Today was a long day’s flying. Originally we planned two legs but strong headwinds from the displaced westerly jet stream well to the south of its normal track made it prudent to have an extra fuel stop and to amend our routing to accommodate this. Mike Gray of White Rose efficiently obtained the new clearances for us.
We filed to depart Al Ain at 0300Z (7 am local) so it was up soon after 5 am; the hotel provided a picnic breakfast (which did lunch as well for us) and a taxi was waiting to take us back to the airport. All went smoothly there until we heard that our flight plan had not been accepted; getting a new one planned and through the local system was a faff which took some time so we were airborne 30 minutes late. The new flight plan involved a lengthier routing (not evident from the distance shown below) and with very strong headwinds, this set the tone of the day with everything taking longer than anticipated.
Phil flew the first leg to Riyadh; the TAF spoke of a 10 kt crosswind for landing but on arrival it was blowing at 21 kt across the runway which made for a decidedly tricky landing. Turn round was brisk and I flew the next leg which was a long haul into a 50-60 kt headwind.
Hurghada was busy with charter traffic (Saturday change over?) and at one moment, we thought we may be sent into the hold but we slowed down for the last thirty miles and in the end, all was well. Again turn around was quick and Phil flew the last leg of the day into Heraklion where we landed into a setting sun shortly before 6 pm local time. Airport formalities were quickly completed and we were off to our hotel and thence to a fishy dinner in a good local restaurant where we had dined out on the first day of the trip.
We were in three continents today; Asia (Arabia), Africa (Egypt) and finally Europe (Crete) and traversed three seas – the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean covering around 2,000 nm in 9 hr 35 min with an average headwind component of around 45-50 kt, not bad for a light aircraft in a day!
Al Ain to Riyadh 496 nm in 2 hour 45 min
Riyadh to Hurghada 758 nm in 3 hour 30 min
Hurghada to Heraklion 667 nm in 3 hour 20 min