Rothera looks good in your screens! Nice job…
Thanks for participating - your stories were great…interesting, informational, and entertaining. I hope you stick around with us for 2017…you’ve been a great contributor!
Happy New Year to all…!
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EGYP → SAWB (Marambio Base)
My final leg to Marambio base is just outside the Antarctic circle, but the most southerly I could get with the constraints of time and Sim - Aerosoft’s wonderful Antarctic scenery wouldn’t get under the radar this month. 
The route was fairly easy, take off, fly south, turn over King George Island and head towards Marambio Island. I’d planned a VFR flight plan as I couldn’t get a route in game. This would have been fine apart from the local weather which was attrocious.
Lining up on the runway, I asked for permission to take off which was denied as departure was IFR only. I could see the end of the runway and the hangers but the cloud was down around 100ft.
Having already upset the Argentines with my previous unauthorised take off, I tried various things with the local RAF ATC, each resulting in the same permission denied. As there was no option for “Sorry, I’m not skilled enough with the flight planner to figure this out, please give me permission” there was only one thing for it, floor the throttles and stuff the consequences.
A nice brisk off, straight into the murk. There was lots of shouting in the back as I think I pulled up a bit too quickly.
We soon popped out of the cloud into bright sunshine and turned south.
The weather looked like it was going to clear the further south we headed, which was a bonus as the runway didn’t have much in the way of landing assistance.
After a while the cloud began to break up and I started to look for ice.
Nothing on the horizon yet.
I wasn’t really sure what I expected to see, whether it would be a solid wall of white or little tiny ice flows.
Ice hiding in cloud cover
King George island came into view and the autopilot changed course for Marambio.
King George Island
As we drew closer to Marambio, the weather started to close in again and I realised I’d need to get down quickly, otherwise we’d have to fly back to Rodolfo Mars.
Sparse
Flying a left hand circuit, I had a quick look at the runway. It seemed a bit shorter than I’d have liked and very basic. I turned a bit too early onto the base leg and by the time I turned onto finals I was still too fast and high so had to go around.
The cloud was now down to 800ft so there was a bit of urgency to get down.
With the threshold being close to the water it made me a little nervous as I couldn’t afford to touchdown early. I gave it more time before turning in on the second approach, but then ended up being to low. No lights or PAPI to help out made me realise how much I rely on this, especially flying this much bigger aircraft.
Not one for the scrapbook.
I touched down right wheel first quite heavily around a third of the length of the runway. Quickly applying reverse thrust, thankfully we stopped very quickly. Overall it was a terrible landing, not one I’m proud of, but any you can walk away from etc.
Turning the aircraft round, I realised that I should have installed some scenery as there was nothing there apart from a trailer masquerading as a control tower. However we’d made it and taxied over to spill out the Christmas gifts.
Ok, who ate all the sweets?
Well done and thanks to everybody for the inspiration to do this flight, I’ve really enjoyed reading your reports which were very entertaining. I think I’ve checked this thread several times every day for the last few weeks to see if there was any more updates on progress.
Its not going be quite the same jumping back into my Mooney Bravo and I think I’ll have to do longer flights in the future. I’ve learnt a lot whilst participating, mainly through necessity and thoroughly enjoyed it at the same time, though still have lots to learn before I can feel happy that I’m not cheating.
Thanks again and Happy New year.
Keets.
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Hey…that’s actually perfect…if anyone would appreciate presents, that lone trailer would…! Congrats on the flight and entertaining us along the way. Nice job learning the ins and outs of the A400M!
My side gig is writing for PC Pilot magazine. I do aircraft reviews, largely FSX and X-Plane reviews, and some DCS content. My favorite is writing feature type articles…for the past few years I’ve been writing the “Challenging Airports” series, which is my favorite.
For those interested in reading a bit of the history of Port Stanley and the very interesting history of it during the Falklands War - here is the link (there are 4 parts to it - fascinating reading with some great photos) (the Summary and Analysis is a great read with very specific Port Stanley information in it):
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/black-buck-runways-1982-falkland-islands-conflict/
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Finally getting around to posting the AAR of my final leg to Antarctica. The planned route out of Ushuaia to Rothera…which would turn out to NOT be the route I flew…
The winds were howling out of the west…
The Antanov An-24RV was ferried down for me to fly the last leg. While I was sad not to use the Q400 for the last leg, I had always intended to use the An-24 for the flight…
Once in the cockpit - totally lost. I used a nice video online to help me figure out how to get the engines started. Unfortunately, I could not get my APU started - which turned out to be pilot error. The APU has a third throttle axis that must be set, and if you don’t bump it up to 10%, the APU won’t start. After multiple tries, I gave up and used the ground power unit to help me get the engines running. Later, I found out about the 3rd throttle axis…duh…
Leaving Ushuaia behind…
One of the final items is to turn off nosewheel steering for the takeoff…
There is that pesky 3rd throttle axis for the APU (T3)…
Full fuel…time to go…!
