Originally Posted by
V1... Ooops
You won't have a problem with ATC, everyone will speak English sufficiently well.
Where you will have a problem is ground handling. It is essential that you make advance arrangements for a local handler to facilitate your fuel stops, night stops, flight plan filing, that kind of stuff.
I have made many intercontinental ferry flights in small turboprops (Twin Otters) from North America to Asia & the Pacific via Russia, transiting Anadyr, Magadan, then on to Khabarovsk or Vladivostok and further south through North Korean airspace. Never had a problem - but, I always used a local handler at each stop. Even after making a dozen landings at the same Russian airport, I'd still make darn sure I had a handler.
To try and make a flight such as you have described without using a facilitator to organize the trip & make sure you have handlers at each stop along the way would be foolish.
Thanks for good advice there!
We would likely use the "makgas.com" company for handling and assistance within Russia and Mongolia. We are PPL pilots who do not speak Russian, so to keep a degree of realism to our plan we would need the support you describe. We are confident that we can do the stick and rudder work from all the A's to B's if we plan well ahead, but like you say there are a lot of things that need to work out on the ground.
We sent a query here the other day to "makgas" and first impression is that they are very helpful and professional indeed, just like their website suggests. When, or if, things start to materialize, we will request a quote and sketch up an itinerary together with them.
As for flying low level VFR I haven't looked at Jeppesen charts yet. I fear that we will need to deviate with a lot of zigs and zags along the way to avoid areas that are forbidden for private flights. Would prob be easier if we could cruise at a high altitude FL. The chopper has a 19000 ft ceiling, but it's not fitted with ox system (I think), so FL100 is prob the best we can generally plan for.
Will keep you guys posted on how this goes. Many things might happen, first the chopper needs to get bought and that is pending that it all checks out ok. Then there's the flying through China obstacle, but we are working on that. Corona we can't do anything about, so we just need to be optimistic🙂
All costs also need to be estimated as good as possible up front to get some idea of what we are looking at.
Thanks for all advice guys!