Day 21: 1997-06-09
ATW Retro-blog: 1997-06-09 (Day#21)
Yakutsk (RU) – Magan(uncoded – RU)
8nm; 0h05; Hughes (833) / Cowan (962)
Magan (RU) – Tomtor(uncoded – RU)
388nm; 3h55; Hughes (833) / Cowan (962)
Breakfast not being available until 08h15 quashed hopes of an early departure. After a third encounter with the local TV crew (obviously desperate for something newsworthy) the Chipmunks made a couple of low passes at Magan to clear the runway of semi-wild ponies before landing to uplift fuel. Then began the four hour process of settling accounts (initially 6,000,000 roubles, but knocked-down by two thirds, before the additional 3,000,000 roubles for fuel, parking, ‘security’ (of course!) AND pony-chasing!).
Departure for Tomtor finally at 15h00 and four hours later, arrival to a 20 knot cross-wind. Just about the whole town was out to greet the intrepid aviators. Quite by surprise, a drum of Avgas was awaiting them, its source unknown. Accounts were settled quickly.
Since breakfast, nothing more than a Yorkie bar, but nothing available to eat in the town: people were simply living a subsistence existence. Eventually a loaf was provided and cut into six pieces with a knob of butter each.
[And today, in 2017, I’m off to have lunch with Bill and Pauline Purchase. Let’s hope there’s more awaiting me than a 2” lump of bread!! Think I’ll pick up a Yorkie on the way, just in case.]
Wild ponies canter around the airfield dispersal at Magan.
Tomtor has the distinction of having had the coldest recorded temperature in any inhabited locality.
My Cyrillic reading skills are rudimentary, but I can read numbers OK, and it looks like this stone tells us the record was -109.2F (-72C). That’ll freeze your lungs or your eye-lids shut in moments!
[Charlie, not quite right. -72º C is -97.6º F. The reference to 109.2 is the difference between the coldest temperature and the hottest, which would be +37.2º C. I42]
Day 21: UEEE-Magan-Tomtor 396 nm, 4 hrs, GS 99 kts. Cumulative 5530 nm, 57.68 hrs, Average GS 96 kts.
Last edited by India Four Two; 20th Jun 2017 at 07:01.