Around the world in 175 days.

[blanston12]

September 27, 1924: The engine change on Boston II required they stay another day in San Fransico so they slept in late, went to the theater and back to there rooms at the St. Francis Hotel. They departed Crissy Field in excellent weather on the 27th and flew to Eugene Oregon, a place Lt Smith considered a second home, and despite his request for a quiet welcome, the Governor and City Mayor had arranged large reception that drew people from all over the state.

October 27, 1927: For the next leg I will be using the Bombardier CRJ-700. The CRJ-700 is a regional jet liner developed from the earlier CRJ-200 series. It first flew in 1999 and over 800 have ben built so far. The model I am using is the default one that comes with FSX and I think is one of the better aircraft that were packaged with it.

Weather for the flight to Eugene was good, clear with 3 knot winds and temperature of 17C/63F. We headed north from SFO over the city, climbing to 12000 feet to safely fly over the northern California mountains, made a pass over crater lake and descended into Eugene where the one bit if excitement happened on the trip, a low cloud had placed itself just a couple miles in front of the runway so I could not make the assigned VFR landing on it, After two attempts I circled around and landed from the other direction on the runway, good thing the control tower did not complain. The 393 nm flight had taken 1.5 hours.

Here are the pics:


Ready to go at SFO.


Flying over the city, trying to see if I can spot the building I work in.


Flying over Clear Lake. Calling Clear Lake 'Clear' is like calling Greenland 'Green'.


Flying by Mount Shasta (again)


View of Shasta from the cockpit.


Flying over Crater Lake, Oregon.


Comming into Eugene Oregon.


Parked.

Thanks for reading
ATB.

[blanston12]

September 28, 1924: The flyers were getting nervous about making the last 240 miles. They left Eugene mid morning heading north for Seattle. As they approached the Columbia river Boston II started having problems with its oil pump so they landed at the Vancouver Barracks to see if they could repair it.

October 28, 2017: For this penultimate leg I will be using the American Champion Scout. First produced by Bellanca in 1974 the Scout is a two seat general aviation aircraft with good STOL capability. American Champion acquired the design in 1984 and is still in production with over 500 in service. The model I am using was made by RealAir and is one of my favorites. It’s a great tragedy that RealAir closed. Conditions started out very foggy in Eugene and I ended up waiting two hours for it to clear up. By the time I departed it was partly cloudy with 8 mile visibility, a temperature of 13C/55F and clouds starting at 600 feet. I stayed below 1000 feet to stay out of the clouds until after 30 minutes of flying the clouds lifted and I had great weather flying over Portland Oregon and into Pearson Field in Vancouver Washington, the 93 nm flight had taken 55 minutes.

Here are the pics:


Ready to go.


Climbing out of Eugene, Oregon.


Over the Oregon country side.


Finally cleared up.


Lovely fall colors.


Portland Oregon.


On final into Pearson Field.


Landed.

Thanks for reading, almost done.
ATB.

[blanston12]

September 28, 1924: The problem with Boston II’s oil pump was quickly fixed and the three planes took off in a V formation for the final leg of there great adventure. As they approached Sand Point Field they expected a crowd to welcome them but they were surprised by the size of it. An estimated 50,000 people crowded the small airport to welcome them. As they got ready to land Lt Smith had the planes form a line abreast formation so that all three would land at the same time. As they taxied to a stop at the reviewing stand where the welcoming committee waited the crowd swarmed around them and a battery of French 75’s from the 148th field artillery regiment fired a 21 gun salute. Each of the flyers was handed a telegram from President Coolidge congratulating them and apologizing for not having the legal authority to reward them the way he would like to, the first of many telegrams and letters that poured in. The celebrations would go on for several days. At one point a reporter asked Smith if he would he do it again, he replied “Not for a million dollars. Unless I was ordered to.”

The statisticians quickly went work, from Seattle to Seattle they had flown 26,345 miles, logging 363 hours of flight time with an average speed of 72.5 mph. They had used 15 engines, 14 sets of pontoons, 42 sets of wheels, nearly 27,000 gallons of gas and 2,900 gallons of oil.

