Reading the last 2 posts by Pax Britanica and Saltykettle made me get my old log books out. I was lucky enough to fly VC10s from 1964 to '78 and many people have asked me which were my favourite routes. Two come to mind, the Caribbean ones via New York and Nassau or via Bermuda and on to Montego Bay, Kingston and Lima, or Port of Spain, or Mexico City.
But perhaps my favourite of all was the triangular Indian Ocean route. The crew itinerary varied but typically went something like this:- London - the Gulf (Bahrain, Dhahran, Abu Dhabi or Dubai) - Colombo - Hong Kong - Colombo - Seychelles - Jo'burg - Blantyre - Dar es Salaam - Khartoum - London. Or the other way round flying down through Africa via Addis Ababa to Jo'burg and then across to the Seychelles - Colombo - Hong Kong and back to London via India and the Middle East.
This trip took about 10 days and covered a marvellous variety of aeronautical interest - high altitude airfields, the monsoon in India, flying through and parallel to the ITCZ, the narrow runway at Blantyre, African ATC!! and of course Hong Kong itself. And if done in winter often some snowy or icy weather at London. Altogether a delightful mixture of cultural and flying enjoyment - and we had time off to do things unlike today's rat race.
Last edited by Bergerie1; 14th Oct 2011 at 12:24.