Now I know where the end of the earth!

Summer continues. Perhaps now is the "hay", the apogee of transport. The main work, as before
Charters of the regions and the capital of the resorts of the Turkish-Greek-Montenegro and the Spanish-Egyptian direction. But sometimes suddenly fall out quite so exotic voyages. On one of these flights today's story.

I will write when all.

Author: letchikleha.livejournal.com





I come back early in the morning from Ufa to Antalya, I come to want take a shower, brush my teeth while I load the page with the flight plan for the next day on the Internet (and it must be said that the network is, well, just really crap in the same Antalya.) Oppa tomorrow home! Finally something and then have two weeks ... Stop links. What's next? And then worth some four flights with unclear directions. I see that the flight from Murmansk, but what is not clear, and it is not clear from where in more clear where. I look at the planned time of flight, something like a far, almost 5 hours one way and the same amount even further. The crew planned to strengthen, so really far. Poryskav Internet Airport name define where to go and to be important once it becomes clear why, and someone to drive.
Where once in half a year, we carry out the delivery of custom flights sailors to their place of work, into the ocean.
The Day After Tomorrow was to take laborers fishing fleet to Dakhla in Western Sahara.
I think that is not very many of my readers, and indeed Russian citizens know that there is a country - Western Sahara, and even fewer people go there. That's what I heard the sound of (geography lessons in the fifth year of high school), but did not know where he is. But nothing to do, had to learn ...

He returned from Turkey and even the next day, in the evening, a passenger flew to Murmansk, to perform responsible tasks.
This fall to our north was unusually successful. It is not very high, but the sun is bright and welcoming, soft and warm weather with excellent visibility and a saucer of milk in the morning mist over the surface of the cooling water ...



In Murmansk zatamozhilis, arrange pologayu documents refueled and prepared for flight.
We carry two crew from two fishing seiner, only 140 people (actually 136 men and 4 women). Sailors people roughly, and not the timid, and are able to plunk from the heart and mangled wood for the heat. Before leaving, I went to the salon and held intimate conversations with them about the rules of conduct on board the aircraft, he explained the rights and duties of captain and above its powers. Fishermen people intelligent and disciplined, so the flight did not have no problems at all. (back way too nebylo no eksesov)
At 23 o'clock local time we broke away from the runway Murmashi and headed south.
Aircraft hard climbs, (still, complete refueling and full load, with a maximum takeoff weight possible.) If you typically recruit 10 000 for 12-15 minutes, now scrubbed nearly half an hour.
Once crossed the border into Finlyadiey, the controller immediately gave us a course directly to Copenhagen! It bolshii thousands of kilometers in a straight line.
Weather blagopriyatsvovala. Everywhere bezoblano and very quiet. Flowed endless hours of flight.
Hang over Finland, that's somewhere to the left of Kajaani (I once talked about this village deep in Suomi) Rovaniemi more ... Ahead of Sweden.
Time stretching gum, on the air almost silent, only occasionally heard callsigns restless loukostera Ryanair, but over the long-range trucks. Europe sleeps at night.
Closer to become Germany's busiest, but the reason is not to increase the traffic, just somewhere far, far ahead of the storm. Board who bypass the north, who are riding. Over Holland go into the clouds and begin to chat. Locator shows that over three hundred kilometers, we find ourselves in the heart of the huge front stretching from west to east, thousands of kilometers. It becomes more fun, there was work.
Amsterdam, Brussels ... Ahead of France.
The front is really very powerful and asking 360 level (11 000 meters), it is not We reach the top. Still talking about the devil, it appeared more and icing. We must get out of here! Please bypass the West and received approval to take a course directly to Paris.
In the sky, played the whole light of lightning is so often a bright light up the sky that can be seen all around as the day and we use it, we are more visually bypass the heap than looking at the radar. Suddenly everything becomes clear and the bottom front of us the city that many people in the world want to see and die.
Paris.



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But this is only the appearance of being, in fact, very close to the city of the mighty storm activity and it is not visible until the discharge occurs, but it is necessary to flash as ... Paris by storm.



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Between flashes of the capital in full. Charles de Gaulle ...



Let's go farther south. Thunderstorms weaken and it's time to fall.
We made a technical landing for refueling in Chateauroux, a small town, about two hundred kilometers from a small town. Why is there, I do not know (as defined by the customer) can be there the fuel is cheaper, it can be for some other reason. Chateau at night does not work and we came back to order. People are not seeded, winged fire engines, a ladder and a second 40 minutes later, we're back recruited echelon.



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Kstaiti in Chateauroux Peron stood on a single plane, and it was ... IL-76. White and unmarked.
Dlshe path ran through Spain. Over Spain and then everything was clean. Madrid, Seville, Gibraltar ...



