I have had a long and often bittersweet relationship with the Wilco Airbus series. I will elaborate more on that soon.It went to the extent of me getting frustrated and completely
decommissioning the type from the NorthSea fleet altogether . But recently after a chat with my colleague and a noteworthy figure in the Indian Flightsimming scene ,Mr. Ajith Menon ( you can catch him in the virtual skies of IVAO ) , I decided to give the Wilco Airbus Longhaul series a try again . And lets say the results far exceeded expectations . This was a proving flight to test the aircraft systems as to how it performs before it can be re-deployed in fleet services .The flight was with 0 pax and a complementary load of cargo as a freight run from Male Intl in Maldives to Bangalore . We were carrying a consignment of servers used in a local bank that are scheduled to be schedule serviced in the Indian IT City. The Aircraft is an ex-Qantas bird leased to NorthSea but still in its old colors ( which it will for some more time to come ) . Pictured above is NorthSea 1 in Male Intl.
Above shown is the flight in progress with the bird aruising at Fl320 though we had clearance to an optimum of Fl370 . We decided not to climb further as this was a relatively short flight . On the right and the third pic we see our flight hitting the Indian shores with some monsoon evidently in progress over Trivandrum kerala.
I have to admit that the flight was flawless. part of it because by now I was fairly well versed with some of its eccentricities in terms of speed restriction management by the FMGC (which )is still not impressive but in other flight regimes the plane excelled. While on approach at Bangalore Intl (VOBG ) a CatIII autoland was executed which went through with clock work precision all the way through descent , flare . touchdown and rollout. From a saved point while on final the same approach was handflown again by me and just following the flight director was enough for a smooth touchdown.The servers were delivered on schedule ( and in onepiece :p) .Save for any future unexpected and nasty surprises the plane is back in favor so many long missions for this beauty awaits . Next deployment of this airframe will be in the ongoing Around the World in 80 Flights Worldtour where it is expected to share space with a soon to be inducted A340 in the NorthSea fleet. 3 Greens and Keep the Sunny side Up !!
