I continue with the set of long tricky legs over Iran, this time between Yazh and Sarakhs, right at the border of Turkmenistan. Sarakhs was a stopping point of the Silk Road and a very important cultural city by the 11th century. I'm carrying 5 passengers, so I cannot load more than 119 gallons of fuel, and the leg will be more than 450 nm. This, together with the CHT alert yesterday and the lack of VFR charts, made me decide to fly on Y-VFR, that is, IFR till the last VOR, flying as high as I can (both to save fuel and low temperatures) and descend on visual.
In addition, there was some kind of sandstorm on the takeoff, so IFR was ideal. With the cockpit reaching 50 ºC, I se the A/C as fast as I could and quickly proceeded with the checklist, so I was far from that hell as fast as possible.
I climb to my ceiling, FL250, lean to LOP and proceed with a tricky VOR navigation. On some areas I lose signal, but I continue flying straight on the radial and assessing my location by the nearby landscape features.
At Mashhad I begin the descent and switch fo VFR. Again, I don't find the VAC chart for Sarakhs but just a NDB/DME approach that I decided to follow despite VFR conditions. I found interesting to fly, for the first time, a DMC arc centered on a NDB. Very smooth landing.
In total, a route of 450 nm ended up being about 490 nm, after including procedures. This has been the last leg in Iran.
------
BOMIT1B BOMIT TBS MSD VFR SARAKHS
OIYY 041900Z 11019KT 3500 SA FEW040 32/04 Q1015
OIMM 042100Z 21004KT CAVOK 25/12 Q1015 A2998
No comments:
Post a Comment