Thursday, December 31, 2009

Tail Numbers


Evans flew "City of Washington" which had a tail number of NX2365M. Truman flew NX3671M - "City of the Angels". I will be flying Evans' aircraft, because I live closer to the DC than LAX. This picture shows the aircraft on the ground in Amarillo this morning after a very short test flight using a 50-gallon drum of fuel. It landed okay, but was a little sluggish on takeoff. Would loved to have flown more, but conditions are atrocious right now. I don't even want to talk about it - here's the METAR:

KAMA 311523Z 02018G24KT 1/2SM R04/3500V5500FT SN BLSN BR FEW008 OVC028 M03/M04 A3017 RMK AO2 TWR VIS 1 P0001

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Ferry Flight Completed



Finally back to flying after a week with family, evergreens, and plenty of eggnog. Landed at Amarillo this afternoon under mostly clear skies, but man was it cold. Made one stop along the way after about an hour and a half in the air. Stopped in Pampa, Texas for fuel and then turned south to pick up the highway. This was a minor navigational mistake that I corrected after tuning the Panhandle VOR at Amarillo Airport. Well this completes the ferry flight, so next is preparations for the long trip ahead.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Ferry Flight to Amarillo

As with all great and laudable undertakings, there are usually a lot of preparations simply to get started. One of the first things I have to do is ferry the aircraft from Scribner, Nebraska. The reason for this is because I plan to log all of the flights online using fseconomy.com (FSE).

FSEconomy is a realistic economic environment for general aviation flight simmers. Members typically fly for hire, picking up jobs wherever they can and earning virtual money along the way. Money that can be used to rent or buy aircraft, make repairs, buy FBOs, and so forth. The way it works is you use a small software program that forms a liaison between the flight simulator and their website. The software detects the aircraft, its position, and adjusts the fuel to match the system database, and after a flight it even logs the results.

I've only been using FSE for a few weeks, but in that time I earned enough money to buy a Piper PA-18 Super Cub, which is about as close as you can get to Truman and Evans' PA-12 Super Cruisers; the 135 hp version of the PA-18 is almost identical to theirs.

I bought the plane from the system on December 16th. It was a brand new plane and I paid $78575 for it. Registered as NX2365M, I christened it "City of Washington" on its maiden voyage - a 22 nautical mile flight from from Scribner, Nebraska to Wahoo, Nebraska. I will fly her to Amarillo to start my journey around the world from there. So far I've logged a little more than 3 hours in this new plane. Last night I landed in Enid, Oklahoma after a night VFR flight from Ponca City. I'd like to finish the ferry flight today, but the weather is against it. Amarillo is reporting lots of fog and visibility is less than a quarter mile. That and the 600 foot overcast ceiling will keep me in Enid for a while longer, waiting for the weather.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Of Route Maps and Starting Points


On August 9, 1947, Evans in the "City of Washington" and Truman in the companion ship, "City of the Angels," left Teterboro, New Jersey and flew 25,162 miles around the world. They returned to Teterboro on December 10, 1947 with Truman landing first. One of the unique things they did along the way to have flags painted on the left side of the fuselage, representing the countries at where they landed.

Using Microsoft Flight Simulator (FS2004), I plan to fly all 55 legs that Truman and Evans flew, in real time, and with real weather. The only exception is for airports that no longer exist; some were military airports that are now subdivisions! And for them I plan to fly to nearby airports in those special cases. For better scenery, since most of my flying will be relatively low, I plan to use updated textures with Flight1's Ground Enviorment for FS2004, which has global coverage and nicely detailed photo-realistic ground textures. I will use Active Sky Version 6.5 to simulate real-time weather.

The map above shows the route I plan to take and the stops along the way. Truman and Evans started in Presque Isle, Maine. I plan to start a bit further west, in Amarillo, because I'm from Texas and that's the only stop they made in the Lone Star State.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The Truman and Evans Story

This blog commemorates the round-the-world solo flights by Truman and Evans in 1947-8. The two aviators were George W. Truman and Clifford Vassar Evans, both ex-army pilots who took it upon themselves to fly around the world solo in a tandem effort using two Piper Super Cruisers. They named their aircraft the "City of the Angels" (Truman's aircraft) and the "City of Washington" (Evans' aircraft). On August 9th, 1947 they departed Teterboro, New Jersey and flew around the world.

Truman and Evans' story has been reasonably well documented on the web, but I still feel it has not received the attention it deserves. The two pilots flew around the world in aircraft that today would be considered too small to make a journey of such epic proportions. In the 63 years (as of 2010) that have passed since their achievement there have been many others who flew around the world solo, but few used an aircraft as diminutive or as legendary as the Piper Cub. So in many ways this blog will be about not only the aviators and the 22,500 mile journey around the world, but also about their aircraft.

Furthermore, this blog will follow my own journey around the world in the Piper Super Cub, following the same route, and stopping at the same ports as Truman and Evans, but from the comfort of my desktop using a flight simulator. While I recognize that there are other flight simulator enthusiasts like myself who have ventured around the world, I am not aware of anyone else who has commemorated a similar historic flight with such an epic journey.