A first for everything
People have been flying around the world, circumnavigating the globe for over one hundred years now. The first to do so was a group of U.S Army pilots in 1924. They used several single engine airplanes and did it with 4 pilots. Their journey took 175 days to complete. Wiley Post was the first to fly around the world solo in 1931, just 4 years after Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic solo. Post did his trip in 8 days.
My trip took 9 days, but Post made many more stops that I did. Anchorage, AK is where my journey began, flying to Miami. This flight always amazes me because of the vast wilderness of Easetern Alaska northwest Canada. It’s miles and miles of seemingly uninhabited terrain. Snow covered peaks that seem as if no one has ever set foot on them and maybe they haven’t.
From Miami, it’s off to Amsterdam with an airplane filled mostly with flowers from South America. I usually don’t know what is in the cargo area, but the flowers are in boxes that are labeled. Not much to see crossing the Atlantic as it is cloud covered with the occasional thunderstorm along the route.
Back tracking a bit I headed to Madrid via commercial airline after a nice layover in Amsterdam. From Madid I headed to Hong Kong. On this leg there was no cargo on the airplane, but was quite interesting trying to leave. The cargo handlers had trouble getting one of the pallets off the airplane, so we were delayed. So delayed that we almost did not leave Madrid. The airport has a curfew that starts at 10 pm. The wheels of the jet lifted off the runway right at 10. Whew!
Madrid to Hong Kong takes an interesting route. We cross over most of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. What is interesting is the route we have to follow after we are out of European airspace. It is a narrow corridor between Russia and Ukraine to the north and the majority of the Middle East to the south. Most flights usually experience gps jamming and spoofing, but luckily we fly right through with no issues.
After a layover in Hong Kong, I am off to Anchorage to complete my round the world flight. Unfortunately there is not much to see again as clouds obscure the view. This is not unusual especially over the North Pacific and the Bering Sea. Anchorage weather is nice though, so I have nice view out the window to complete my trip around the world. A first for me, but maybe not the last.