Leg 3 - Hello Indonesia

Tonight I embarked on flying leg #3. Flight preparations were done the day before where I examined the assigned route and created a flight plan. This leg was from Tambler, Philipines (RPMR) to Biak/Frans Kaisepo, Indonesia (WABB). This time I chose a cruise altitude of FL250 and the same aircraft so far (Scandinavian, Boeing 737-800, callsign SAS523). No known navigation charts for the destination airport :(

At 17:25Z SAS523 left the gates and reached the holding point of runway 17 at 17:37Z. Because there was no active ATC coordination was done on Unicom frequency. There was inbound traffic (1) with an ETA of 11 minutes. Upon announcing my intentions the other online flight slowed down. Rather than lining up on the runway I decided to do one of those rolling takeoffs in which the pilot accelerates and girates so you actually start the takeoff right after leaving the holding point. That way the rwy was left free for the inbound traffic.

My radio and navigation frequencies were set, had the TCAS enabled all the way. Some 30 minutes into flight I suddenly noticed there were two other "pilots" within 40nm behind me, one was same aircraft as mine (B738). The gained on me and overtook me, while I flew FL250 the austrian guys were at FL310 (HEV117) and FL350 (AAF029).

I noticed I was flying at Mach 0.54, no wonder why my flights were taking longer than expected! At this moment they were 30 minutes faster! so I pushed the throttle forward and did the balancing act to attain Mach 0.7 (normal cruise speed for B737) without overspeeding or stressing the aircraft (I have my realism settings to maximum, so my virtual a/c can get damaged).

From this moment on it was a controlled race or better described as flying in sort of formation but I could not see them visually. I had them on my TCAS to avoid collisions, coordinated with them as well as I was worried of an "accident" because at their speed they would land with only a minute difference! they were 10 mins ahead of me. Anyway at my new cruise speed I did not overtake them but I was not left behind either.

I took this beautiful snapshot on the "virtual coast of Indonesia", look in http://www.flickr.com/photos/didimo_emilio/map/ for this photo, it is off the coast of Manokwari,Indonesia some 30 mins before landing.

The two other guys initiated coordinated descent (no ATC again) and then later on it was my turn to initiate descent to 10000 ft. My navigation equipment already had the Biak (Frans Kaisepo) VOR on the needle. Later on I got established on the ILS for runway 11 and the flight was finished.

In total I spent 3 hours "flying" online, as usual it was booked on my Virtual Pilots membership (VPA354) but not yet on the IVAO tour database because my previous leg report needs to be re-approved (silly rule if you ask me!).

Landing was at 20:38 Zulu, right on time. Two minutes later a/c was on blocks and engines shut down, it is a small airport. Total of 968.4 nm, estimated fuel usage was 3069 gallons but actually used 2548 gallons).

S 0° 38.94' E 133° 53.00'