I spent a long time debating what plane to use. The final "short-list" included the Malibu, the Seneca, and Heinz Dziurowitz's Comanche 250. The Comanche had the longest range, and the Seneca had the added reliability of two engines, but I decided on the Malibu mainly because it has de-icing equipment. I went with the Mirage variant (46-350) because it had the longest range according to the documentation. (With retrospect, I could have saved a lot of time if I'd gone for the Meridian, as I never had to push the Mirage to the limit of its range.)
Anyway, I did a custom paint job for the plane (above) and named it "Phileas Fogg" after the Jules Verne character--from the BOOK, not all the movies that have been made over the years. I started from Delta County Airport in Escanaba, Michigan, heading east. I crossed the Atlantic via the Azores, took a detour to Turin to fly over the Alps, then flew the most politically-plausible route I could across the Middle East. (Another reason for picking the PA-46 was that it can cruise at 25,000 feet…well out of small-arms range. Hardly an issue in X-Plane, but it might be in real life.) On to India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Australia, taking another detour to see Ayer's Rock, then I started across the South Pacific. I got stuck for two weeks on the island of Aitutaki when my digital vacation was interrupted by a real one--ironically to Michigan. I finally made it across the Pacific to Chile, then proceeded north via Peru, Panama, Mexico, and New Orleans. I landed in Escanaba on September 1, 44 days after starting.
The flight was actually fairly uneventful as these things go. I only made one "unscheduled" landing, on Aitutaki when the autopilot went out. I could have hand-flown all the way to Fiji, but I didn't feel like sitting in front of my computer for six hours straight. Only twice did I encounter heavy weather, in American Samoa and again in Panama City, and I never had to use the anti-icing gear that was the reason for picking the Mirage in the first place. The GPS, with nav-radios as backups, made navigation a non-issue, even all those little Pacific islands.
So…has anybody else done anything like this, or am I the only one with WAY too much time on his hands?
TH
