Who’s gonna play me? I’m guessing Mr. Bean? Yeah?
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This is a pretty cool clip - Airbus C295W landing in Antarctica (I’ve never even heard of the C295W…what a sexy airplane!)…
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Great AAR’s fellow pilots! Keep them coming, please. This thread is better than watching television.
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…And so begins the boring flying.
The plan was direct to Easter Island, (or Isla de Pascua, or Rapa Nui), however as we were starting the jet, a Peruvian official ran out to greet us and explained a situation they were having.
Concerned locals had been reporting sightings of an unidentified aircraft along the coast near the town of Pisco. The FAP (lol, Peruvian Air Force) is up on staring angrily at a pissed of FAE (Ecuadoran Air Force, No Comment), and we happen to be the highest performance jet in the area.
Eager to have the at least one South American country not pissed at us, we punch the numbers for fuel, then agree. With newfound purpose, we taxi to the active.
Taproom 102 readying for take off, Lima baking in a comfortable heat in the background.
The sand and sea.
As we climb, Gibbo gets my attention on intercom.
Gibbo: You remember what our first nav point is?
Me: ASIA, I believe.
Gibbo: Yup.
Me: Why do you ask?
Gibbo: sound of pockets unzipping
My curiosity is rewarded with the instantly recognizable open cords of ASIA’s 1982 hit blasted over the intercom.
Gibbo’s an alright guy in my book.
We both jam out as we climb to altitude, I can hear the distinct sound of someone beating against the radar console in time with the irresistible drum beat (to be fair I’m doing the same thing).
We’re almost to ASIA when I hear the next song (Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas, for the record) abruptly cut out.
“Radar contact, 80 miles, angels 14. Got him in TWS” Gibbo calls. No sooner than he does I hear a sharp tone and look down to a hence forth unused instrument: the RWR. The Peruvians weren’t kidding.
I’m still processing the moderate shock the RWR even works when Gibbo adds “Holy ■■■■, this guy is trucking, twelve hundred knots of closure, altitude increasing”.
The bogey keeps his speed up as he rapidly climbs to roughly co-altitude. I tell Gibbo to put him in STT, and begin configuring the jet for a fight. I select the A/A master mode, replace the HSD with the TID repeater on the lower screen, and bring up the TCS repeater on my VID (the upper screen).
There’s something there, but I can’t make out what it is. I tell Gibbs to give me NARROW on the TCS
enhance
I instantly recognize the shape in a primal sense, but intellectually I know that it’s not possible. It can’t be what I think it is. I can hammer it out later, merged!
[grunting intensifies]
I’d explain how this went, but I’ll let Slider do it for me.
There isn’t much out there that can turn one circle with an GE-110’d F-14. Here’s our end state.
As I approach, I’m confused to see that my eyes did not betray me…
“That’s a gorram F-4!” Gibbo shouts. I know he’s furiously taking pictures as I pull up on it’s port side.
Confusion does not begin to describe the thoughts coursing through my head. Where’d an F-4 come from. Peru doesn’t fly them, wait, no one in South America flies them, we never exported down here! Why is it Israeli? Why does it have AIM-7Es and old AIM-9s on it? One wing fuel tank?
I switch to guard to begin to try and seek answers to this torrent of questions, all I hear is @klarsnow’s cackle.
I suddenly don’t want to know.
He asks me how the mission to Antarctica progresses. I answer well, and consider asking how whatever he’s doing is going, but think better of it. What I don’t know, I can’t be compelled to testify. We briefly chat, apparently he’s about to head back stateside (not sure if that’s good or bad), and thought he’d tail me out here to say goodbye. I thank him, and wish him well on his flight north. He asks if I want some pictures before he heads off, and before I can answer Gibbo is on the net commanding he pop flares.
I get one of my own for… posterity.
Pictures taken, Klar gives a wing waggle, and slide’s off into the distant, back towards the South American land mass, and I can only hope, not Ecuador.
Suddenly myself and Gibbs are alone once more, with only our jet and the big blue sea. I reconfigure the jet for travel, and Gibbs takes the time to cue up the last way point while searching for where his Ipod was flung in our brief, but tumultuous dog fight.
I hear Bowie’s Life on Mars? as I put us on course for Easter Island, our tanker, and danger.
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Great trip report…! Interesting that you got the bird strike too. I wonder where that is in the settings. One will be enough for me on this trip south…LOL…
And I love that ARC to the ILS 10…nice looking approach.
Oh…danger! I’m on the edge of my seat. Nice F-4 too!
Bravo @near_blind for a most excellent playlist, and to @klarsnow for his equipent selection. Much enjoying your tales from tropographic oceans 
@Sine_Nomine, yours is part adventure, part geography lesson, part instrument recurrent training, and a good part comedy. Kudos for including the photos. A shame to hear about the twin otter glitch. Love that bird.
