The journey continues into the 5th consecutive flying day. I wanted to briefly explain how I’m managing to fly for five days in a row with a daily average of over 1000 nm. Well…it’s very simple. I took a few days off from work. But unfortunately, I go back to work tomorrow (Tuesday, 5 October) and as a result the “Around the World” adventure will slow down considerably. So if you check my progress over the next few days you’ll know what is going on. But this is OK as I’ve reached a point where shorter legs and flying segments will be just fine. Remember my goal is not to do this in a certain amount of time. The goal is to complete it and have fun along the way.
My position as of this posting is EBAW (Antwerp, Belgium)
I’ve traveled a total of 6670 nm
I’ve burned a total of 643 gallons of fuel
I’ve flown a total of 35.5 hours
My next destination is LFBG (Cognac, France)
Day Five – Leg 11 & 12
Day five began without rain…but St. Petersburg was cloudy and some patchy fog. Visibility was poor when flying over a portion of St. Petersburg. But I did manage to grab one shot which is typical of St. Petersburg that I’ve seen in pictures with the domed buildings and the tall spires (see below). I do plan to start looking into scenery add-ons for some of the future areas I plan to visit. But for now I’m just running default scenery with my sliders cranked up fairly high.
Today I plan to complete two legs. I will depart St. Petersburg, Russia and head towards Berlin, Germany for a fuel/food stop. Then I’ll proceed from Berlin down to Antwerp, Belgium. In my real life my Mother/Father-in-law and Brother/Sister-in-law all live in the area. Actually my Mother/Father-in-law live less than a mile from EBAW (Antwerp, Airport) and my wife and I fle2 into that airport from London City last summer (2009) and plan to do it again next summer (2011). I enjoy sitting out in my in-laws garden and listening to the sounds of the airport. The Fokker 50 that CityJet uses really has to wind up to get off the just short of 5400′ runway.
I departed St. Petersburg, Russia after breakfast and spending time reading weather reports and examining charts. The trip to Berlin would be around 4 hours and I will cover a little over 700 nm. I expect fair weather for the duration of my journey today. After take-off from ULLI, I made my turn to the west. I was able to snag the photo below which shows the unique round terminals which are located in the center of Pulkovo Airport. If you visit the wiki page here and scroll down you’ll see a photo.
ULLI (St. Petersburg) airport. Note the round terminals in middle.
My route carried me across a portion of the city. From pictures I’ve seen of St. Petersburg you note the tall spires and domed buildings. This is somewhat depicted in FSX. (see below)
Flying over a portion of St. Petersburg, Russia.
I continued southwest across Estonia, Latvia, Poland and into Germany. I picked Berlin’sTempelhof(EDDI) airport as it is the smaller of the three in the area. I was looking for easy in and out access and a nice rahmschnitzel for lunch. EDDI has a unique half-circle shaped terminal as depicted in FSX (see below)
Berlin’s Tempelhof (EDDI) airport. Left base to active runway.
Short final into EDDI Berlin, Germany
It was fitting that I flew into Berlin today as my wife cooked rahmschnitzel for dinner tonight for my birthday dinner. I turned 44 today. 
After a brief lunch, refuel and inspection of the Mooney it was time to resume my flight. The second leg would take me from Berlin to Antwerp, Belgium (EBAW). As previously stated, I’ve flown into EBAW in real-life. Last summer (2009) my wife and I visited her family. We flew from KDEN to EGLL (Heathrow). We traveled across London and departed EGLC (London City) for Antwerp. Oddly enough, it is easier for us to do this versus fly into Brussels.
On short final into EBAW (Antwerp, Belgium). I love this little airport.
I will spend at least one day (perhaps more) in Antwerp. The next opportunity I will have for any flight sim ops would be on Wednesday afternoon. If not then, it could be Friday or the weekend. I’ve really enjoyed my five days of simming. While in Antwerp, I may look to virtually trade my FSX default Mooney into a Carenado Mooney M20J. I know I said I wanted to do this in a default FSX aircraft. I don’t feel I’m cheating since I’m staying in a Mooney. But I’ve grown to love this aircraft (what can you expect after spending over 35 hours flying her) and love the look of the Carenado product. But I’ll just have to see how much I can get for my slightly used Mooney. Would you like to buy it?
Well I’m going to close and post this blog post. I’ll be back very soon with more blog postings. I have several blog postings in progress regarding a lot of different flight simulation topics. I realize people visit for different reasons and perhaps not everyone is into my Around the World journey.
Until next time,
J