Time flies and so does HB-IRJ

40 days, that's how many days since the DC-3 left Switzerland for its adventure. 40 days of follow ups, 40 days of many emails per day to coordinate on a day to day operation what can be done in order to prevent the crew of being stuck somewhere without any fuel, permit to fly or landing permit. Out of these 40 days, some have been way more hectic than others. Let's have a look

Leg 1

The first stop was Avignon (LFMV) in France, after only about 1h20 of flight time. As soon as I was on my way home, the phone rang, I missed a heart beat when the lady at the handling in Avignon told me she had a call from the Tower telling her the DC-3 changed its course to fly back to Geneva. She had no other information available so I started to call several people and finally called directly the Tower in Geneva, reaching a friend who checked on his radar screen and reassured me that HB-IRJ was indeed on its way south again...after having to turn back because they simply forgot to shoot enough pictures over Lake Geneva and the famous water fountain! Here is the result 

Leg 2

After refueling and a short overnight in Avignon, the city chosen by Pope Clement V in 1309 as his residence during the Council of Vienne, the crew and the journalists on board departed for Zagreb in Croatia. The welcoming arrangement in Croatia was a total blast,  two MiG-21 were awaiting at the border and escorted the DC-3 up to Zagreb where a huge celebration was done. Mr. Milivoj Borosa, a highly decorated Colonel once jumped from DC-3s after WWII at the former Yugoslavian Army. 

Flying as fast as they could (130kts) while the MiG is almost falling from the sky!

Leg 3

The next flight was towards Athens, along the Croatian coast, a rather long flight, more than 5 hours due to airspace restrictions. The layover in Athens was very short, only refueling, a little bit of sleep and off they went to Tel Aviv, also a pretty long flight over the sea this time and political reasons requires us to have some special means of identification but, hey...I am not supposed to say more here!

Beaches and downtown Tel Aviv during the approach, thunderstorm in the vicinity

Leg 4

On March 14th, trying to avoid most of the icing conditions enroute  towards Jordan, the crew reached one of the oldest city of the World still inhabited, Amman. There, a nice and well deserved beer  and a nice bed awaited the DC-3 crew, that lacked a lot of sleep since their departure 6 days ago! The event that took place in Amman the following days were am(man)azing! The Royal Jordanian Falcons, the national aerobatic team, flew together with the big iron! These pictures speak for themselves

Leg 5

Out of Amman it was a great opportunity to check our fueling capacity, especially our two turtle packs that had to be filled completely in order to fly to Bahrein, stop there, make some local flights and also thereafter fly to Doha in Qatar. There isn't any AVGAS available in Bahrein, despite being one of the first country to exploit oil and make a lot of money with it, is now only what we call a petro-monarchy but doesn't produce oil anymore. So AVGAS wasn't available and if needed, had to be shipped across and was a rip off regarding our budget. So we carried our own fuel, that's it!

The Royal Jordanian Falcons escorted the DC-3 on its way to Bahrein over the Dead Sea and Petra, who hasn't heard of that incredible antique city?

Leg 6

Local flights in Bahrein were finally denied and the airplane and crew carried its way towards Doha the next day, still according our schedule, better than the Airlines! Landing in Doha and seeing all these beautiful skyscrapers during the approach, what a day!

Leg 7

It is normally well known that when we talk about desert, we imagine dryness, sandstorm, hot climate. Today was different than the other days in Dubai. A huge thunderstorm went off and the DC-3 landed exactly after the heavy rain. However, when the heavy rain isn't on the airfield, it could be on the approach, at least it gave form to some beautiful pictures

Some days were spent in Dubai, our first tech stop before moving forward on the tour. It was also a big opportunity for Breitling to show its brand and the crew was welcomed like the Prince of Arabia! They did quite some local flight too, some over the city of Dubai and its surroundings.

Palm Jumeirah

Leg 8

A big challenge was awaiting our crew from now on. Since Gaby flew until Dubai, Paul took over with Francisco for the rest of the trip and Daniel is onboard to fulfill his duty as cameraman. I said a big challenge because they have to fly to Karachi in Pakistan where  they will have only two hand pumps to fill up the tanks. They also need to fill up to maximum take of weight as we need to use all and every drums we ordered! A hard task that necessitates some strong muscles!

Leg 9

After this stopover in Pakistan, it was time to continue to one of the most challenging place to land and technically speaking, due to its performance limitations. Nagpur, center of India, 40 degrees Celsius! Nice and too warm , also very humid, making a density altitude almost to the limits of the DC-3 when flying fully loaded. In Nagpur itself the DC-3 made some local flights with some very enthusiastic people from the local community. If you go and have a look at the Breitling DC-3 Facebook page you will end up to this great picture of the "Plane Spotter India". It is also the goal of the Tour to inspire young people across the World to the dream of Flight. Everyone was so inspired by the passion of these young persons.

Leg 10

Everything runs smooth, too smooth...

