Seventeenth entry for the Christmas Challenge.
Click to reveal AAR
This time, we take the 777-300ERX with a kickass livery. Seems rather thematic since we’re going to Middle Earth!
Prepping the aircraft
Pushback
Lining up on the runway
Setting up 5 degrees of flaps for takeoff
Full power!
Up we go!
Climbing
The stars are beautiful
Climbing some more. The ocean is getting darker
Leaving Tahiti. I’m not a Boeing fan but I have to admit that the 777 flexing her wings is a thing of beauty.
Contrailing when reaching 30,000 ft. Our cruising altitude is FL350
Top of Climb. Wind turbulences cause some pitching oscillations from the autopilot.
Cruising
The flight is long and super boring.
Some clouds over Rarotonga (RG). We still have roughly 2100 nm to go.
Some interesting cloud formations over the Pacific. For some reason they remind me of this picture I saw once of “Mackerel clouds”.
More stars
More than halfway through
(Big Sigh) This is literally the most boring part of the whole Christmas Challenge… cruising over the Pacific. I’ve come to a point where I almost want an emergency to happen.
Approaching the North Island of New Zealand. We can see NZOH (Ohakea ) on the navigation display.
Land ho! North Island is to my right, but we’ll swing further south to land on South Island.
Crossing from North Island to South Island
The approach to Queenstown shouldn’t be too difficult with a normal plane… but with a heavy 777… the runway is going to be really, REALLY tight. Plus, no ILS is available, so it’ll have to be a a visual and manual landing… at night. (Gasp)
Overflying Christchurch
Starting my Descent near ELRUV
The mountains of Middle Earth!
Preparing the altimeter. Don’t want to mess this up!
Following the STAR
At least visibility isn’t too terrible. Almost no clouds!
In the STAR
On Final
Terrain! Terrain!
Lining up the runway
The approach has to be really steep and I have to come in a bit hot…if I can come in close enough and float a bit, maybe I’ll have enough runway to stop.
Nailed it
Eating up runway
Holy cow… couldn’t have been closer than that. I can start breathing now.
Turning back to rollback the runway towards the parking area.
We made it! Whoo!
Parked
Welcome to New Zealand. Time to explore Middle Earth together!
That’ll be in the next episode. Stay tuned!