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Friday, August 30, 2013: Day 6 - Salzburg-Kuwait City
This morning we rose at 0430 and were off to the airport for an early 0700 departure in order to make it to Ankara, Turkey prior to a military exercise. After our security check and fueling the aircraft, we were allowed startup and taxi at 0650.
Salzburg Tower cleared us for takeoff at 0659 on a beautiful clear morning. Everyone in Salzburg and Austria was so polite and respectful, making it such a pleasure to fly through Europe. From our 0700 takeoff roll we were at 25,000 feet in 17 minutes, and our total fuel burn was 39 gallons. BaseOps had flight planned us at 298 TAS so we powered back to 470 EGT, giving us a total fuel burn of 72 GPH. After leaving Austria we crossed over Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and then into Turkey crossing the Black Sea just to the north of Istanbul. When we landed in Ankara, we where greeted by Murat from Gozen Air Service, our handling agent. Everything was arranged and the fuel truck was standing by to top us off. When we finished fueling, Murat took us over to outside his office for a cup of tea while we waited for the military operation to finish (photo above left). During that time we learned it was Independence Day in Turkey, and that was the purpose of the military operation as Ankara is the capital. After a farewell handshake, we cranked up N50ET and launched for Kuwait. This time we climbed to 25,000 feet which took 21 minutes and we burned 41 gallons total including taxi. We are flight planned for LRC at 260 kts, that gave us a fuel burn of 56 GPH total which will give us ample fuel for this 1142 nautical mile leg. After 2 hours in flight we are now entering Iraq, and only a few miles from the Syrian border on one side and the Iran border on the other side (photo above right: route through Iraq). There is a huge storm sitting over this area, and with both Ankara Radar and Baghdad Radar assisting us with deviations, nothing seemed to be a problem. The weather is now perfect again, and we have a slight tailwind. It's hard to believe that I am actually here flying over Iraq. The Garmin radios, GTN-750 and 650, are perfect with the worldwide data base--also, the G-600 with synthetic vision has been amazing.
When we landed in Kuwait, the handler rushed us through immigration and customs, and everyone was so pleasant and easy to deal with. The second leg was 4.3 hours and 275 gallons--what an amazing aircraft! To see more photos from Day 6, please go to the RTW Photo Gallery