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Phantom related!
That’s yours truly in the back of the big grey one 
The greeks were quite photo crazy, every time you flew close to one the backseater had a camera or phone glued to the canopy taking pictures the whole time.
Thankfully they were more than happy to share them.
And the tail we are in 321, it is coloquially known as
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw
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Leg 9: SCBA Balmaceda, Chile to SAWE Rio Grande, Argentina
Over and down the remaining portion of South America, at no more than 2,000 feet AGL…
We continue our low 'n slow flight following river basins…
An unusual surface …is it a salt pan? Apparently, Argentina has two of the most amazing of them in the world, but I don’t think this representation in XP v10.51 is one of those.
We didn’t have to stop (we were “only” airborne for four hours), but then thought it would be nice to stretch our legs one last time on the relatively warm southern continent.
While we had no remarkable aerial or bureaucratic incidents during our transit of South America, we did discover that simple candy can be a stronger negotiating tool than U.S. greenbacks.
Leg 10 is in progress as we post this entry! In fact, we’ve just sighted a coastline in the distance!
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Hey guys…Been following all of your great trip posts and it got me excited to jump in on this. After some testing, it’s looking like the JARDesigns A320 Neo is working in XP11 ! I did a quick test of powering on the aircraft, so far everything is working 
Here is my route down to the south:
Going to attempt the first leg from Salt Lake to Phoenix with the 320 this afternoon.
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Leg 10 / Antarctic Stop 1: SAWE Rio Grande, Argentina to SCRM Tiente Rodolfo Mars
Bidding the South American continent Adiós…
Four hours later and we’re on short final into our first Antarctic airport…
We must be early, because there was no one to greet us. Did we cross a time zone?
Break out the parkas, 'cause it’s -1 degree Celsius…
Before long, the welcoming committee arrived to greet us. We offloaded a portion of our sweet cargo for their holiday enjoyment, and then immediately prepared to depart for our next stop …EGAR Rothera Research Station.
P.S. SCRM is actually named Teniente R. Marsh Airport per Wikipedia. “It is the only airport in Antarctica which has an IATA code.”
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South America is well and truly behind us, and we have entered the Tomcat’s natural habitat: open ocean.
We radioed a (mostly) correct report back to the Peruvians with regards to their mystery jet, and are now on a more or less direct course for Easter Island which is some 1,800 nautical miles distant. As is now the the routine, the tanker is some miles ahead of us, on the same track.
Gibbo and I make small talk to pass the time. We’re both in agreement the F-4 is a studly aircraft, though we both think Klar should have grabbed an F-4J or S, then he could have tagged along with us. I ask Gibbs what the situation between he and tanker co-pilot is, and I swear I can feel the blush radiating off of him through three feet of avionics, an ejection seat, and my survival suit. He’s got it bad.
Eventually our mighty AWG finds the tanker, on course and sixty or so miles ahead of us. I climb to allow us a faster speed for less fuel spent so we can catch up, and we’re both eager to catch up for a few reasons.
Most glaringly is that without gas, we’ll obviously be in for an extended cruise of the South Pacific Ocean, I didn’t sign up for that. Gibbo wants to make flirty eyes with the tanker co-pilot, which I respect as annoying, but essentially valid. I however, through meticulous intelligence gathering techniques and the sneakiest of recon (i.e. overhearing tanker co-pilot tell Gibbs about it), have discovered that the tanker crew has amassed a collection of Milton Bradley’s finest board games.
I’m going to dominate these suckers at Trivial Pursuit.
Rejoin and tanking proceed as you’ve seen every time before. Compared to the nightmare murder house that was the Andes, refueling over the relatively peaceful Pacific (tautology!) Ocean is a sedate affair. The deed done, I set the plane in a loose formation off their right size and engage the autopilot. We’ve got 1400 miles to go, and I’ve got four ANG sucka’s to school board games.
#1200 Miles
Boom Operator: What is the name of the clock tower london
Me: Elizabeth Tower
Tanker Jock: It’s Big Ben, mook.
Boom Operator: It’s Elizabeth Tower, Pie Slice for you
Me: Big Ben is the clock, and who says mook anymore?
#1000 Miles
Tanker Jock: I’m telling you Batman would win!
Me: Are you insane? Superman can fly super sonic, has the ability to manipulate time, could destroy everything on the planet in like an hour and shoots freaking laser beams from his freaking eyes!
Tanker Jock: But he’s, at best, like moderately intelligent. Batman’s a genius! He’d be able to out plan Superman, lure him into a trap, and kill him with, like, a Kryptonite Batterang
Me: Which he has to throw at a man sized target moving fast enough to manipulate space time!
Tanker Jock: Can’t move that fast if you’re trapped in Kryptonite!
