07/11/2009 - 0526z - Hong Kong

We arrived in hong kong at about 4am.... we then decided to do 7 touch and goes at Kai Tak airport.....Whilst listening to some very patriotic songs! That was probably the most fun we have had during the whole of world flight. We are now heading off to Subic....

06/11/2009 - 1930z - Thursday Update

We have been travelling across Canada and across the pacific and are now Far Eastern Russia.

The weather has been pretty terrible, with a couple of go arounds during the days events.

Only one more full day to go.

We have uploaded the videos of our Wine and Cheese Evening to the videos page of the site.

We are currently planning next years medieval evening....Jousting, Hog Roast, mead.... etcHere are some pictures of the days flying (mostly at night!)

06/11/2009 - 0134z - Engine Failure

On approach into Great Falls we experienced an engine failure. Gary flew manually all the way down from 10,000 feet and landed right at the start of the runway vacating within about 1500ft. We are now turning around to head off to Canada.

05/11/2009 - 2204z - Quick Rest

We have a nice 2 hour stopover in Fargo so we have shut the aircraft down and giving it a rest. The crew are taking the time to tidy up the dispatch area, have a break and some pizza.

Mark just executed a perfect landing with 8 people crammed onto the flight deck. More updates later

05/11/2009 - 1900z - Update

After having a minor technical delay in Detriot we are now back on time heading towards Fargo, USA. Here are some pictures from last nights flight into the azores. Maybe the fuel dump was a bad idea!

05/11/2009 - 1400z - Update

Everything is going smoothly. We are now heading across America now well over half way into the event.

05/11/2009 - 0031z - And now for something completely different...

A Lion riding a horse...

04/11/2009 - 2300z - First Hardware Problems...

Just as we rotated out of Dublin the FS PC hung and the team were unable to reboot it. Gary arrived back at the sim and after rummaging in the computer rack and throwing out several cables everything was working again. We are now playing catchup trying to get to Rabat.

A picture from our webcam earlier!

04/11/2009 - 1942z- Dublin

We are now sitting on the ground in Dublin. We had a great flight via Prestwick where we flew in formation with the Scottish team. We flew about 200ft behind them all the way to the runway for a touch and go. Unfortunately we forgot we had the flight computers set to a Beta mode which meant when Mark went manual we kind of hmmm.... errrr went down quite quickly and landed on the grass beside the scottish team. We managed to get what was left of the plane into the air and off to Dublin. Engineering are just fixing the front landing gear for our onward trip to Nantes.

04/11/2009 - 1600z- Update

Unfortunately the guy that updates the blog fell asleep this morning and has only just returned.
Its been a fun day today so far. Someones managed to break the left autothrottle so Gary has the pedistal apart again and it fixing it. This is about the only problem we have had so far.
We are currently parked on the ground at Farnborough.

The Farnborough flight was extremely interesting as firstly Gary could not be woken up so Mike jumped in with Mark to take over the first part of the flight. Gary then appeared half way through the flight wearing nothing but an Elephant pousing pouch to protect his modesty. It was very cold on the approach with some EXCELLENT ATC by London Control.

This however all went to pot thanks to one of our own crew deciding to control Farnborough Radar. After sitting in a hold for a while we were handed over.
Within 5 minutes we had a TCAS alert as a plane came screaming in front of us. Once out of the hold we were taken out of controlled airspace (whatever that means!) and given vectors for the ILS runway 24. At which point we noticed us coming very close to a globespan aircraft, so close infact we could see a pretty hot stewardess sitting in the front jumpseat :-)

After some avoiding manouvers roughly over where the sim is physically located we vectored ourselves back round for an approach to runway 24. Gary executed a perfect landing, half way down the runway and slammed the brakes on bringing us to a stop just before we ran off the runway.

We are now turning around to head off to Dublin via a touchup and go at Glasgow.

PS: Has anyone seem Adam? Last seen running out of the Simfest ATC Centre of cockups excellence

03/11/2009 - 1919z- On the Ground in Moscow

You can tell we are in Russia. The temperature is -10C and the crew even had snow on the arrival. We are also back on schedule. Here are a few pictures:-

03/11/2009 - 1636z - We thought the Russian ATC was purrfect

New Russian research project - Dogs into space... now cats doing ATC

03/11/2009 - 1625z - Initial AAIB Report into Barnaul Noise Complaints

Low Level 777 appaeared to be buzzing the local area. Track obtained from ATC logs.