October 28, 2017: Wanting something more dramatic for the last leg from Pearson Field (Originally the Vancouver Barracks field) to Renton Municipal Airport I will be flying the Eurofighter Typhoon. Introduced in 2003 the Eurofigher is used by the Air Forces of Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and several other countries, so far at least 599 have been built. The model I am using is by Dino Cattaneo and is very nice. I had nice clear weather for the last leg. I did a pass over Mount St Helens and then into Seattle. I did a pass over downtown before finally returning to Renton Airport. My first approach was going badly so I went around and tried again, this time landing safely. The 116 nm flight had take only 25 minutes.

For my flights I used 79 different aircraft types over 90 legs. Flight hours were 149.1 over 27,397 nm with an average speed of 183 knots. I did it in 139 days, (156 if you include the initial flights from Santa Monica to Seattle) so 36 fewer days than they did, but I never had to spend time maintaining the aircraft or waiting for better weather.

Here are the pics:


Ready to go.


Climbing out of Pearson Field.


Turning north.


Flying over Mount St. Helen.


Debris field from the eruption.


Mount Rainier


Puget Sound ahead.


SeaTac airport with Renton in the distance.


Downtown Seattle.


Celebratory Lap over downtown.


Renton Airport.


Landed.

I wanted to give credit to the source of most my information which is the book “Around the world in 175 days” by Carroll Glines which I have quoted from (and at times possibly plagiarized) quite liberally, if you want to learn more about their adventure I would recommend reading it.

Of all the historic flights from the past it seemed as if history was overlooking this one, we all would probably recognize the names of Charles Lindbergh, Kingsford Smith or Amelia Earhart but how many would know the names of Lowell Smith or Erik Nelson. I hope I have done a little to bring this chapter of history to a wider audience. I have started writing an Epilogue but I think I have too much material for a forum post so will probably create a website, blog or wiki somewhere where I can post all this material.

Thanks to everyone who has read and commented on these posts and I hope you have enjoyed it. It’s been a real adventure and more work than I thought it would be, especially all the writing, but I have enjoyed it. I would really like to hear what you have thought about these posts, good or bad, so please comment.

So again, Thanks for reading
Mission Complete.
ATB.

[DaveG]

Congratulations on completing your trip Joe, well done!

Thanks for the screenshots and the commentary along the way. It's been very interesting following your journey.

[Paul K]

Nicely done Joe, A lot of people set out on these RTW trips in FSX, but not many complete them. I think that's down to boredom, with all their available simming time taken up by just the one aircraft - which you have avoided by using a different one on each leg. More interesting for you, more interesting for us, and replicating an actual historic journey too. It's been fun following your progress.

I have a couple of themes for a RTW trip and with retirement a matter of days away, I might now get down to planning it out. It's something I've always wanted to do. I might take a leaf out of your book and vary the aircraft I use.

Anyway, a very well done flight by you.

[blanston12]

Thanks Paul and Dave. I am glad you both found it interesting.

Yes using different aircraft definitely made it more interesting. When I was planning this I did doing it with one aircraft would be very tedious, especially one as slow as the Douglas World Cruiser. Since I could not find a decent DWC and thinking about the historic route I had chosen the idea of making it a trip through aviation history was very appealing. Especially since it gave me an excuse to haul out all those aircraft I had been collecting in my hanger.

Of course it also sent me on another collecting binge as I tried to fill those gaps in the collection from different time periods and countries. I did try to get as many from different countries as I could but in the end almost 80% were either British or American.

I am trying to detox from the aircraft collecting but the new Otter and DC-4 look so appealing.

I must learn control.

[hobby]

Well Done!! Quite a feat of endurance and determination to complete this round the world series of flights.

[FlyTexas]

What an adventure! Well done, Joe!! Everyone should try a long distance voyage. You really get a great feeling of accomplishment when/if you complete your flight.

Brian

[blanston12]

Thanks Hobby and Brian.

To add it all, about a week before the finish I started getting problems with the video card in the laptop I use to fly, it was worse with 2D graphics than 3D so I was able to get it to limp across the finish line before I had to call dell and report the problem, I did not want to have to send it in with my quest unfinished.

[Paul K]

Joe, which aircraft was your favourite during the trip, and which leg the most interesting?