Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 8:48 pmIt seemed like a nice weekend for it, so I decided to really stretch the MD-11's wings instead of the usual trans tasman puddle jumping. So I went for just about max range. Boeing Field in Seattle (KBFI) to Auckland. That's 6423 nm, quite a stretch with about 2/3rds passengers.
I hate taxying in the dark so carefully calculated my departure from KBFI to arrive in Auckland as close to 4pm as I could, and I carefully got it exactly 12 hours wrong and arrived at 4am. Bugger, and hence the topic title.
I wasn't going to post any screenies so I only took a couple at the end when it struck me what I'd just done. But that's jumping ahead ...
Got a fairly nondescript sunset out of Seattle, no clouds around to make it pretty. You can't win with real weather ... And Ooooh, the jaggies !!!
On I cruised through the night, pleasantly surprised that the sunset was outrunning me and I wasn't going to have the sun in my eyes for the whole way. I forget when it occurred to me that maybe that wasn't going to be a problem
Eventually after an inordinately long period gazing at stars drifting past I stumbled across EMRAG and everything came together ....
.... for a rather nice ....
... landing,
exactly as it was intended to. No surprise holds thrown into the mix so I can lose the 7 or 8 thousand feet I've managed to retain, no go arounds because I forgot to put in the ILS course when I set the frequency, not even a WTH moment as the runway appeared filling the windscreen from left to right instead of top to bottom. From takeoff to touchdown it just followed the course it was supposed to, completely without fuss or drama or surpises. But that's not why it was special.
About a minute before touchdown it struck me ... here's a 100% crop of that second to last shot.
One of the very nice things about the MD-11 is that you don't have to remember to start the clock running on takeoff, the Md does that all by itself. It's displayed under Zulu time (15:54) in the clock in the top right corner of the middle screen. Yes, you read it right, this flight was a bum numbing 13hrs 5min. Flown in real time (no, I didn't sit here for the whole time). And that makes it the longest flight I've managed yet
Gary
I hate taxying in the dark so carefully calculated my departure from KBFI to arrive in Auckland as close to 4pm as I could, and I carefully got it exactly 12 hours wrong and arrived at 4am. Bugger, and hence the topic title.
I wasn't going to post any screenies so I only took a couple at the end when it struck me what I'd just done. But that's jumping ahead ...
Got a fairly nondescript sunset out of Seattle, no clouds around to make it pretty. You can't win with real weather ... And Ooooh, the jaggies !!!
On I cruised through the night, pleasantly surprised that the sunset was outrunning me and I wasn't going to have the sun in my eyes for the whole way. I forget when it occurred to me that maybe that wasn't going to be a problem
Eventually after an inordinately long period gazing at stars drifting past I stumbled across EMRAG and everything came together ....
.... for a rather nice ....
... landing,
exactly as it was intended to. No surprise holds thrown into the mix so I can lose the 7 or 8 thousand feet I've managed to retain, no go arounds because I forgot to put in the ILS course when I set the frequency, not even a WTH moment as the runway appeared filling the windscreen from left to right instead of top to bottom. From takeoff to touchdown it just followed the course it was supposed to, completely without fuss or drama or surpises. But that's not why it was special.
About a minute before touchdown it struck me ... here's a 100% crop of that second to last shot.
One of the very nice things about the MD-11 is that you don't have to remember to start the clock running on takeoff, the Md does that all by itself. It's displayed under Zulu time (15:54) in the clock in the top right corner of the middle screen. Yes, you read it right, this flight was a bum numbing 13hrs 5min. Flown in real time (no, I didn't sit here for the whole time). And that makes it the longest flight I've managed yet
Gary