...and then; some fictional/non-fictional character named Al comes to us and says ...hey buddy, nice bird ...why didn't you buy a fast one?

As an extra added attraction we flew around Kilimanjaro in a new open Jet Ranger with floats. After all it was 30 degrees C outside. We quickly learned the harsh reality of being a sim pilot ...just because it looks like it can float does not mean the programmer wrote "floating" into the code.

 

To upgrade Little Bird or not ...we do love our modified Learjet.

The Citation X is going to have to go a long way to change our minds, especially in the middle of the African continent.

More to follow.

Nosy-Be via Ave of Baobabs …A Turbulent Time

 

About 160 million years ago Madagascar decided it didn’t like being a part of the African continent ...so it split.

Madagascar is the 4^th largest island on the planet. Basically it's a small mountain range surrounded by a beach. The warm waters, mixture of jet streams, uneven terrain, plus a thunderstorm or two made our Madagascar flights less than comfortable. It was a turbulent time for us. We like our Tequila Sunrise stirred, not shaken.

We crossed the Arabian Sea to Ivato Int. (FMMI). It’s  located mid island and is several kilometers west of the capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo. From FMMI we flew a Twin Beach to Morondava to see the Ave of the Baobabs. It is amazing to us that these rare trees are not protected. Some of them are up to 800 years old. They are threatened by further deforestation, waste water from encroaching rice paddies & sugarcane plantations, bush and forest fires.

 

Our flight back to Ivato was just as rough as our flight out earlier in the day.

We had hoped for a smoother flight to Nosy Be. FL29 was no party either. Albeit impressive to watch, an electrical storm over Madagascar is not fun to fly through.

 

We landed at FMNN in 15 MPH cross winds with low cloud cover and rain obscuring our runway visibility until about 2 miles out. Trusting your numbers is simple ...it's just not easy. This 737 driver makes it look easy.

 

We are looking forward to a few days on the beach at The Andilana Resort on Nosy Be. From here we’re off to the African continent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our adventure continues.

 

A fuel stop on the Laccadive Sea

Little Bird departing VCBI

Our day started out in a Piper Cub @ VCCW headed west towards VCBI in the wind and rain. Our flight to Wirawila Airport (VCCW) was a fun filled adventure full of headwinds and sideways rain. The wind and rain must have enjoyed themselves for they rejoined us for our trip back to Little Bird parked at Bandaranaike International Airport (VCBI).

Our goal for the day will put us airborne for 7.5 hours flying two different types of aircraft. We are traveling from Wirawila Sri Lanka across the Arabian Sea to Ivato International Airport (FMMI) on the island of Madagascar. Fuel wasn’t an issue for our flight in the little Cub but Little Bird is a different story.

Our flight path is 5298 miles along a high alt ILS route across a wide swatch of Blue Ocean. Little Bird will suck down 840 gal of Jet A to make the trip. She only carries 892 gallons. CRF 91.167-Fuel requirements for flights in IFR conditions say …nope, we don’t have enough to fly for 45 minutes once we arrive at FMMI. We are going to have to make a fuel stop in the Maldives.

I have never felt so naïve as a citizen of the world as I did on our final approach into Male (VRMM) on the Laccadive Sea. We landed on 18.

 

Right before crossing the gate a small island directly to the west of us appeared. It has every square inch of it industrialized and populated. It was uncomfortable. We decided to grab fuel and run for the skies. We did look into staying at Conrad's Hilton Resort but …$2000 a night buys us around 500 gals of Jet A …that’s about an hour of flight @ FL44 going 0.74M. We’d be more comfortable flying.

The adventure continues.

 

Flying a Cub into Leopards

Our virtual adventure is made globally mobile by Dovetail Games licensed version of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X. It's the world in which this adventure lives.

It’s amazing to us how we can find almost any place on this planet we’d like to visit by viewing old fashion paper almanacs coupled to modern high tech devices, images from space, internet advertising or from the "word-of-mouth" of someone who has been there.

First we locate on a map using satellite images and aeronautical charts the places we want to visit.
We put this research into the FSX: SE program to plan and execute our flights.

We fly in real time, in real weather and extensively plan ahead. We wouldn’t want to end up landing a Learjet on a short dirt runway at an airfield in the middle of Australia while looking for a boat race ...with no jet fuel available  …oh wait, that did happen.

We are off to Yala National Park. It’s about 300 kilometers SE of VCBI in Colombo. They have the largest concentration of leopards in the world.

The Eco Team Mahoora Safari Camp in Yala is our destination. This is Linda’s preferred way to camp …camping with style ...catered lunch and BBQ dinner, hammock on the river side with flame torches and roaring camp fires, luxury tents with furniture. It has Linda written all over it.

We're here for their Leopard Safari

Our 120 minute flight in a Piper Cub was slow and bumpy. We fought head winds and low clouds all along our flight path from VCBI to VCCW. It may have been 20 degrees C at 4K feet during our afternoon flight but Linda was still “burr cold”.

Needless to say our slow flight in a Piper Cub, popping in and out of clouds to find our way through a valley between Sinharaja & Belihuloya while fighting a wind determined to keep us off course, was far more adventurous than our flights in Little Bird …and we’re good with that.

Our adventure continues ...