This time, I flew very far with the small Boeing BBJ2. The target was Brisbane, Australia. Near the city, on the so called "Surfers Paradise", or Gold Coast, every year, the fastest cars on Earth visiting the area for a long, racing weekend ! :!
It's CART time! The most famous, most dangerous, and most beautiful road circuit of the Champcar series, presents the event IndyFever '04. I knew I cannot miss it. I asked my boss
to get the mission for this weekend. EuroBusiness transported a few VIPs, and rich fans to the racing weekend, to Australia, on a route that was never flown before by EuroBusiness...
Mission started in Amsterdam, at late afternoon. We decided about the route, and finally selected Calcutta, for refuelling station. Preparations took place at EHAM before takeoff.
When all the 19 passengers got on-board, we started rolling. The first leg of flight will be around 4500 miles, and it will be early morning when we get there.
The moon was already up, as we started our initial climb over The Netherlands.
It became dark very soon, as we flew over Germany.
The route over Europe was very boring in the darkness. We flew over my home country too, and the Black Sea too.
As we were approached Iran airspace, we heared conversations of many military planes. There was not any serious things happened, and we finally got into the Indian airspace. I suddenly discovered a graphical bug below us. The terrain was missing in parts.
The sun was rising, when we were flying well inside India. I hoped I will catch the view of the Mount Everest, but it was too far to the North. The landscape was even so beautiful, as we were flying over the Ganges, heading to Calcutta.
The airspace, and the airport also was very quiet in the morning. I had enough time for amazed by the scenery. I discovered, the land colors are totally different than in Europe.
After 10 hours of flying we finally arrived to Calcutta, for a short pit-stop.
Passengers could take off the plane while it was refuelled, and caterered. They could make a really short sightseeing too. After 3 hours, everybody was boarded again. The passengers were very sleepy, because in Europe there was about 2 am that time. I was lucky to spot another plane in the airport.
In a short time we were flying again, toward Australia. In the 2nd leg we will take a 4800 miles long journey.
As we were passing the Indian coasts, the amazing view of giant Ganges delta filled the horizon everywhere.
We were closing to the Pacific region hour by hour. We were entering here into Thailand.
After leaving Thailand and Vietnam, there was nothing but open ocean for hours. We were heading to New Zealand. I hoped I will catch the view of that fabolous landscape, where the Lord of the Rings movie was shot.
But as we headed to East, the darkness come again quite soon, and we finally got in Australia. After 11 hours of flying, we reached Brisbane, and met a lot of Quantas birds. Fortunately the landing was very fine.
Passegers were get off and taken their hotel rooms. But a group of them asked me a short favourite...they wanted me to take a short sightseeing flight in the early afternoon next day. Sorry boss
but I could not miss this opportunity. After a long relax we were boarded again, and were ready for a short VFR flight over the Queensland area, and the coasts.
After we took off, headed a little east, to see the ocean. A little bit later we spotted the USS Tarawa battlegroup below us.
But the main project was to see the Racetrack ! So we headed for that famous tiny peninsula of the coast. Unfortunately we could not see the cars from this height :[
...but they seen us
After the tour, the passengers were so satisfied, that the whole crew got a VIP ticket, for the complete weekend. OK, the free practices were over, but we could still see the qualifying, and the race.
We enjoyed the race very much, and will return monday with a lot of nice memories.
Thank you for flying with EuroBusiness.
