Dil52's Military Hops Santa Anna, Solomon Islands to Malita
- Thread starter Dil52
- Start date
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Landed safely at GPS
Time for lunch and a some routine maintenance on the Gooney Bird.
View attachment FlightLog_12-37-30.TXT
Time for lunch and a some routine maintenance on the Gooney Bird.
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Landed safely at WABB
Over night stop to refuel plane, crew and passengers.
View attachment FlightLog_18-12-55.TXT
Over night stop to refuel plane, crew and passengers.
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Thank you Austin. The weather yesterday was considerably better than when most of the pilots flew through here almost a month ago. We're here this morning at WABB. Built by the Japanese in 1941-2, Frans Kaisiepo AP (WABB) is an airport in Blak, Papua Indonesia. It is also known as Mokmer Airport. The airport is named after Frans Kaisiepo, the fourth Governor of Papua.
We left Santa Anna with 1604 gal. (9624 lbs.) of fuel including 800 gallons in the center reserve tank and arrived at Frans Kaisiepo AP with 101.78gal (610.7 lbs.).
Due to the heavy volume of military aircraft traffic through the Islands this month they were only able to spare us enough fuel to reach to Malita. Rationing of fuel and many other things was not uncommon during the time. (I believe there's some kind of air race going on, but you won't know it by our speeds and times)
We’re adding 3890 lbs. for a total of 4500 lbs. (750 gal.} for the remainder of the hops to Malita. This is going to be close as they tell me that 5 gallons of fuel in each of the tanks (including aux.) are unusable; this is because there is a standpipe arrangement in each tank incorporated to prevent sedimentation into strainers and carburetors.
Up and ready to leave at the crack of dawn some of the boys look a little ragged this morning. It seems they found a stash of sake hidden amongst the in the fuel reserves. Can you believe a complete 55 gallon drum of it marked “not recommended for airplane usage” or something to that affect, so our translator informed us?
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Landed safely at PROG
Ah, home at last!
View attachment FlightLog_11-38-37.TXT
From Naha to Malita some heavier weather set in once again with some low hanging cumulus clouds and a semi-brisk breeze, which was just enough to create whitecaps on the ocean surface.
We didn’t do ourselves any good by attempting to fly fully loaded in the beginning. Fully loaded the Gooney is not proficient. We conserved fuel at a cost of speed in the next to last leg and when we saw we had plenty to make it to Malita we gave it all we had. Not exactly any GS record, but better than average for the C-47
A heart felt thanks goes out to the following for making the C-47 LR (long range) possible for us to fly:
Norman Hancock for his cockpit fuel status gauges.
MAAM-SIM, for use of part of the image of their 'virtual' C-47 cabin in the cockpit's 2D rear view.
Jan "Procul Negotiis" of the Avsim.com forums for his kind input and to all friends at the virtual airline DC-3 Airways for sharing their wisdom.
Package prepared by: Mark Beaumont DCA-1054 and Dave Bitzer DCA-910 at DC-3 Airways
Ah, home at last!
From Naha to Malita some heavier weather set in once again with some low hanging cumulus clouds and a semi-brisk breeze, which was just enough to create whitecaps on the ocean surface.
We didn’t do ourselves any good by attempting to fly fully loaded in the beginning. Fully loaded the Gooney is not proficient. We conserved fuel at a cost of speed in the next to last leg and when we saw we had plenty to make it to Malita we gave it all we had. Not exactly any GS record, but better than average for the C-47
A heart felt thanks goes out to the following for making the C-47 LR (long range) possible for us to fly:
Norman Hancock for his cockpit fuel status gauges.
MAAM-SIM, for use of part of the image of their 'virtual' C-47 cabin in the cockpit's 2D rear view.
Jan "Procul Negotiis" of the Avsim.com forums for his kind input and to all friends at the virtual airline DC-3 Airways for sharing their wisdom.
Package prepared by: Mark Beaumont DCA-1054 and Dave Bitzer DCA-910 at DC-3 Airways