Me: And you couldn’t make a trap if your brain just got scrambled from space with a laser
Boom Operator: It’s moot! Both would never fight because they represent two sides of the same fascistic ideology of circumventing established rule of law, and creating a society ruled by marshal force and extra judiciary executions and punishment. Also the answer is clearly Iron Man
Tanker Jock, Me: Shut up!
#800 Miles
All: “You’re my Laaaaaaaday! pause Lady of the mooooo ooooooo rning!”
#600 Miles
Tanker Jock: How the hell am I supposed to know that?
Boom Operator: I didn’t write the card, sir.
Tanker Jock: I dunno, 1983
Boom Operator: Incorrect
Me: You think we invented the internet in 1983?
Tanker Jock: Damnit Sarah, why did you tell them we had this!
Tanker Co-Pilot: Because this is hilarious
#500 Miles
Me: So was that good for you?
Tanker Co-Pilot: Giggles
Tanker Jock: That joke’s older than my parents, and it was unfunny then too.
Me: But still effective
Gibbs: So immature
#300 Miles
Tanker Co-Pilot: So then we had to dodge out the back of this bar, and the owner was so mad!
Gibbs: Oh really? that’s so interesting!
Me: That’s it, hey Sarah, want to see Gibbs puke?
Gibbs, Tanker Co-Pilot: What?
Me: Hold my beer!
Me: [Maniacal Laughter]
Gibbs: You suck!
At 120 Miles, it’s time to say good by once more. I give the tanker driver a one fingered salute, then push the throttles all the way forward, rocketing away.
I weave my way through the clouds as I bust through the Mach. The feeling is immense.
Easter Island apparatus out of the haze, and I’m intent on giving the islanders a show they won’t soon forget. Then disaster strikes
Remember when I promised danger? Here is danger.
I’ve either exhausted the feed tanks with excessive use of afterburner at low level, or a ramp scheduling bug has given me a fan stall. The result is the same: simultaneous double engine failure. Fuuuuuuuuuudge
I’ve flown the A Model tomcat, so while this is excessively rare for the B, I’m well rehearsed with the engine restart procedure. However I can’t engage it until I drop below the mach. For now I’m flying the worlds heaviest supersonic glider as I pass over the southern point of Easter Island.
We decelerate sufficiently that I can unstow the engine ramp without fearing that aerodynamic forces will shred my engines. I Immediately start cranking the left engine. Time is a factor here, right now the jet is being powered by the windmilling fan blades, if they drop too low I’m going to be dead sticking a Tomcat, which isn’t a survivable prospect.
Engine one comes back to life, but engine two’s EGT rises into the red zone. I can’t restart it without risking an engine fire. I’m down to one engine for this landing. I roll right for an expedited landing at Isla de Pascua.
As I line up with the runway, I’m forced to throttle up the engine. The wide spacing between the engines on the F-14 causes huge yaw forces that I have to correct with full left rudder. I’m lucky the jet is light, otherwise this has a habit in ending in an aggravated flat spin.
Besides being a bit off laterally and very crab-y, the landing goes surprisingly well.
What are the odds there’s a General Electric sales man on this island? We might be stuck here for a bit pending inspection of my starboard engine. I expect the island’s bars to profit greatly, and it’s liqueur supply to suffer horrendously in the mean time.
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Antarctic Stop 2: EGAR Rothera Research Station
Skyvector lacks a few (probably more like many) Antarctic destinations, so our flight plan requires some superfluous entries to generate a usable plot…
It felt as if we were on another world…
A fly-over of EGAR Rothera is in order to give the residences notice of our imminent landing…
Shortly after this picture was taken (shot by a sailor who shared it with us later), an undesirable bounce forced us to push hard on the wheel brakes to get her stopped…
Local time was 1828, making it well over a 12-hour long day for crew and passengers. We’re all looking forward to a hot cup of tea and a good night’s rest. The Rotherians can’t wait to raid our pantry in the morning.
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This trip is costing us all a fortune in engines! So far I count one GE F110, one P&W PT-6, and one P&W 150A.
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This is called job security in the engine bizzzz
Now, it looks like @BeachAV8R is going to need a fan and LPC boroscope inspection to see how far the damage has propagated, and @near_blind was just being a pantsy with not restarting! He could have licked some ceramic material of that sexy turbine easily! I guess that says a lot about F-14 drivers ;).
I believe…we’ve found…our saboteur…
- If @TheAlmightySnark meets us in Antarctica with a planeload full of engine parts for sale at x3 the price…we’ll know for sure!
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Not full off parts no, I shall also be the prime shovel dealer there and manager of the party-jet during business hours! let the vodka flow freely!
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I wouldn’t call pilots saboteurs really, I cannot blame them for barely understanding the ''lever forwards, plane go" method
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OK…but if you’ve trained the flock of birds to respond to your will…I will also be suspicious!
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