Unfortunately, there is something wrong with the GPS and it won’t accept inputs. I turn to the navigation sub-panels and have no idea what I’m looking at. I fiddle with settings, but never do manage to get a VOR tuned…
Leaving the last of Argentina behind…
I do manage to figure out the autopilot…which is basic, but functions nicely…
And there is a convenient pop-up telephone with “apps” loaded to allow you some other neat utilities…
With no navigation option available, I just point the nose in a direction that I hope will account for the wind…but to add a little peace of mind I also connect to X-IvAp so I (and you) can track my progress on a realtime map…
I absolutely love this An-24 cockpit…
Past the equal time point - we are now going to Antarctica for sure!
Then - disaster! I am messing around with some buttons and inadvertently click near the windscreen, which actually opens the cockpit window. The resulting loss of pressurization makes my screen fade slowly to black. Ugh!
Fortunately, when you flip back and forth from the outside to the inside view, the view stays bright for a few moments, so I’m able to check my pressurization bleed valves (they remained on) and close the window. Over a few minutes period, the differential builds up and the cabin starts to descend…
Back in business…!
After a couple of hours - land ho…!
I set the autopilot for a slow descent and weave my way through the islands…
The terrain is impressive…
I round the last point and soon Rothera Station is ahead of me…
I overfly the field and teardrop around to land into the wind…
I can hear the Vodka bottles tinkling and rattling in the crates behind me…
Touchdown followed by some reverse on the props blows debris forward from the runway…
The An-24 only uses a bit more than half of the runway…
I used about 2/3rds of my fuel…
What a great journey! Over 10,000 miles flown, dozens of hours in the cockpit…and lots of great adventures along the way. I’m looking forward to next year’s event already!
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I wanted to post all of my legs as they were flown but unfortunately two picture stories are stored on my USB stick. What is worse the stick is not at my place atm.
So I decided that I will post now at least the last part from Africa to Antarctica which I flown on the 1st of January.
At Port Elizabeth I started to be interested about my destination. I opened the list of default FSX Antarctica airbases and the list was very short. Not to big surprise there was no single base right south from Africa. What to do now!?
I picked the east-most base from the FSX list, Base Marambio, and started to count the miles - 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000 … 3400NM !!! 
I was lucky that I picked during the Xmas sales Long Leg Lady DC-10. With her I can make it!
I checked the manual, actually it is a quite hefty ebook with lot of charts, and picked the right gross weight to make the distance. After off loading some of the cargo and as I didn’t want to came empty I ended on the available range of 3500NM. With winds in the first half of the leg mostly from west / north-west it was not big reserve but I felt lucky.
To be on the safe side I took off early in the morning to be sure to make the vis approach still during the day. Lets go…
With the manual opened I climbed to the cruising alt FL330 wondering how to turn on the autopilot. All was set ALT, HDG, ROC, just the ‘power’ button was still somewhere hidden to me.
I was expecting it to be on the left side of the panel and it is actually on the most right side of the AP panel. Finally set on cruise at FL330, M0.82 I was hoping that the fuel will last.
After few thousands of miles with manual still opened I studied the descend profile, speeds, flaps, trim settings. Long story short I ended 5000ft right over the base. I didn’t pick it visually as it was obscured by the clouds.
With really low on fuel I decided for one 360deg turn and landing.
I overshoot the runway axis and the whole approach was just wild. I put it on the runway as usually do with the Cessna and applied full reverse thrust and parking break. Long Leg Lady went to stop. We made it!
She consumed 140.000 lb of fuel out of 145.390 lb. Nice job.
I really enjoyed this flight south. What I am still enjoying are your reports as I still didn’t read them all so expect ‘likes’ as I will be reading through them. Hopefully I will be done till the Xmas (or any other) Flight 
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…and it wasn’t the end of the story…
After landing at Rothera…word quickly spread to the surrounding scientific outposts about our cases of vodka de-ice fluid, so the Russians sent a helo over to pick up a bit. While there they offered to ferry some up to the skiway that sits above Rothera to transfer some cases to in inbound Twin Otter that would spread the good cheer throughout the rest of the Antarctic bases…
HootGibson’s cool looking Mi-14 Haze…
Off we go…
Climbing up to the ice shelf above the camp…
Unfortunately the Rothera scenery doesn’t include the skiway with barrels and stuff…but the topography is correct…
It’s easy to see why flying in arctic conditions is so dangerous. The flat, featureless snow surface doesn’t really give you much of a clue to your altitude…
Settling in to wait for the Twin Otter…
Here she comes!
A convenient shadow provides some depth perception…thankfully…
Vodka delivered!
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I second that, really cool with the ability to land on the water
OK, again,
Which one of you did this?
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I shouldn’t have pooped in that crevasse…
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Yeah, that DC-6 has been illuminating very brightly on my radar as well. So much wonderful content these days.
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I’m specifically trying to NOT fly some of the airplanes I own and holding them out there as a lure to build into them using Air Hauler. It is sort of a cool goal system to upgrade…however, at my current rate of flying Air Hauler flights, it might end up being X-Plane 14 that I fly them in. I feel like we all should have gotten a 100K bonus for all those Antarctica legs. Hazard pay too…
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Which begs the question, since there isn’t a way to easily create a desired route in AH and the fact that it has to be jerry rigged just to function, is there an alternative? It would have been cool to have the Antartica trip as part of a tracked cargo job.
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