Bangladesh had to throw a spanner in the works today when announcing that our ordered AVGAS got stuck in open seas, impossible to clear customs! And Chittagong was a stop we couldn't avoid to be able to refuel before continuing towards Phuket the next day! What shall we do? Start crying? Nope.

Have you ever heard of White Rose Aviation? They are doing a fantastic job, its an Aviation Company based in the UK who specializes in landing permits, overfly permits and also has a tremendous goodwill of people all along the World. They were the ones who gave us the inputs to use one handling company or the other. So Mike from White Rose Aviation called Jee from Thai Handling who was so quick to organise AVGAS fuel in Chiang Mai. This way we could try to avoid Chittagong and fly to northern Thailand and refuel there. This would make a 9h flight. Weather condition could be challenging in Thailand and Chiang Mai is surrounded by high peaks. Legal fuel reserves need to be taken into account. That should work, negative, revision, that will work!

Thanks Jee and thank you Mike, we were able to fly and avoided some nasty thunderstorms over Chittagong. Probably destiny, fate need to be taken into account also!!

Safely landed after 8h07 minutes of flight!

Leg 11

Starting a DC-3 engine can be troublesome to say the least. Well, if you apply the correct procedure which calls for turning the blades 15 times (to make sure the 14 cylinders are lubricated) if cold, leaving the mixture to cut off while engaging the starter and giving just enough fuel priming while you wait for a smooth running and THEN engage the mixture, then you should be fine. However, today, it wasn't. No chance to start the engine number 2, the one on the starboard side. A faulty fuel pump and carburetor. Imagine, just a day after our longest flight so far! Again, sheer luck! So we needed to find a replacement carburetor and also a fuel pump. Singapore, there they were those spare parts. Shame, 4 days later we would have been there anyway! FedEx brought the parts, Paul and Francisco worked it out and off they went, later than planned and really fatigued as they worked day and night and had to be in Phuket the next morning in order to fly side by side for some photo shootings over Koh Phi Phi. And Breitling organized every bits of it with Katsuhiko Tokunaga (profesional Aviation Photographer) so we couldn't miss the rendez-vous.

Leg 12

As the days go by, the same ritual remains. No place have been visited without being escorted, welcomed and Kuala Lumpur was no exception today! Welcomed by four PC-7 MKII, proudly made in Switzerland, escorting a proudly swiss registered DC-3 made in USA! The event in Kuala Lumpur went very well and it was again a great opportunity to show how Aviation evolved from the 1930s'!

Over Penang Bridge

Leg 13

The final leg of this first big part of the Breitling DC-3 World Tour ended up in Singapore Seletar Airport. A huge event was held over there and many local flights also took place in Singapore itself. The Media also talked about both Breitling and the DC-3 on many occasions during its stay in Singapore.

Having flown for 4 weeks in a row with a lot of flights between every legs, the DC-3 needs to be maintained and this wouldn't be possible without the great help from Aerometal International LLC, our main maintenance provider based in Aurora, Oregon. If you want to have a look where Paul Bazeley (above on the picture) has his maintenance plant, then look here! Pilot and Engineer, best combination when flying DC-3s'. These old Ladies need 100 hours of maintenance work for every hour of flight. I'll let you guess the amount of maintenance for our World Tour...

Tomorrow 21st April 2017 will see the re launch of the World Tour from Singapore. The flight will be a 7h one to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. Here are the forecasts for tomorrow's flight! 

From Singapore to Kota Kinabalu, the red spot!

Forecast for Singapore

Winds and precipitations

9th March 2017, a day to remember

On the morning of March 9th, 1940, a baby was born in the name of "Flagship Cleveland", routed to the American Airlines delivery center. Today, exactly 77 years later to the date, the Breitling DC-3 HB-IRJ takes the air for one of its most memorable trip, a round the World tour that will see Her and its crew touching down in 28 countries and fly a tiny bit more than the Earth circumference. 

Before doing so, Breitling organized a very high security transfert of its 500 Breitling DC-3 World Tour watches that will travel with the airplane across the World. Here are some "Top Secret" pictures I was able to sneak from a special hidden camera in my wallet.

Once everything was set up, Breitling organized a Press & Media conference at the Four Seasons Hotel Des Bergues in Geneva, this is one of the highest ranked hotel in Geneva and very close to their  Breitling Boutique opened in September 2016 with Breitling Ambassador John Travolta himself. The ambiance during the conference was professional but also relaxed, everyone knowing what to say and everything ran like a swiss watch, basically this is all it is about isn't it?

The Press conference was also for Breitling a possibility to introduce to the audience one of the famous watch that will fly with us, here are some pictures

The backside of it

Jean-Paul Girardin, Breitling's Vice President and Francisco Agullo, Fonder of the Breitling DC-3 Association

What went on next is beyond explainable, the intensity of the feeling everyone had was almost unbearable. We first went to the airplane, crew only, Francisco Agullo having to answer a lot of questions from the journalists. As the preparation of HB-IRJ takes so much time, we finished exactly 2 minutes before the journalists bus arrived on the tarmac. One of the last prep on these 14 remaining seats was to install life jackets. Yes, Lake Geneva is still cold, no one really wants to swim for a long time though!

