I GAVE UP FLYING FOR LENT !

Lee James · « **on:** April 17, 2014, 10:45:08 AM »

Hi,

UPDATE! NEW DEPARTURE & ARRIVAL TIMES! EDT-08:00UTC; ETA-18:30UTC (10:30 Pacific Time)

( .... ADMIN - not sure exactly where to post this so please move if required .... )

As some of my virtual flying colleagues know, I stopped my virtual flying on 6th March for the duration of Lent - or in my case until 14th April 2014! In support of my efforts, many of my flying colleagues at BRITISH AIRWAYS VIRTUAL, along with many others, have kindly made donations to the St. Catherine's Hospice in Crawley, West Sussex, UK both in person and online and then chosen a favourite destination from a list of 21 possibles, the most chosen of which I will be flying, along with my BAV colleague Neil Warman, in real time online with VATSIM. The flight will be filmed and a video will be posted in YouTube in due course.

This post is to advise you that, not only has my "celibacy" now finished and I am now certified to fly again, but that the winning destination most voted for as the favourite was:-

[size=]LAS VEGAS, NEVADA, USA![/size][/color]

The flight mentioned above will now take place this Saturday, 19th April 2014. At 12:00z (13:00BST, 14:00 European Time and 05:00 Pacific Time), Neil will be taking off from London Gatwick EGKK in a British Airways 777-200 (callsign BAW4CW) and I will be taking off from London Heathrow EGLL in a British Airways 747-400 (callsign BAW9DV). We hope to obtain the real world route on the day (amended for a Gatwick departure by Neil) and are now trying to arrange ATC on VATSIM out of Gatwick and Heathrow, enroute and into the Las Vegas area, for the flight.

By way of this post, I would like to ask for any ATC available over the Los Angeles ARTCC area and Las Vegas Tower/Approach to be online around 3:55pm Pacific Time (22:59 Zulu) on Saturday 19th April for our arrival.

You guys are welcome to follow our progress or even join us on the day - and we also are happy to have anyone else who would like to donate in support of the St. Catherine's Hospice charity, to do so via the following link from our event page here:-

http://www.leejames.f2s.com/My_Website/LENT.html

Scroll down the page and click on the ST. CATHERINES link in the middle of the lower part of the page to go to the Hospice's donation page. Minimum donation for our purposes and UK based pilots is one Pound (UK£1.00) or whatever you can afford in any of the currencies shown on the donation page. If you do donate, please contact me with the amount donated using the email address shown on the page - the amount will only be used for calculation purposes and will not be disclosed publically.

The total reached so far, which includes a £245 ($411) donation from Gatwick Airport, is:-

[size=]£575.00 (($966)[/size][/b]

Neil and I would like to say a big thank you to all who have supported us in this and for your kind donations to a very real charity that looks after people who are nearing the end of their lives, providing comfort and assistance as they reach the end.

Looking forward to seeing some of you online on Saturday and thank you for allowing me to post this!

Cheers,

Lee James
Events Manager & Senior Captain
British Airways Virtual

Neil Warman
777 Training Captain
British Airways Virtual

Brad Littlejohn · « **Reply #1 on:** April 17, 2014, 12:13:02 PM »

Lee, Neil,

Nice work on this, and very good job. That's a long time to go, but believe me when I say that doing something like that is definitely worthy.

To make this a bit more realistic for you, if you can find out what the route will be ahead of time, please try to. It would be hard with including NAT Tracks (understandable), but once you hit N. America, that should be good enough.

I ask that not because we at ZLA will be able to provide ATC for you (depending on your arrival time, we definitely will), but if it is at the right time of the day, the other sectors that you pass through could also be staffed, providing you full if not rolling coverage through the entire route you are flying.

So if you find out the route you're taking, you could post it here, if not get hold of the ATMs for every sector along your route, and all of us should be able to get some rolling coverage for you all the way to wheels down at KLAS.

BL.

Lee James · « **Reply #2 on:** April 18, 2014, 08:51:52 AM »

Brad,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Here is the proposed route:-

BPK UN601 MARGO UN590 SUPIT UP58 ERAKA 6120N 6230N 6240N 6150N PEPKI
LOPVI FASSA CHARN VIPGA VBI GFK RAP CKW BCE BCE.GRNPA1

Please note that due to circumstances beyond our control, we have had to move our departure time (and therefore our arrival time) forward from 12:00z to 08:00z. This will put us into KLAS around 18:30-18:50 UTC (10:30-10:50am local time in Las Vegas)

Am I correct in assuming that runway 25L is the normal arrival runway for heavy's?

Looking forward to our flight.

