13th Leg: OYRN to OOMA

This is the first post after a really long time... Basically I stopped the RTW for more than one year. In my defense I can say I have been flying for real - I took a paraglider license in Switzerland and that activity lasted from December 2011 to November 2012.

Also, I decided to buy a new PC (nothing wrong with the old one but I wanted to experiment a little): this new machine has a i7 3770k processor which has been overclocked to 4.5 GHz. It is not a major overclock but I am proceeding step by step.

Back to FSX anyway and the Twin Star. I had also considered to switch to another plane, I particularly like the Cessna 337 but then I decided to remain with the Diamond.

No failures for this first flight. I am very rusty with the aircraft, so here we go:

Shortly after take-off I can see the delta of some river. Unfortunately I did not find any information on Google Earth:

And immediately after, what looks like a long highway extending in direction NE along the coast of Yemen:

Possibly some Oil Depot, there is also a rather small runaway extending toward the sea (upper right corner of the picture):

The flight proceeds. The scenario is pretty much desert and nothing more. But it is nice to see{

I have to climb to 7000 feet to avoid some mountains, I believe I have just passed the city of Ash Shihr on my right side:

And after that, a plateau - desert again -

Now descending toward the coast again. What I am overflying is the city and airport of Al Ghaydah:

The flight plan is now over the sea with the coast on the left side. A few pictures taken:

And now moving toward the coast, I just passed Al Fatk:

Time to enter in the C airspace surrounding the airport of Salalah, here are a few pictures of the airport and the city:

After Salalah, desert again:

And finally the destination of the flight, the airport of Marisah Island, Marisah Air Base:

Looking good on final:

And finally landed. Now, the next flight will most likely aimed to cross the Gulf of Oman and enter  either in Pakistan or India (in India, I will aim for the Himalaya Mountains to land at Lukla of course):

That's it for this flight. I hope you enjoyed the summary.

12th Leg: OYTZ to OOMA (then OYRN)

It has been a while... But I decided to carry on the tour, even if I have much less time compared to before. After havinf fixed the problems to the engine.The trusty TwinStar will take off from OY74 early in the morning. Time to start again from this very small airport where I had to land due before.

All set, time to begin the flight. There is only a traffic frequency for OY74 and I announce the take-off from runaway 07:

After a couple of minutes I am in flight, directed toward the first waypoint, KRA, 21 miles away, altitude slowly reaching 5000 feet.

Cruise altitude reached. The traffic control of Aden and has been contacted to go trough the C airspace. Aden grants that after switching from 1200 (VFR) to 7174 as requested by Aden Approach.

over Aden. I can clearly see a Stadium on the left. No ships in view, a pity.

After Aden, the aircraft turns almost straight East where the Sun is rising. The next waypoint is RIN, at 274 miles of distance.

5.21 AM. Nice light- Aden Approach calls to hand-off the flight to Sanaa Center with a new frequency and as time goes by, the weather worsen... I can barely see the coast on my left side: I switch on the strobe as well.

Slightly better now.

and bad again after. Meanwhile I begin to hear some radio chatter, the first airliners begin to take off.

After some time, the visibility finally improves. Despite the fact I was flying over the ground, I could not see anything.Some dry land below:

not so much below the aircraft, mostly desert.

the aircraft is approaching some high ground, so I decide to climb to 6000 and when I have a look at the fuel gauge, I find that the adverse weather has drastically worsened the fuel situation. I have only 4 hours of fuel left and I need 5 to reach the destination.

After some thinking, I decide to land at an airport which is right on my flight plan, OYRN and for the time being, to climb further to 8000 to avoid any problem with the mountains ahead.

I can now contact Riyan to request to land: right traffic pattern for RWY24, reducing now speed and altitude to 5000 feet.

A couple of shots of the town of Al Mukalla and the road to Riyan

Downwind leg, right pattern as requested:

And coming down for landing

Parked. Refuel, maybe visit the town and then restart. The final destination is still far away. At least I did not suffer any failure on this flight.

12th Leg: OYTZ to OOMA (then OY74)

Take-off from Taiz (Yemen) with the idea of flying SE and then NE, going up the Gulf of Aden. The destination of this flight is the aiport of Masirah Island, a military airport in Oman, facing the Arabian Sea. It turned out things went differently however...

Taxiing at Taiz:

Immediately after take-off, the first part of the leg consists in flying almost due East, toward the airport of Aden on the coast:

So far so good, I am flying over hills and green areas:

But then I notice that the performances aren't the usual ones: the left engine of the Twin Star has a reduced fuel flow. Nothing wrong in terms of engine temperature, but it is providing less power and burning less fuel compared to the other engine.

I do not particulary like this area, it is mostly desert and I am at the beginning of a rather long leg, so I decide to abort the flight and land at the first available airport, which is a very small airstrip labelled OY74. Approaching the runaway:

And checking then what's wrong after landing. It turned out a cylinder wasn't working properly. Time to repair things and keep going. I will simply fly the rest of the leg toward OOMA later on...