Olympic Air Virtual (OAV)
Supersonic Subsidiary
Formula 1 World Tour 2014
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Welcome to the OAV World Tour following the F1 race events around the world in 2014 flying exclusively the chartered Concorde flights by OAV’s Supersonic subsidiary.
The below report is about a set of 36 flights that have been scheduled to follow the F1 races schedule from March to November 2014. Concorde may fly twice the speed of sound but has an operational range which does not exceed ~3,500nm. Hence many race to race destinations are connected with intermediate “pit stops” so as to make the connection possible.
The flights found in OAV’s dispatch office and FSA are with callsigns “F1WTxxS” with xx being the flight’s incremental number.
NOTE: You have to be an OAV Pilot to login and see the flights in Dispatch Office and OAV's FSA pages.
The whole schedule -attached at bottom of this post - has been set so as to fly – when possible – one flight per week which can last from 1 to 4 hours maximum depending on the case.
In some specific rare cases more than one flights have to be executed in one week to make the schedule.
A decluttered map indicating most (but not all) of the characteristic flights of this world tour.
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The flights, like all of OAV, will take place on line in VATSIM/IVAO networks.
The flight plans are custom made for Concorde in order to avoid supersonic flight above populated areas and preferably most of them are above water.
Twenty nautical miles from shores was the Concorde minimum for avoiding the “sonic boom” to populated areas. This is maintained in most cases where flying around peninsulas, mainland portion etc.
Where possible, the flight track still remains within ground DME stations’ range to facilitate INS’s alignment. The intra continent overland European flights are subsonic flights to be flown conventionally above mainland Europe within Eurocontrol airways.
All flight plans were also uploaded to VROUTE for quick Flight Log & Flight Plan file generation for various FSX support software (weather, navigation) and they conform to SID, STAR connections as per charts valid in March 2014. Some specific flights which could not pass Eurocontrol route validation are visible only in VROUTE’s “Olympic Air Virtual” community but can also be extracted from the above attached spreadsheet anyway.
Highlights:
March 6th finds us leaving Male Maldives VRMM for a pit stop across the Indian Ocean to Perth Australia YPPH in just under 4hrs with no land within reach from departure to arrival. INS alignment will be critical there since there is no DME in range during the whole flight. Then next week a short supersonic flight brings the aircraft to Melbourne YMML for the race.
On end of March the flights proceed from Melbourne back to Perth and on to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia WMKK.
Indonesia territory which is overflown during the last 1/4th of the flight will be flown subsonic.
April 3rd flight will be crossing the Indian ocean from Kuala Lumpur via the, by now, infamous strait of Malacca (from the disappearance of flight MAH370) avoiding Indonesia territory and then west towards south abeam Sri Lanka and India’s south shores over to Bahrain OBBI on a critical for fuel flight bringing Concorde to the limit since headwinds are predicted. Bahrain is also of great significance to us until the 80’s it was a regular Concorde destination from London Heathrow.
Later in April the Concordes will return to Asia from Bahrain and fly back and forth between Phuket Thailand VTSP and Pudong China ZSPD crossing supersonic the narrow China–Taiwan strait by still avoiding getting closer than 20 n. miles from the shores.
First weekend of May will have an unusual flight scenario (simulated !). Concordes will depart Phuket Thailand VTSP for a 4hr flight to Djibouti HDAM in Africa as pit stop before continuing with the next flight to Barcelona Spain LEBL. The small African state of Djibouti is neighbored by Somalia to the south (just 14km from the airport), Eritrea to the north and Yemen across the Gulf of Aden. Political unrest and armed conflicts seized only 14 years ago in Djibouti. Still though, our local dispatcher has warned us that they cannot guarantee security for the aircraft parked overnight at the airport and the passengers while at Djibouti. They advised us to reduce the stay there to a minimum. Hence the Concordes participating in the flight will keep minimum exposure of the flight to the locals with a low profile presence involving even a special approach path for flying away from the city when low in to the approach for landing. The aim is for the aircraft to refuel immediately while the passengers stretch nearby and then to depart as soon as possible for the 3.5 hr flight to Barcelona. More info. on the day of the flights !
The next tricky flight from Djibouti to Barcelona involves a flight over the Red Sea avoiding Egypt and Saudi Arabia territory until approaching the Gulf of Suez. The flights will affect by "Sonic Boom" some 260nm of flight track over Egypt's territory near Suez.
(Simulated!) For Egypt to give the one off approval for this overland supersonic exemption they have obliged the Concorde to route in the middle between Cairo and Port Said cities, over a sparsely populated area within which Concorde will fly at least 20nm away from the populated cities' outskirts.
Once in to the Mediterranean sea the flights will continue by routing Supersonic only over water via southwest abeam Crete of Greece and then via a carefully custom planned track that remains at least 20nm from the shores of Malta, Sicily of Italy, Tunisia and Sardinia of Italy. By the time the Concordes will be descending for Barcelona flying close abeam Menorca of Spain they will be subsonic again.
