Presents Papua New Guinea Vacation Day One Salute to 1st President - 99s
On Friday, July 2, 1937 at 1000 Local Time, Amelia Earhart (Pilot) and Fred Noonan (Navigator) departed Lae, Papua New Guinea for one of their last legs of a round-the-world record-breaker. Her overloaded (45%) Lockheed Electra L10E barely made it off of the grass runway of the old Lae airport and headed direct for Howland Island a fuel stop some 18 hours away. Somewhere close to their destination they ran out of fuel and luck. The aircraft nor their intrepid adventurers have ever been found!
She Came Before Us 6210 kilocycles Height 7,000 feet. Speed 140 knots. 4 hours out of Lae. Everything okay. Ready Room Briefing: On this last EPOCH Alaska Air Vacation Day, we would like to pay tribute to one of the finest aviators that our world has ever embraced. As we bid our thankful hosts at Papua New Guinea goodbye, as well as our great Australian benefactors who paid for this Vacation, we shall follow a Memory Flight Path to honor and acknowledge the contribution that Amelia Earhart, and her navigator, Fred Noonan, have made in the interests of pushing the limits and expanding the horizons of aviation. We shall either choose the Lockheed Electra itself, or an alternative period aircraft, and fly a carefully laid out route that matches Amelia and Fred's path, deviating only to land on Bougainville and collect our Heavies for the flight back to Anchorage, Alaska. This Honor Flight shall be done using dead-reckoning, just like they did, thus necessitating your ability to track a compass and calculate wind drift. The avionics master switch shall remain off for the duration of this Day 5 leg, until reaching Buka, where you trade for your 747-800 or similar. There are 2 complete components to this Vacation Day: 1. The Honor Flight from Lae to Buka (using Custom Scenery) 2. The return flight to Anchorage in your jet. Both of these legs will consume a fair amount of time, as did the Vacation Pre-Start. The first leg may actually be the longest (unless you make an unscheduled stop), as it is about a 3 hour flight in a vintage aircraft, assuming you find the correct island and airfield to land at!
The following aircraft are recommended for the Honor Flight, in order of 'best fit'. They are all period aircraft, built around the same time as the Electra, and share the qualities of having 2 engines, similar cruise speeds, the same landing gear configuration and similar flight requirements: Beech 18 DC-2 / DC-3 Lockheed Electra L10E Grumman G21-A Goose Consolidated PBY-5 Catalina You may select the aircraft that you are most comfortable with, and find the most enjoyable. Remember the minute you taxi to the head of the runway at Lae no Avionics. No radios, GPS or otherwise. No Local Map. Links: 0 Amelia Honor Flight.zip (Required scenery package works for both V9 and V10) https://www.dropbox.com/s/1fehdiaulvztjpl/0%20amelia%20honor%20flight.zip?dl=0 Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra L10E V9 Model (run through Planemaker Save for V10) (2D Cockpit) http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5619 The Electra Project (an intense group that used X-Plane to simulate entire flight) http://www.theelectraproject.com/index.html Wikipedia on Lockheed Model 10 Electra (good info to get you in the mood) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lockheed_model_10_electra The Ninety-Nine's (Amelia was the founding President of this vital organization) http://www.ninety-nines.org/ 6210 kilocycles Position 4.33 South, 159.7 East Height 8,000 feet over cumulus clouds. Wind 23 knots
Mission One The Flight Preamble: This is it. The final Vacation Day. It has been a fun and rewarding experience to date and now it seems only fitting to reflect on other things aviation-related. This mission will engender a pensive and reflective mood within you a somber experience as you retrace part of AE's initial leg from Lae to Howland Island. There are components of the scenery package that I developed for this that ought to keep you in the mood as you hum along with your round-engined, 1930-1940 twin-engined aircraft, whether it is the Lockheed or not. The scenery package itself is rather light, as custom builds go. It uses only OpenSceneryX library objects, along with a handful of custom textures and could not be confused with a full custom treatment of the facilities under study. These facilities include a custom grass strip and apron near the waterfront at Lae (the old runway see pics following), a breadcrumb trail along your flight path and finally, a bit of work done on Buka Airport in Bougainville. Once you unzip and install the custom scenery folder in your X-Plane installation and download or pick your aircraft of choice for this mission, you are ready to go! Runways Follow Contours please. Mission: Real Metar Weather. Date: The day you fly this mission. Time of Day: 1000 Local 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Fuel your aircraft full and increase weight so you are ~45% over gross. Depart LAE (Lae PNG) on a course of 075' Magnetic, using Rwy 17 out over the water. Use only your compass and calculations to navigate. No Avionics, Local Map or cheats please. If you get stuck, Lae's NDB is 388 and Buka's is 269. Only use ADF though, if really needed. You may fly at any altitude, noting fuel economy occurs lower rather than higher (suggest 5,000 ft 1,524 m.) and more favourable winds are generally lower as well. 6. Look out the window as you fly and see if you can follow the 'breadcrumbs'. Enjoy. 7. Land at AYBK (Buka, Bougainville) and park your vintage aircraft. Congratulations!!!
3105 kilocycles KHAQQ Calling Itasca We must be on you but cannot see you But gas is running low Been unable to reach you by radio We are flying at altitude 1,000 feet
Mission Two The Return Preamble: This is the last mission of the last day, and runs much like the Pre-Start did. This time you will be pulling your Heavy up from a smaller airfield, but it will be empty of cargo and require far less runway than you needed at PANC when departing with the hold full of aircraft. Buka airport has a single 5,125 foot ( 1,562 m. ) runway which is plenty, even for an empty 747-800F. Extra fuel has been brought in to the airport, so you may depart with full tanks or any portion thereof. Your flight path to return to Alaska is entirely up to you you're already part of the way to Hawaii, so it might be a pleasant way to return. One last day on a warm beach can't be all bad while your craft is serviced and fueled. It has been a great time together, and on behalf of ux-pa I hope you have enjoyed this Vacation as much as I have enjoyed designing and delivering it. A special shout out to our Org friends and Nicolas/Mark for a great site and a pleasant place to host this Adventure series for those who don't frequent our bush site. Last thank you for being a part of the Amelia Earhart Honor Flight. She is one of my heroes. -bcmission: Real Metar Weather. Date: The day you fly this mission. Time of Day: 0700 Local 1. Flight plan your trip back to Anchorage with zero cargo/pax just crew. 2. Depart AYBK Buka in the early morning, before the heat of the day reduces takeoff efficiency. 3. Report when safely landed at PANC Anchorage, Alaska. Debriefing is an important part of life for the bush pilot. It allows others the opportunity to learn about routes and hazards, or even to share in your thoughts/feelings about the Honor Flight especially. Please use one of the links on the last page to give all of us a report on how your Vacation Day is going or has gone. Pictures are always good too. Enjoy!
Adventure Page at the Org: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=82463 Vacation Page at EPOCH: http://www.unex-planedapps.com/epoch-2014-png-vacation EPOCH Forum: http://www.unex-planedapps.com/apps/forums/show/15248582-2014-png-epoch-vacation Special thanks to Baz and Kerbaugh for the scenery additions, SuperCritical Simulations Group for the help with their amazing Boeing 747-800F and X-Hangar for ongoing assistance and their Lear 36 BizJet. end of file