Hello Captains and welcome back to another adventure update.
Before I go any further with my adventure I’d just like to state the following. In the real world, we live in a very volatile world. While I’m making every effort to plan and fly this adventure as close to reality as possible, there are some limitations. For example, an American pilot flying an American registered aircraft would not fly into certain regions of the world due to wars, rumors of wars or just political tension. Having said that, I’ve always believed that flight simulation has no political boundaries. While my routing for this around the world adventure has taken me far from some of the real world tension areas, I’m really just attempting to route myself in the best direction possible to complete my goal of flying around the world in the A2A Comanche. Finally, I’m also using this adventure to land in some countries that I haven’t landed in while using Volanta and attempting to get closer to visiting all 245 countries. Over the years I’ve managed to visit 162 so far in the list. Let’s get flying!!!
Flight Day 16
After arriving into Batumi, Georgia and settling into the hotel last night I pondered the next few legs of the journey and believe I have a good route planned, at least on paper. We’ll see how it all works out over the next few days. Up early and ready to go. The Comanche is really doing a fine job on this trip. Today we’ll fly across Georgia and end up for the evening just outside of Baku, Azerbaijan which is located along the coast of the Caspian Sea. I plan to take a day off and explore around Baku and perhaps visit the F1 circuit here. I guess I could have timed my trip a bit better and planned to arrive 3 weeks later to attend the race. But oh well.
Flight Day 17
And we’re once again off. Spent a full day in Baku but like all good things, it’s time to leave and continue onward with the journey. Today I’ll cross the Caspian Sea into Turkmenistan making two stops. The first will be just along the coast then I’ll proceed further into the country stopping at Mary for the evening.
Flight Day 18
Up early for coffee and breakfast and looking over the charts for todays flights before heading out to the airport. Today I’ll be flying east from Mary, Turkmenistan across to Termez in Uzbekistan, then heading south through Afghanistan towards Zhob, Pakistan. I’ll need to fly at a much higher altitude than at any other point thus far on the trip to cross over a 14,000 foot mountain range. But the Comanche can certainly handle this just fine.
Flight Day 19
Another early start to the day. I arrived at the airport and performed my walkaround inspection and refueled the Comanche. Today I’ll cross Pakistan flying east towards Ludhiana in the Punjab portion of India. Yesterday I discovered an issue with the Comanche whereby the heater struggled to keep me as comfortable as I would have wanted to be when flying north of 15,000 feet. I was thankful I decided to wear jeans for this leg and also had my gloves near by. As I don’t anticipate any further need to fly at these higher altitudes until later in the trip, and I’m nearing time for another oil change so will just wait until I reach Singapore.
Flight Day 20
I’ve made some decisions that will impact the adventure which I’ll discuss in the next update posting which I’m pretty excited about. Until then, I’m up and ready to go for the 20th flight day as I continue flying across northern India towards Bangladesh. I had a nice wander around Fursatganj last evening and found some amazing Indian cuisine. Very different from I’m used to getting in the US or UK. But still very good. I arrived by cab to the airport and quickly inspected the Comanche and readied it for the trip over to Bangladesh. There were some problems with getting fuel which resulted in about a 3 hour delay in departing. The flight was uneventful but made for a long day. With the unexpected delay, I’ll stay in Bangladesh for the night, then proceed towards Burma tomorrow.
Well this closes out another update post for my journey around the world in the A2A Piper Comanche.
Until next time…
Happy Flying!!!
Jerry