We got off the ground at 11:52 local, and arrived in Changsha, China at 1:37. Despite our agreement to use English unless clarification was required, Wei insisted on talking to the controller in Mandarin, which I think confused him a bit. However, everything was quite unremarkable. Altitudes were, of course, in metric. The weather on arrival was hot and humid. The advertised visibility with 10km+, but I think this is a public relations move. Right now, they are still calling at 7km, but looking out the window, it can't be better than 3km.
This is Wei's home town, so again there was a big welcoming committee. They are saying this is the first single engine airplane to be allowed in to China, but it seems to me a Spanish airline captain flew a Kitfox to Oshkosh via China several years ago. Maybe he went through Taiwan. Also, I think a few single airplanes flew in from Burma during the Second World War. I'm really puzzled by what all the fuss is about. You'd think we'd achieved something remarkable. Now, if we'd been flying a Kitfox, I could have seen cause for celebration.
We were warned by the Boeing Business Jet captain who briefed us yesterday to expect a track offset clearance, but that did not happen. I suspect there is not much demand for the levels at which we fly. Frankly, things were pretty quiet all the way.
We are here for 3 nights, then off to Xianyang, followed by Beijing. Hopefully, based on today's performance, Wei will be able to negotiate a more civilized arrival time.
For some reason eurofpl would not accept our route BEKOL A461 LIG ZGHA. It changed the EET to several hours, so obviously it thought one of the waypoints was on another continent.
Al Hepburn
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8 comments:
It seems to me that both the AVG (Flying Tigers) and also the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy flew lots of single engined aircraft all over China between 1933-45, so I think they need to brush up on their history there!
The China Aviation Museum in Beijing has plenty of single engine aircraft on show, even a float equipped Canadian Beaver, and an ultralight if I recall. Many other single engine trainers and fighters from the WWII time frame.
Michael Shaw
I guess they don't want the facts to get in the way of wild claims!
Here is a photo of some single engined aircraft over China in 1942
At the link below one can see Single engine aircraft in the China Aviation Museum, near Beijing.
http://mikegail.com/html/single_engine_aircraft_in_chin.html
Michael Shaw
Oops, the correct link is
http://mikegail.com/html/single_engine_aircraft_in_chin.html
Michael Shaw
Kind of hard to argue that no one has ever flown a single engined aircraft in China when they were producing their own CJ-6s in the 1950s!
I looked it up and China operated French Caudron G.3 single engine reconnaissance aircraft in the First World War as one of the allies, although they didn't take part in any fighting. That would put the first single engine aircraft flown there at about 1914 or so.
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