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Gibraltar struck. On the part of Spain still in the lights, and I feel that there is life with the African side - darkness.
We are waiting for the Atlantic.
The route ran away from the coast, about three hundred kilometers to the west (although back were strictly along the coast, through Agadir, Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat. So arranged tracks)
Night over the ocean, an unforgettable sight. So the stars are not visible from where probably longer, perhaps only in the Himalayas has yet to see such a sky in Antarctica. Beach remains far behind, in front of emptiness.



Two hours later, the Canary Islands on the horizon. Communication becomes more alive, growing traffic.



We try to learn from Canar weather Dakhla, but in return we get a thousand pardons, and that the weather of the airport, they told us or what will not.
Retreating naeskolko back, I want to clarify something. When we were preparing to Western Sahara, he was surprised to learn that the world's leading meteosayty not issued at the request of the weather GMMH (ICAO code Airport Dachau)
With some difficulty found maps of West Africa and airport schemes. The information is so scarce that the impression of complete isolation in the region, later it turned out that way, and it really is.
From the Canaries we turn to the southeast and another forty minutes start to decline. Decreases to the point that CABEL 200 kilometers north of Dakhla. This is not a drive, not a beacon, not a city, or even locality, it's just the coordinates of the planet, which was named after. Canaries decline to give a hundredth flight level (3,000 meters) wish we somehow too much for fatherly and wistfully successful landing and forgiven.
Uh - uh! Stop, stop! A frequency who will speak?
Canaries again wildly apologize, but their huge Unfortunately, they do not know the frequency of the lower space of Dakhla, and in the upper space is not there ...
dvizhuhi Sailed!
In our leaflets with information about the airport and only two frequency "approach and the Tower." Getting cause Dakhla. First approach. In response - like a fish in the depths of the silence. Inviting tower, the result is similar.
It is somehow not cozy. Yes, even here in the east begins to flash lightning. Again include radar, but at the rate things are pure. More in a moment lost the stars and see the glow of their own gates in space, but no clouds! Around mutno- black haze. Neither earth nor sky, a very unpleasant feeling. I catch myself thinking that are beginning to emerge spatial illusions (when it seems that the fly somehow sideways, and the instrument shows exactly that.) When these "bugs" need to force yourself to believe the instruments and only to them. Your body is telling you one thing and your eyes see something else. Continues to fall and cause Dakhla. Tension is growing, because there is no connection, and where we are, we can only guess. According to the idea, in the absence of clouds and from such a height, that same Dakhla we already have seen in front of 10 miles at a glance, but in front of the impenetrable darkness, without a hint of the presence of land. Aircraft gently stirs and shower only flashes storobov. They begin to creep into various bad mvsli ... And what if something quietly glyuknul, and we did not notice?
Check altimeters, everything seems to be working properly, altimeter may not show the true height (2500 feet he starts to work), then the stock adjustment is. Gore is not here, it means below the minimum safe altitude has not fallen ... But hell, where they all go? Begins to conduct additional briefing that if something and then what do we do.
Then out from nowhere appears in front of the glow, not even in front, but rather straight from the plane. Such yellow, unpleasant, dull glow and more through paru- three seconds shown outlines of the city. No, it is not the city, and some of the settlement, while the speakers is heard a sleepy voice manager "Bonzhyur ..." Taaaak, dryh mean bastard!



Current time in five in the morning.
At first phrase is clear that the English have bAAAAlshie Manager problems, but we have his tongue somehow to the lamp, the main thing that he was awake. Manager trying to ask us, we vidimli band? What gets a natural answer - no! e!
 - Eskyuzmua Monsieur! Manager tried to apologize
 - Chegoooo ..?
And after a couple of seconds, it includes coverage of airport
Hardly, he squeezes out in English (if you can call it that) permission to approach and landing, well, thank you! Next we have the controller is not needed, on a technical matter. Perform approach, anchored in the black water, several ships, and in front of the band.



For almost ten-hour flight eyes were watery and everything floats softly, and sharpness can simply navёl ....?

Posted in [mergetime] 1314725804 [/ mergetime]
Well, that's got! Allah is great, or who's they? Yes, it does not matter, the main thing sat ...

End of part 1, 2 start ...



Local Time 5:00 05 minutes. Planting. Pitch darkness. About dawn reminds nothing more. No one pink and blue stripes on the horizon at home, not even a hint of black at the end of the night on the black continent ...



Srul the runway at taxiway backbone and rolled themselves on Peron (do not dare call it that!)
If you look at a picture of Dakhla airport from space, it is very clearly seen that the band is black, asphalt and taxiway as not completed and dirt.