Marie, the helper of the day for life jackets and also professional photographer !!

It is in awe that every single journalist present today looked at the Breitling DC-3, splendid and looking just like brand new from the factory. Around Her were a lot of different Boeing and Airbus, all appearing boring compared to the beauty of HB-IRJ

It was quite hectic, answering to questions and at the same time dealing with all the last minutes troubles and necessary checks to get the flight to Avignon running smoothly. Once everything was ready, the whole crew posed in front of HB-IRJ for a family picture, before leaving for an ontime departure to southern France.

From left to right: Raphaël Favre, Paul Bazeley, Jean-Paul Girardin, Francisco Agullo, Gabriel Eveque

At 1405z, the task of closing the aircraft door was left to me, with the help of Thomas Hofmann, Maître de Cabine at SWISS International. 

At 1420z exactly, according to the restricted slots of Geneva International Airport, HB-IRJ went off for its World Tour and finally the only time towards a westerly direction. As always, you can follow the routing on the Breitling DC-3 website and the up to date Breitling news on the associated Breitling website. 

I would not finish this day without having a " Thank You" word for my fantastic parents, both present for this event and also for my wonderful girlfriend Marie. Having you three by my side for this journey is my continuous source of power. I love you

Following us on the Tour and actual routing

Bonjour tout le monde, Good Morning everyone!

Some people asked me about the routing. I can put the link to the Breitling website, dedicated to the DC-3. There you will find the actual up to date routing. We intend to leave Geneva to Zagreb in Croatia on the 9th March in the afternoon. However on the Breitling website it is still shown as a departure for the 10th, this is due to the weather, quite unpredictable those days. If everything runs as we want then it will depart on the 9th after the Press and Media flight. There is also our Breitling DC-3 own website where you will find the actual position of the DC-3, just like on Flight Radar 24!

Enjoy and I'll keep you in the loop soon

Early Morning glory (but eyes still glued!)

Alright folks, here is a photo post, not only do I want to explain our difficulties about this Round the World Tour but also there is time for some relaxation. Flying a DC-3 is like being in a time capsule, going back some seventy to eighty years and waking up to the marvel of a sunrise on such a beautiful airplane is worth a thousand cup of coffee! Enjoy thesis moments, taken in June 2016 during a flight to Geneva, on a beautiful morning across the Jura. There was a stop in Bern, our swiss Capital

The magic of an early start

A round radial Pratt and Whitney R-1830-92 Twin Wasp

Creux du Van, near Neuchâtel in Switzerland

Cutting the water spout in half!

View of Geneva, Switzerland

Short finals to Bern

Those views will probably be seen by the journalists present on the 9th March for the Press and Media flight out of Geneva, lucky ones!

Once upon a time, there was Avgas available...

During the month of October 2016 we met several times, especially with Francisco, to determine who was going to do what. The enormous task of getting overflight permits and landing permits was left to Yannick Bovier who, together with Francisco flew on their Ecolight airplane Tour in 2010. You can also have a look at their website and incredible adventure at Azimut270 .

My task was to find Avgas. For those wondering why that could be so difficult, here is a long story about Aviation fuel be patient and read carefully . Maybe you'll like the shorter version. Basically older radial supercharged and boosted engines needed Avgas 115 back then, a high leaded fuel that was purple in color, compared to the actual blueish color of 100LL, the one used by many airplane engines nowadays, including the DC-3. That Avgas 115 fuel isn't used anymore, except for some high performance unlimited air races. 100LL is obviously still used but many countries restrict its use, for the sake of environment protection for some and also because it is too expensive to import for leisure aviation. Yes, not every country in this World has the chance to have flying clubs where pilots can hop in and rent a plane and then go for a 100$ burger. 

In contrary, Jet-A1 is the most used fuel now, from turboprop to jet powered airplanes. Some light aircraft also have diesel engines now that can use Jet-A1. So having this in mind, local air clubs in China, the Pacific area and even Russia don't carry a supply of Avgas 100LL. It is even forbidden in some part of the World to ship Avgas fuel. The nightmare was about to begin.

Here you see the two booklets I used to find handling agents and support at every single point the DC-3 was to land. This resulted in no less than 300 emails being sent across 20 countries! Of course you sometimes don't even get an answer from them, they probably thought we were too crazy to attempt to fly around the World in such an old airplane. But hey, we will manage!

Having had many contacts for those destinations, Mike, from White Rose Aviation got my draft and looked at it. Where necessary he then gave advise so that we chose a better option, in term of reliability and efficiency. Mike is managing his job perfectly and since 40 years has covered many airplane for either ferry flights permits and point of contact to find fuel. His knowledge of India and south east Asia was of great help in order to secure our Avgas demand. 

So here we are, Monday the 6th March 2017, our DC-3 having an other two days of intensive maintenance and preparation in Dole, France before being ready to go on its adventure. Stay tuned for more infos about what's going on on the D Day!