The rest of May involves subsonic flights within mainland Europe until first week of June. Then the Concorde’s will speed back and forth the Atlantic from Dublin Ireland EIDW to Montreal Canada CYUL for the next race.
[July 2014 Update]:
In between connecting flights have been added for those who want to avoid intra European Subsonic continental flights.
They are with A callsign suffix instead of S in the reference spreadsheet.
Mid June to first week of September involves subsonic conventional flights again across mainland Europe until the aircraft depart Milano Italy LIMC for Singapore WSSS on Sept. 11th via Dubai OMDB.
The flight from Dubai again around India and Sri Lanka's south shores over to Malacca strait avoiding Indonesia territory is a stretch to the limit for Concorde's range.
On the switch from September to October then the transfer to South Korea’s Incheon RKSI involves one more flight via narrow China–Taiwan strait with an inefficient detour inside Korea’s airspace due to areas blocked by military. After the Incheon race there is a short 500nm almost subsonic flight to nearby Osaka Japan RJBB Kansai airport built on reclaimed land.
On first week of October the transfer then from Osaka Japan to next race in Sochi Russia URSS involves two pit stop flights. The first will take the Concordes from Osaka to Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Siberia Russia UNNT via sparse populated areas of China and Mongolia.
Pyongyang (Simulated!) granted OAV permission to use N. Korean airspace above Japan Sea but did NOT clear the Concordes to fly over their territory, especially supersonic, due to bad relations with the west! Hence the aircraft will cross from Sea of Japan on to mainland Asia flying exactly over the North Korea’s border with China and Russia for 20 n.miles (60 seconds !) in a small detour to avoid north Korean territory.
Then the week fater the Concordes will leave Siberia and fly supersonic via sparsely populated Kazakhstan areas to Russia’s Sochi URSS south of Caucasus mountain range on the shores of the Black Sea.
In mid October the Concordes will commence their long journey to next race location of Austin Texas KAUS.
The first flight will take the Concordes from Sochi Russia to Keflavik Iceland BIKF with one more challenge.
Russian Federation (Simulated!) forbid flights over Ukraine’s Crimea Simferopol FIR (UKFV) due to latest political unrest and the flight plan had to be rerouted a bit further north (54nm extra track worth) en route to Iceland.
[July 2014 Update]:
Flight F1WT28S URSS->BIKF has been amended so as to avoid not only Crimea UKFV FIR but also Dnipropetrovsk UKDV FIR where the Downing of B772 MH-17 took place on 17/7/2014 east of DON Donets'k VOR
The flight routes only via Russian airspace and then Baltic and Scandinavia. The flight is SUBSONIC up to BOR VOR of Sweeden.
The last 920nm of the 2,530nm flight up to Iceland's coast ING VOR can be executed supersonic.
If that was not enough (Simulated!) Russian Federation and Sweden (up to BOR VOR) have not granted yet the overland supersonic cruise above their territory for this flight and 2/3rds of the flight to Keflavik may have to be executed subsonic. More info. on the day of the flight.
October 23rd will be the day of another special 3:50 flight. In a time span of less than 4 hrs the Concordes will depart Keflavik BIKF at day time, it will get night dark en route and by the time they reach their destination Anchorage Alaska PANC it will be day time again. The reason will be the POLAR route they will follow which brings them just 175nm abeam the North Pole (at 8700N latitude) where the sun is below the horizon due to Earth’s curvature.
Last “special” 4hr flight en route to Austin in end of October will be the one from Anchorage PANC to Austin following USA’s western coast. The FAA (Simulated!), as expected, did not allow supersonic flight over US territory. Hence the Concordes will fly on a special route all the way south following the US western coast, abeam Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Once they clear US airspace they will turn East in to Mexico. (Simulated!) Mexico’s state approved supersonic overland flight following a generous donation by OAV’s president towards environmental development funds! By the time the flights will be in to the descent to Austin and in subsonic speed, at Monterey FIR, they will enter US airspace again at 175nm from destination.
The last set of flights inside November includes circumventing two continents to remain over water but close to shores. Flight from Austin to next race of Sau Paolo Brazil SBGR will be via Barbados TBPB, OAV’s supersonic subsidiary hub circumventing South America’s eastern territory. From Brazil the flights will speed across the Atlantic to Kotoka Ghana Africa DGAA in 4hrs on another critical flight for the INSs since there is no DME in range for the whole flight.
Third week of November will be the last and busiest one.
From Ghana the flights will route to Cape Town South Africa FACT to circumvent Africa continent. Then they will proceed to OAV’s (SS) other hub of Mauritius FIMP avoiding mainland Africa and Madagascar. Eventually the last flights will proceed from Mauritius direct to Abu Dhabi OMAA of UAE for the last race routing abeam Madagascar and Seychelles via the Arabian Sea.
Enjoy the ride
