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Flight completed, baton safe and screen shots being reviewed.

Flight details and de-brief to be posted this evening!

Welcome one, welcome all, to the final South American leg of the MH – Around The World Challenge!
We find ourselves sat at Ushuaia Airport (SAWH) in the ‘Tierra Del Fuego’ region of southern Argentina courtesy of our very own Mutley!

Whilst waiting for Joe to fly in with his 707 and the baton, our pilot and I took a trip down to the city hall only to discover that, for most of the first half of the 20th century, the city was centered on a prison for serious criminals – I want out of here already! Also, it holds claim to the world’s southernmost city, rivalled only by Puerto Williams in Chile, which due to its size can barely even be called a town!
Still with a few hours to wait, we decided to take a walk around and do a bit of sight-seeing, after all, it’s not often one gets chance to come this far south! Isn’t it beautiful?

Back to the airport it was, as we heard from a local that a big old jet was on its way in... it could only be Joe!
Our ride for today would be the glorious Avro Vulcan. Its last visit to this area would have been way back in 1982 during the Falklands War. More to the point, this bird happens to be XM607, the aircraft responsible for the RAF’s initial ‘Black Buck’ raid on 30th May 1982 on Port Stanley airfield.
Our final destination for this leg, however was to be Mount Pleasant Airport. But not before a flypast of the small town Port Stanley and surrounding area!
Meanwhile, back at the airport, we’ve opened up the crew hatch and climbed in for a few basic checks before Joe rolled in with his big jet and handed over the baton!

There’s the city on the hill, behind the airport. This part of the world really catches your eyes!

Joe’s here... and just in time, we’re getting ready to spool up and do our checks.

Checks completed and all 4 Olympus 301’s are spooled up. We’ve called in and have been granted IFR flight rules to Mount Pleasant as filed.. all that remains is to get this bird onto the strip!

Taxiing out to Runway 07, looking over at the modern looking airport terminal building. Served by LAN and the Argentine national airline.

Lined up on the strip, our pilot takes a quick photo as a reminder... not much room for error!

V2 rotate! As seen by the tower...

...and by one of the airport staff who plonked himself near to the ‘piano keys’ at the end of 07 for this shot!

Turning to join up with the SID.

Our captain has passed controls over to the AP and takes a last glimpse of the Terra Del Fuego region...

... and eventually our last look at Argentina

Climbing to FL350 quickly here, moon in full view and its only 1450 local time

A rather uneventful flight left for some uninspiring screen shots... so let’s cut to the chase already!
Our decent was quick, the 301’s were throttled right back to keep speed down as we descended at 2400fpm. It wasn’t very long until our first sight of land took our attention.

Down there is West Falkland, the smaller of the two main islands making up this British colony.

Still descending, we’re now around 12000, as we pass over Fox Bay and the Falkland Sound...

... onwards to East Falkland as we catch a small glimpse of Speedwell and George Islands.

Low cloud now starting to obscure things a little. I think below us is Sea Lion Island... aptly named as it was found that a large colony of Southern Sea Lions and Elephant Seals have used the island for breeding for at least the last 80 years!

Getting ready to call in at Mount Pleasant now. We’re down to an altitude of 6000ft, engines at 30% slowing us down for the final few waypoints... but first we’re going to do a fly over at Port Stanley!

A small township just north of Port Stanley..

Not the largest of towns here, but this is Port Stanley the capital city(!?!) of the Falklands, it’s the largest of all towns on the islands – outside of the RAF base at Mount Pleasant that is!

One of the town’s people saw the flyover and heard from the local RAF population that our pilot was from a small town outside Whitby... needless to say, our pilot was extremely pleased when he received this:

There it is, our final destination on The South American Samba – a bit sparse im afraid, couldn’t seem to find any (freeware) EGYP scenery anywhere...although mesh is everywhere!!.....
Steady as she goes now. All systems on manual.

And we’re down, drogue chute deployed to help bleed off any excess speed. This runway’s not long enough for me.. and I’ve got nowhere to park!

For those who are interested, here’s what it should look like (according to Google Earth)!!

Beautiful shots Simi, and a really nice commentary to go along with them. I enjoyed that, thanks for winding up the South American Samba in such style!

Dave

Simi,

An excellent post, great shots and those little extra snippets really do make it.

I enjoyed watching you take of for Stanley, what a wonderful noise and we all felt it in our stomachs! I have to get the 707 back soon so I will not be hanging around.

A fine and fitting finish to yet another successful section of the ATWC.

I have to award you 5 stars for this post I really enjoyed it.



Cheers

That's seconded, Simi - really excellent job - loved the commentary! You deserve every one of those five stars! Magic A/C by the way - look forward to seeing it 'up and about' again....
Cheers - Dai.

Simi,

Great post. I liked the maps, airport scenery, choice of AC, RW photos - you pushed all the buttons on this one. Nice work.

John

Excellent stuff, really enjoyed the flight. My cousin was based in the falklands, she was in the signals in the Army. She told me how they would do penguin duty...a hercules would land and the penguins would watch it go over till they fell on their backs. Then the soldiers went round standing any up that got stuck A great finish to this phase.....looking forward to the next..

steve