21st May, last flying day in Kobe

6.45am, this alarm clock again and again !!

Today will be the last day flying around Kobe and Osaka, same round flight like the two other days, however without any formation flight, this time I have the privilege to fly both legs. I need to practice the management of this magnificent airplane and although I start to feel better at the controls, I cannot say that I feel confortable like I would on other airplane I fly. Francisco is anyway of a great help and it is fantastic flying with him. As Katsu had no need to fly on the Bonanza today, he joined us on the jump seat and took some nice shots, some of them that you can see on the Breitling DC-3 World Tour page

As pictures speaks for themselves, here are a couple nice shots of the day.

Happy Crew ;-)

Osaka city Hall

Cockpit glimpse

Kobe and its mountain (Hi Marie!)

Osaka in pano

Cap'n Agullo smiling, like everyday!

Short finals for RWY 27 in Kobe, DC-3 style!

In the afternoon we also had groups of people that were invited by Breitling for an airplane visit, all more enthusiasts than the others! But before this, lunch time, a bento box like no other, prepared by some good local restaurant. Itadakimass!

So picture time in the afternoon as well as some videos, shot by Miser Grand Producer Greg, who has a pretty good sense of humor, but french humor, we still accept him! 

Tomorrow we will depart Kobe in the early morning towards Fukushima, via Sendai and a little surprise (shhhh, don't tell!). The aircraft needs to be prepared for our trip towards the north and as we carry spare parts like cylinders, starter and a lot of oil, we need to put all that back onto the plane. Not a small affair bearing in mind our weight limitations but also our center of gravity. We need to be sure it all fits correctly inside our DC-3 so that it won't shift nor put the CG out of its range. Thankfully the DC-3 is a workhorse and we are rarely limited unless we carry more fuel onto our Turtle packs, which isn't the case at the moment. At the same time as we load our airplane, Hirata needs to make sure we have our flight plan filed correctly for the 22nd and that the route is selected for ATC to follow us up. If we could have three heads and 8 arms that would be easier!

Routing towards the north

So yeah, full fuel on the aircraft tanks (804 gallons) plus our spare part and then its time to call it a day and have some good sushis at the hotel. We all look burned by the sun!! It was a cool day, for all of us.