03/11/2009 - 1620z - Enroute to Kurumoch

The sim is performing perfectly... although the crew seems to have a differing opinion :-) We have had a few go arounds but are almost back on Schedule. Tune into webcams now for a run down of how not to fly a 777 by Adam ;-)

03/11/2009 - 1448z - Landing somewhere in Russia

Captain Ron and Tom have just started their approach into one of our Russian destinations. Everything seems to be running swimmingly, except for our Feet to Meters conversion chart... Does anyone have a new one..?

03/11/2009 - 1000z - Live Instruments are back online

Please Download the 'new' Live Instruments Installer

03/11/2009 - 0346z - Inbound to Manus

That was an interesting departure.... the crew thought the taxi way they were on was very thin.... turns out they were driving down an access road on the airport!

03/11/2009 - 0015z - On Ground in Dehli

We are currently on the ground at Dehli preparing for our next flight. Everything has been running extremely well. The alst crew even spent time reading performance tables to check the engines were using as much fuel at a certain altitude as they should do. We were within about 5%.

02/11/2009 - 2212z - Killing time at Nagpur. Gone shopping

02/11/2009 - 1414z - Go-Around - Very Low Vis. Diego Garcia

We were right to roll out talkdown ATC. Nigel and Adam were placed perfectly on the approach by ATC unfortunately all went wrong with the plane careering towards a packed terminal, quick thinking from Nigel averted disaster and we went around. Next time round they made a 'firm' landing.

02/11/2009 - 1352z - About to start descent into Diego Garcia

We are taking bets of the chances of us making the runway first time round. Awful weather, no automatic landing aids, and a tired crew. We have rolled out world-flight talkdown ATC incase. Left a bit... right a bit...02/11/2009 - 1030z - Enroute to Diego Garcia

We are now cruising onwards to Diego Garcia, there was a slight worry about running out of fuel about 100 miles before we reach land, the flight crew have slowed down to a more reasonable speed and everythings going to be fine. Gary is heading into the cockpit with some superglue...... what have they broken this time!

02/11/2009 - 0825z - Learmonth to Diego Garcia

After a couple of take off attempts by Nigel, we eventually got airbourne, heading on our way to the Indian Ocean.

02/11/2009 - 0519z - Perth to Learmonth

There was alot of traffic which made the Perth TMA alot of fun! ATC did a great job, Tom executed a good landing following a very high energy and rushed approach. Nigel and Craig are now turning the aircraft around.
Gary has now been awake for 20 odd hours but is determined to stay awake until Mark arrives at lunch time. The sim is performing very well.

Teabag update: 1592 left out of 1600

02/11/2009 - 0322z - Sydney to Perth... Still

Now cruising at mach .79, expecting to land in just over an hour. The crew are singing along to Rolf Harris, good times!

02/11/2009 - 0219z - Sydney to Perth

We are currently in the cruise with some headwind. Crew are glad to have taken an extra 15 tonnes of fuel onboard!

01/11/2009 - 2352z - YSSY - Off Blocks

After a short delay at the hold, First Officer English made a smooth departure.

01/11/2009 - 2341z - Final Final Final Preperations

19 minutes to go. We have our clearence and we're just waiting for the last of the passengers to board.

01/11/2009 - 2317z - Final Final Preperations

43 minutes to go and the crew have just left dispatch and are starting their initial cockpit preparation.

01/11/2009 - 2305z - Final Final Preperations

55 minutes to go and :

• Gary hasn't taken a screwdriver, saw, hammer or drill to the sim
• Everything is strangely calm in the dispatch area
• The RedBull has started to flow

01/11/2009 - 1930z - Final Preperations

Today has been spent picking up food for the week and testing out the ATC centre. We also had to add a label to the main flight simulator PC as someone decided that it would be a good idea to turn it off!!! Ah well at least it was during testing. Gary and Matt are just doing the flight planning for the first few legs and printing off weather charts. The webcams and flight tracking will be live at around 10pm UK time. We will also be activating the live instrument feed.

31/10/2009 - 2300z - 24 Hours to go!

We seem to be in a much calmer position than this time last year! We have been putting the finishing touches to the simulator today. Everything is running very well. Tomorrows plan is to setup the rest of the dispatch and ATC areas, have a quick siesta and then get to the aircraft around 9pm for a midnight departure.
Just one problem at the moment is one of our crew getting stuck in Zambia! He should be back Tuesday!

27/10/2009 - 2200z - Welcome to the Simfest blog

Welcome to the simfest blog where we will bring you news from world flight as it happens 24 hours a day. The blog will go live Friday this week.

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