Lee

Brad Littlejohn · « **Reply #3 on:** April 18, 2014, 12:24:18 PM »

Quote from: Lee James

Brad,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Here is the proposed route:-

BPK UN601 MARGO UN590 SUPIT UP58 ERAKA 6120N 6230N 6240N 6150N PEPKI
LOPVI FASSA CHARN VIPGA VBI GFK RAP CKW BCE BCE.GRNPA1

Please note that due to circumstances beyond our control, we have had to move our departure time (and therefore our arrival time) forward from 12:00z to 08:00z. This will put us into KLAS around 18:30-18:50 UTC (10:30-10:50am local time in Las Vegas)

Am I correct in assuming that runway 25L is the normal arrival runway for heavy's?

Looking forward to our flight.

Lee

That.. all depends.

Depends on the wind and the weather. If the winds call for it, you may end up getting the 1s, or even 7R. But right now, it's been mainly calm here, so you will more than likely get 25L. Now, be aware, that the GRNPA1 arrival takes you to 19L/R, so you will be vectored off the approach. Either way, we'll be sure to get you down.

If you're slow enough (and ATC is brave enough), They could try getting you into the 19s, giving you a bit of eye candy for the video you're taking, as it will parallel the Strip. But more than likely, 25L it will be.

As for your route.. You'll be coming through Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg FIRs before hitting the United States. From there, you'll have Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake, and Los Angeles ARTCCs getting you all the way down. This may be short notice, but if you can mention this on the VATSIM forums at the least, or send email to the ATMs and event coordinators for those FIRs/sectors, you'll get some traction. Brad G. and I can mention this at ZLA so we can make sure you have something, if not just to put the word out.

BL.

Bradley Grafelman · « **Reply #4 on:** April 18, 2014, 01:24:39 PM »

Quote from: Brad Littlejohn

Brad G. and I can mention this at ZLA so we can make sure you have something, if not just to put the word out.

Aye, and I'll hop on CTR if no one else takes it. Otherwise, I'll try to grab LAS_APP (or perhaps schedule a training session during that time... ).

Rick Rump · « **Reply #5 on:** April 18, 2014, 08:55:12 PM »

Quote from: Brad Grafelman

(or perhaps schedule a training session during that time... ).

+1

Enjoy the nice long flight Lee!

Lee James · « **Reply #6 on:** April 19, 2014, 01:53:18 AM »

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE [/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Enjoy the nice long flight Lee![/quote]

Cheers guys! Brad, Neil and I are skilled enough (is that the right word?) to handle whatever you want us to do. Both of us have the FSDT Scenery for 'Vegas and will be flying FS2004 using Squawkbox for voice communication. We are also both current with US procedures and have the current charts.

Its 06:52 UTC here now - takeoff in just over the hour. Now prepping the aircraft.

See 'yer!

Lee

Bradley Grafelman · « **Reply #7 on:** April 19, 2014, 01:54:42 AM »

RNAV Visual Runway 7R approach it is.

Lee James · « **Reply #8 on:** April 19, 2014, 05:02:40 AM »

Brad,

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE [/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]RNAV Visual Runway 7R approach it is. [/quote]

I cannot find any approach chart for runway 07 at KLAS! Tried the usual - SKYVECTOR, AIRNAV and Navigraph - nothing about using 07 for arrivals.

I have refiled for the LUXOR2 anyway.

Cheers,

Lee

Lee James · « **Reply #9 on:** April 20, 2014, 04:49:38 AM »

Brad,

Just want to thank you for coming online in time to bring us in to Las Vegas yesterday!

Neil and I had a pretty flawless flight from London with no issues at all! I usually get something happen during a long haul (an OOM or a shutdown of some kind) but nothing happened and both Neil and I got some pretty choice video which will now be edited and uploaded to YouTube in the coming weeks.

Brad, we really appreciate you coming online for us - I know you seemed to get one or two newbies calling up yesterday who did not quite seem to know what they were doing! I guess when a Controller comes on everyone wants a piece of him!

Anyway, we had a fantastic flight - and made the trip in 10 hours and 28 minutes.

Thanks again,

Kind regards,

Lee James & Neil Warman
Senior Captains
British Airways Virtual

Bradley Grafelman · « **Reply #10 on:** April 20, 2014, 11:43:53 AM »

Glad I could help out. Also glad I fortunately woke up on time (yes, I'm a lazy bum on the weekends and sleeping till past 12:00pm isn't that out-of-character for me ).

Congratulations on a successful charity event - it's always awesome to see such positive results from what some consider nothing more than a hobby or even just a game.

Andrew Morkunas · « **Reply #11 on:** May 06, 2014, 09:46:31 PM »

Resurrexit alleluia, you can fly again.