Leg 6 - Solomon Islands to New Caledonia.

The sixth leg of the IFR World Tour 2007 was flown on the evening of May 29th to May 30th.

The Aircraft

For this leg I chose the Kittihawk Boeing 737-800 with Scandinavian livery flying with callsign SAS523. It was carrying 160 virtual souls, 49935 pounds of cargo and 2924 gallons of fuel. The estimated fuel burn was 2664 gallons.

Departure Airport

The Honiara International Airport is located in the Guadalcanal island on the Solomon Islands and was formerly known as Henderson Field. It has one airstrip hosting runways 06/24 with a length of 2200 meters. Local time is UTC+11.

After having examined the departure and arrival charts SAS523 started engines at 20:33Z. There was no ATC online in this area and no approaching flights in the next 20 minutes.

I don't remember were I got the departure chart, but here is the Honiara Arrival Chart for rwy 06.

The a/c taxied to runway 06 from which it took off at 20:41Z immediately making a right turn to intercept (if I remember correctly) radial 145 of the HN VOR/DME following the 06 ENOUSS departure.

Here is a picture of the simulated aircraft leaving the airfield in the initial climb. A full size picture is found on my Flickr account mentioned earlier in this blog.

S 9.419766° W 160.089426°

Cruising

Once the radial was intercepted the climb was continued. At 20:57Z the cruise altitude of 35,000 ft. was reached and continued on the designated route on airway A597.

The weather was clear all the way and therefore no interesting weather conditions. A long way ahead of me where other fellow players with callsigns VIP418, DAATK and AW9990. In fact I noticed the 2nd doing the next leg just an hour ago.

Cruising continued at this altitude for a long time at a speed of 0.72-0.8 Mach. This is one of the longest legs (but not the longest) with a total distance of 804 nm (1,546 kms.). The ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) was 09:09 local time.

It was lonely out there at FL350 with no one to talk that late at night :-(. When I reached the New Caledonian airspace there was also no ATC online. So far no ATCs encountered on any WT leg which is kind of disappointing because I need to prepare for my theoretical and practical exam to get promoted to the rank of Flight Captain.

Well while the autopilot was engaged I had time to examing the approach charts again. The charts I found in the official/real life French AIP site by selecting NWWW code on the French Overseas territorie. Unfortunately the whole site and charts were in French :( but graphics said a lot.

In this document around page 16 you can find all the en route, approach and departure charts for the Noumea La Tontouta airport in New Caledonia (ICAO code NWWW).

Arrival

My arrival was via ENOUS to GOPRA intersection. I started the descent around 27 nm from the LTO (La Tontouta) VOR which was already alive on my instruments. A few nautical miles before the BASAR intersection (on the initial flight plan) and about 9,000 ft took a right turn towards the SARAM intersection to then make a turn left on the TOSAM intersection and then head straight to the runway heading 107° proceeding via the TESRA1 STAR at 7,000 ft.

The navigation radios had already been set a long time ago so I had the ILS on NAV1 and the LTO VOR on NAV2 and the NW NDB on the ADF. Flaps were extended to 25° and approaching at under 250 knots. Got established on the ILS, the weather was clear and the airport was in sight. Descent on the glideslope was uneventful, speed brakes were armed and the brakes set to MAX.

La Tontouta airport is also near sea level and at the same timezone (UTC+11). At 22:50 SAS523 touched down and when the a/c slowed down flaps and speed brakes were retracted. A few minutes later at 9:55 local time (New Caledonia) (12:55 AM on my timezone) the aircraft was onblocks and passengers left without leaving their guts on the floor of the airplane.

The flight was completed in 02:24 hours with a total fuel burn of 2021 gallons, thus saving 643 gals.

Obviously by now the three "pilots" ahead of me had landed and gone off line and no new pilots were on this airport though one was on the way. I took a few minutes to prepare some information for the next leg, close my flight plan, file my PIREP with Virtual Pilots and report completion of the WT leg on the IVAO system.

Then I did what I should have been doing at that time: go to sleep!

I hope to encounter some more excitement than the last few legs. Anyway, still have 65 to go!.