Flying for a living has been my objective for quite a long time. Passionate about everything that flies, I am especially amazed by the beauty of the Old Lady, the DC-3. This year I will be even more fond of Her as she will transport our Team around the World.
Leaving my Airbus A320 job twice this year to join the wonderful Team of Breitling for an exquise travel through time and memories. Let's fly Grand ol' Lady, show me the World
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.
6.45am, wake up time, nevertheless that’s just
the third time I personnaly wake up during the night. Who said something about
jetlag ??!
Breakfast done, our transportation awaited us already for our
7.45am departure to Kobe airport where we will prepare our DC-3 for the day.
Today the program is quite simple, try to do the same as yesterday but even
better ! We have two photo shooting flights to do and in the afternoon
some 42 Breitling guests will be visiting our airplane, each coming into groups
of about 4 people. Bearing in mind the temperature which rises quite a lot at
the moment (27 degrees C), it will be pretty warm inside the plane !
But
before this happens, I have to share with you some of the greatest pictures of
the DC-3 you will ever see. They were taken by my girlfriend Marie from a Beech
Bonanza with its door taken off ! Thanks to Katsu for his amazing proposal,
Marie did probably one of the most memorable flight of its kind. Even
Francisco, who has flown many hours, never saw his DC-3 from the air ! Here she is, awaiting our engine start before she can jump onto the A36!
Nice engine hey?! ;-)
From a Bonanza, door opened
Adjusting the throttles and props!
The afternoon was a great opportunity to meet
some enthusiastic people from Japan, owner of a Breitling watch and they were given
the opportunity to visit our airplane. Some interesting questions, some of them
more common than others but always present to answer them ! At the same
time Francisco had to do some speeches in front of the Press, also right under
the sun !
Having finished at approximately 3.30pm,
Gérard had time to check our engine number 2 mixture control trouble. Although you only see half of my face, I hope you will appreciate the video,
live from the hangar !
Here is also another video, explaining some
parts of the DC-3 and the mixture controller, hope you enjoy !
Tonight will be the most incredible journey
through the beef (yes, you got it, again, Kobe beef !!!) Breitling Japan
invited us for a Beef dinner with some special guests, definitely not a place
for vegetarians ! Poor Marie ! The place we went is called Kobe
Plaisir, a little hidden gem inside a building, no terrace but private rooms to accommodate up to 8 guests around a Teppanyaki. Thank you Breitling to make us
discover such places !
0730am, pick up from the hotel for the short
10 minutes drive to Kobe airport. We needed to take the airplane out of the
hangar and pre flight it. Beforehand, needless to say I was eager to wear the beautiful Breitling Navitimer, special DC-3 World Tour Edition! A glimpse on this amazing piece of equipment.
No snags were found and we got ready for the first
Kobe local flight. I had the great honor to be the Pilot flying for this first
flight, at the same time that’s the easiest part as Francisco had to deal with
ATC (Air Traffic Control) and also with the many handlings that are required to
operate the beautiful DC-3. Want to raise the gear, ok, but think twice before
you do it, unlatch the gear with the handle on the floor, then pull the red
gear handle which will let the hydraulic fluid flow into the gear line until
the gear is up and the downline pressure on the gear pressure gauge reads zero.
The return the gear selector to neutral. And do this at the same time your
colleague asks you to set climb power. A no brainer for some experienced guy,
not my case totally yet !
On this first flight we got 7 kids and 7
parents, the kids being members of the Marine Cadets, a kind of boyscouts camp
where they learn some rudiments of the Marine codes. Very interesting, they
saluted us like we were their superiors and were so well educated, its the
opposite of today’s education received in other parts of the World. Politeness
is required all of the time!
Our second and third flights went over the
same routing, departing Kobe runway 27, right turn out over Marine Park and
heading east to Osaka, passing over the Yodo river. We then flew over Osaka
city center and back west towards Amagasaki, just close to Kobe. On these two
flight, both Katsu and Greg took pictures and videos, with an incredible
scenery and background, thanks to the great weather of the day. No turbulences,
no mist neither any clouds to spoil a perfect picture !
During this first day in Japan, Marie took the
Japan Rail pass advantages to go and visit Kyoto, about 30 minutes by train from
Kobe. Amazing gardens and beautiful temples. Pretty big city when you decide to
walk the whole time through its narrow authentic streets.
We met up again at 5.30pm at the Portopia
Hotel in order to get dressed for a night photo session, Katsu needed to get
these shots done and the weather is so gorgeous that it wont be a problem
tonight. Marie came with us and here is the result, first off, some cool
pictures of us two and then the amazing DC-3 in black and white from my iPhone,
do you really need a better camera Katsu ????
Master @ work!
To finish up this first amazing day, no better
than some Kobe beef Teppanyaki at the Tajima restaurant, inside the Portopia Hotel. A full Kobe beef dinner with delighfull japanese specialities and, of
course, a japanese beer with some very good people toshare it all. We have to emphasize here that
the Kobe beef is only available in Kobe and nowhere else, neither in Japan nor
in the World as it cannot be exported. Its taste is quite incredible, slowly
cooked and gently marinated with some special incredients. A must
to try. Beware though, if you ever see Kobe beef somewhere written, that’s not
truly from Kobe. Probably grown the same way but not from Kobe (unless you are
reading this in Kobe !)
The first day went by already, still working
on our time shift and jetlag. No better way to counteract jetlag by flying a
piston powered airplane ! Tomorrow will also be a looooong but very
interesting day.
