During the last week of the school holidays I prepared for my first crossing, Saturday morning I put together and printed my route and the current track message, TMI 195, the one hundred and nighty fith day of the year. I was track F today, with the entry point of MALOT, routeing from BURAK, and exiting at NOVEP then YYT. Never takes long to start remembering and reconsing the more significant fixes in oceanic areas...
At 1600 New Zealand Local time, 0400z, 0500 local time there, I loaded up at Gatwick in my 767-300. I calculated the EET for OCA/FIR boundarys, did the fuel calcuations and varios other things, then filled the flightplan (in IvAp) and got on with my preflight for the next 30minutes.
Great early morning light.
By 0450z I was ready for pushback and start up.
Gate swings away and away we go!
Taxing out to the runway as the day begins to brightin up ever more rapidly.
At a "brakes release" weight of 380,000lbs it was a long t/o roll down 26L today. Of course, I didn't at all regret, as the runways end followed by the nasty big fence was getting uncomfatably close rather soon, setting that derated thrust referance.
I quickly switched to spot view to grad this shot, iv rotated and croped it too, looks prety neat.
No LNAV and RNAV and autopilt bussiness here, just good fun radial interception and NDB tracking and stuff, on the KENET Departure here, although does look like I have the AFDS going with LNAV, thats just something I flick on before entering the runway, and FD goes on in early checks, but im not good with the FD anyway so I wasn't useing that at all, so much more enjoyable doing it with out just following some cue or a straing line on the EHSI with these more complex departures...
I was going to use OGM for this flight but decided I would use this liverly, never used it before, its very nice, and as it says on the file description "atlantic dreamer" is what the 763 has been recently named by boeing, along with all their other "dream" names for aircraft. I used my VPA callsign, Freewings 349 as usual for an unscheduled flight. I fly a scheduled flight this time aren't any that suited my time of day, the earliest departure is 0800z I beleve, so wouldn't arive untill the small horus of the morning New Zealand local time. Just gota wait for the parants to go on holiday.
(btw I never fly flights by the fs clock, I always do it by the real world time, for a start the fs time is a mess and its just so much more realistic, I take all my time referances from my pc clock ..that little one in the bottom right corner, or even my bedside clock.. I don't agree with just changeing the time in fs to suit.. if you can't fly it scheduled, then fly unscheduled).
Out on the OTS now. About anothor 6 hours to go.
A bit lonely out here tonight, have come to not mind it thow, the tassy is way quiter than this.
About 4 more hours to go now.
Pity Gander wasn't online, am looking forward to doing the postion reporting with all the lat/long points for a change. 
Over some land now, only about 2 hours to go, so starting to plan the arival, thats after I decifer these funny charts they have here.
hehe
Isn't she lovely.
Lovely early morning, about 0800 local time, if you are woundering, the master cuation and warning lights are form the desingagin the autopilot and autothroltle way back (I like to turn em off entering the arival route, left it engaged for a bit longer thow as this aint no CC1A arival!) but yeah I coudln't be botherd canceling the warning..
Shut down on the blocks. All the studying and planning paid off, a perfect awsome flight!
Heres a kool touch down shot I got from the replay..
Well that was it, a total track distance of aproximatly 3100nms and 7.5 hours. I certainly paid for it the next day, after three hours cleaning at the flying school I went inside and read for a while as there was nothing to clean, then lost half my sight and went all numb in places like the mouth and toung for an hour, along with a massive migrane and painful stining eyes for the rest of the day. Not to good, but despite and agony and pain, it was well worth it.
This is something I want to do more often, as we all know oceanic in my 763 is what I love, and what I do best, maby after two years with the tassy its time to move into what I really really love, long haul oceanic (no sandbagging of course).
But realistly speaking, I think ill have to stick with the tassy and just get out over the North Atlantic in the weekends whenever I can. Hope you enjoyed my story here, if anyone wants some help with the North Atlantic or Oceanic flight in general, I am of course always happy to help out.
James
I liked that number 8 shot of the panel with the white knob sticking out,is that where you hang your hat 