When I Srul taxiway and steer her by, first, everything was fine. Little blue lights on the edges, a black coat and a guess on it axis, caustically The drawing-yellow paint, but literally within 200-300 meters, suddenly coverage ends abruptly and ahead of only whitish desert and continuing blue lights.
I braked sharply (forgive me maremany sitting in the cabin), if one of them got up from his seat during taxi, be hundred percent welled up and then something currently injured. The plane jerked and stopped. Is rulezhka left unfinished? Well no shit can not see! Included landing lights. Ff-yyy, relieved. Shoals of sand and dust like snow rifts in Norilsk! Keep the plane on the brakes and turns infer more, then I throw the brakes and accelerates steadily, before the "sand drifting snow" tidy ore at low gas and at high speed to slip sandstone. (so less likely to "suck" the engine nasties)
On a tiny Peron man in white waving his arms, pretending to "marshal." Teams have nothing to do with the standard gestures adjustment, but that does not matter. We parked, stop watches, Total 9 hours 43 minutes of pure time in the sky.
Yanking the window and cool completely dry air rushes into the cabin. Strange, strange atmosphere, without smells and emotions. While reading the check sheet after off until smoked until the magazine is full, this and that, on the street visibly brightened. The sky is not stellar, and even dark blue. Soon, very soon the sun will rise.



Our second pilot Roman, in this voyage, all of us, not only very cool rescued, but also allowed to expand their horizons. The whole trick is that Romka is fluent in Russian, English, and the most important thing in Arabic. Romka - Lebanese. He was born in Russia (this is the same, he was born in Tver, and lived in three of my houses, when I still was in Migalovo!) Romka disaccustomed several classes at home and went then with his parents in Lebanon, Beirut, he studied in England school and then returned, entered and successfully graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Civil Aviation. Romka have dual citizenship.
When the cab entered the local representative of the Aboriginal and began to speak in English-Arabic Move, we realized that communication will be painful. After a couple of phrases, Romka broke down and faltered in the second language. Like the mountain had been lifted from his shoulders, everything just fell into place. We are no longer afraid of misunderstanding. Arab cheered and drew all its 32 snow-white teeth.
First impressions of what he saw in Dakhla, as expected, proved to be deceptive. Just fantastic (by their standards of course) airport. All of granite and marble, decorated with oriental ornaments, with handwritten oil portraits of the rulers of the country, the father (the former) and a son (the present), the most advanced equipment.



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A small note:
In order to get to the airfield, airport officials admitted initially applied personal ID card to the terminal, and then the thumb to a special scanner that reads the fingerprint, compares it with the base and opens the door of bulletproof glass!
Mariners local pograntsy shaken thoroughly. They forced open the luggage ransacked their things and carefully checked passports. We also missed out on the green corridor.
Out on the street, we were surprised to see that the sun had come out of the horizon, and confidence tends upward. Sun in Africa is not as we do, it is blindingly white, without a hint of redness or yellowness. Now we understand why did not immediately see the city and the airport with a decrease. Absolutely colorless whitish sky and thick. yellowish haze. The local climate is very different from the general climate of the desert. Cold water cooled down the Gulf Stream pulls the cooled air from the north arctic latitudes and at the same time, hot winds from the Sahara in the same flock to the coast. Here on the west coast of Africa, constant temperature, fluctuating in the range 22-26 degrees, the constant winds of 10-15 meters per second and eternal darkness. Often there are sandstorms, but probably not as powerful as in the depths of the desert, but worsen the visibility and the city of dust falling asleep.
The temperature difference between water and air makes the air hazy and noticeable. It is said that there are very bright and sunny days, but quite rare.
Out on the square in front of the station, still it felt like we were in a fairyland richest sheikhs, colorful peacocks, busty mulatto and all-powerful sultans, but vague doubts have emerged. Cars parked in the parking lot at the airport, well, just not consistent with the splendor of the country's air gates.



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NISSAN PATROL, probably 77-78 years since release and more ancient Opel (model and have not determined) were waiting for us on the square ...



What we have seen in a couple of minutes, having left the air port, just threw us into a state of shock.
Such poverty, I have not seen anywhere else! (of course if we do not take into account lost in the Russian hinterland, godforsaken village) Dakhla, is the largest and richest city in Western Sahara (as we found out later), but the standard of living here "through the floor", below any fantasies about poverty.



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The city hotel is the only one acceptable level. Hotel (remember the movie "White Sun of the Desert"? There's customs house Vereshchagin was a fabulous oasis in a completely lifeless space) BAB AL BAHAR, it's just some sort of phantasmagoria, just unreal vision, a mirage. Red granite, marble-paved promenade in both directions from the hotel, and a wonderful view of the bay.



Non-matched appearance. Huge, Uslan carpets, with elements of "sweet oriental life." In my room, overlooks the sea, a large balcony with a day bed for relaxation, a huge bed and a completely elusive, but a heady smell of freshness.



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Not hard breakfast and agreed to meet four hours later, we went to our rooms and fell into the realm of Morpheus. All very tired, too long, and the night was too many events had happened in the past day.





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