Misadventures Part 7
Visits to: Korea and Beijing
also: Where the hell is The Great Wall of China?
Korea
It was dawn in Tokyo when I decided to depart for Seoul Korea, this flight would take
place in a Korean air
DC-10, which I found very difficult to get off the ground with the flaps set to 20.
Climbing up over Japan I made the decision that I would have to come back and explore
this Island a little more, there is so much great countryside, it is a pleasure just to cruise through the valleys in a small
prop plane, very relaxing.
But for now, I was off to Korea.
Once I got up to about FL260 the DC-10 didn't want to climb anymore, I checked that all the
icing switches were on and everything else was in order, I was only at 205 IAS at 400 FPM climb, didn't seem right.
Well, I ended up shutting the auto pilot off and everything was fine after that, I
continued my climb manually and was soon hauling butt.
I must not have loaded the screenshot manager because I have no photos of the trip
to Seoul.
The approach was pretty good but I was coming in a bit high and fast, this was a rather challenging
plane to control, and I made a dive at the last minute to catch the glide slope which resulted in an increase in my speed,
I ended up landing hard with a giant bounce before settling onto the runway. No big deal.
Seoul turned out to be boring like I expected, I'm not sure when I will see another
nice city, so I spent a lot of time testing new aircraft here, I also added the crash effects to my program and just had to
test those out!
Finally I departed for Pyongyang in a Fairchild C-123,
the flight took me right over downtown Pyongyang and I could see there would be no need to
explore here, I landed and started thinking about my trip to Beijing, maybe there would be something there, it's located close
to the Great wall of China which I just can't wait to see.
Beijing
I figured since Beijing is the capitol of China, there was a chance for a descent
cityscape, so I hopped in a Cathay Pacific 747-400 and pointed back to China.
I had always heard you could see the great wall from space, well I crossed the coast
of China real close to where the wall meets the shore and at 25,000 feet I didn't see shit.
At least I wouldn't be flying over water again for a long time, now that I was in Asia,
there would be no more large bodies of water to cross until the Atlantic ocean, hurray!
Maybe they do things a little different in China, but the heading ATC had me on to
intercept the localizer would have brought me directly to the end of the runway, so at the risk of ATC abandoning me I changed
my course so I would have time to get the 747 lined up, after that the approach went fine, except for one thing.
I was cleared to land, and as I neared the runway I could see one of them dumb-ass
AI planes sitting there about halfway down the runway, just sitting there! Well I wasn't going around, so this retard better
get moving or I'll land in the grass dammit!
Sure enough, just as I'm crossing the threshold ATC tells me to go around, screw that!
That dude had more than enough time to get the hell out of my way, so I landed next to him and of course I get bitched at
for not being cleared to land and all, I must have forgot to change the AI speed before this flight.
I was actually almost to my gate before that a-hole turned onto a taxiway, WHATEVER!
After all that excitement I stole a Queenair and went cruising to Beijing, it mostly
sucked but I think there was supposed to be a place that represented Tiennemann square, I took pictures but don't know what
happened to them, it seems like the screenshot utility does weird shit now and then, I have gotten in the habit of warping
out of the sim after a flight and moving the photos to another folder before flying again, because several times I have had
screenshots come up missing.
Oh well there wasn't that much to see here anyway, so I'll head north and find what
I'm really here for, The Great Wall of China!
In search of The Great Wall
Now according to my atlas, the wall should make two or three different
paths just to the north of Beijing, so I head that way with a fresh roll of film in the camera and I search, and I search,
and I search.
I'm still in the Queenair so I figure I'll head back to the airport and get something faster
so I can cover more ground.
I choose a Dessault Falcon for the search mission, and I fly over 100 miles to the
north of Beijing, then I turn to the west for a while then back to the south, no great wall anywhere, what the hell?
It was at this time back at the forums that everyone started raving about the add-on
scenery for Hangzhou airport back near Shanghai, so I decide to take a break from searching and get this add-on which meant
flying 600 miles to the south to check out the remodeling, after which I would return to Beijing and continue looking for
the wall.
Hangzhou
I wanted to make the trip to ZSHC and back as quickly as possible so I take a Learjet,
not the default but one I downloaded somewhere, and I ended up with the same problem as with the KAL DC-10, up around FL260
it just didn't want to move, I ended up flying the whole trip at around a ground speed of 360 knots, never did figure that
on out, and once I got to the airport I couldn't figure out how to shut the engines down, so while I was out wandering around
checking out the awesome scenery, the learjet rolled into some trees and crashed!
It was cool though because the program didn't send me back to Beijing, it just started
over at Hangzhou, weird.
So I spent some time looking around the airport which really is quite nice, then I
took a flight in a Cessna172 around the area to get some photos, which I also repeated at night.
It was definitely worth the trip to examine this add-on, but it was a major hit to
the frame rate for sure.
Now I didn't want to fuck around as far as getting back to Beijing, so I started thinking
what would be the fastest way to get there, just starting the game back in Beijing would not be acceptable at all, but I didn't
want to take 2 hours to get there either, so I wander through my hangar.
Whoa, an F-14 Tomcat, that'll get me there quick, so I fire her up and head towards
Beijing... and ran out of gas 500 miles short, hmm, must not be built for distance, I found an airport to land at and went
back to my hangar.
Why didn't I think of this in the first place, I've got an SR-71 Blackbird that I
have never even tested, so I load her up, and set the course to Beijing, I was there in 15 minutes! that's more like it.
However, landing the SR-71 proved to be a lot more difficult than I anticipated, just slowing
down from nearly 2000 knots was a trick in itself, so of course, I came blazing into Beijing airport at way over 200 knots
and landed so hard that the plane buried itself under the runway, sorry no screenshots again.
I liked the SR-71, I figured it would be nice if I ever wanted to get someplace in
a hurry, or if I got homesick and wanted to head back to the states for a couple of days, I could be back in Phoenix in probably
2 hours or less, and then resume my trip where I left off on the same day.
So I practiced landing it a bunch of times, I never got it up to mach speeds, but just
did some touch and go landings, I think I can handle it now.
Searching for
the great wall again
I wasn't going to keep looking for the great wall forever, I should have found
it by now, if you can see it from outer space then you shouldn't have that hard of a time locating it from earth.
I studied my atlas and maps of China, I should have flown over it in the Falcon when
I flew north, I looked for an airport to the northwest and found Houhot, I would fly there VFR in a Kingair and hug the
terrain, the maps show that I should cross the wall three times along the way, there is no way I can miss it. If I didn't
find it on this trip, I would give up and leave the area, the rest of the world is waiting.
After crossing some mountains and heading into a desert, it became obvious that the
great wall either was not included in this sim, or it was not where it was supposed to be, I am quite disapointed, considering
how most of the major landmarks have been portrayed fairly accurately, it's hard to believe that something as large as the
great wall was neglected, I don't believe I could have missed it, if it is here somewhere, I don't know where else to look.
I give up.
So, as I sit in Houhot airport in the desert of northern China, I look at my atlas
and try to think of where to go next, this airport is too small to fly a big jet out of, but I could probably get a learjet
out of here, and as I look out across the barron Chinese wasteland only one thought crosses my mind, "this sucks".
