So, I'm flying around the world. Using a flight simulator. I wouldn't have liked this idea if it weren't for how incredible Google Earth has gotten. Transcending my fondest hope for the ultimate "atlas" and then a programmer named Xavier adds GEFS-Online.com, an online flight simulator on top of it. It wasn't simple to get it to work. I had to use Internet Explorer, and downdate my Google Earth plugin to version 6.2... which I could only do using Chrome. And it freezes after about 150 miles of flying. But, thankfully, it starts me back where I left off. Unless I don't shut down properly. But, oh, does it work.
So far, I've done seven legs of this journey and have traveled 1514 miles in the air. If I'd flown point-to-point, it would have been 433 miles. As you can see, I meander a bit. And that's the point. I've been flying low. I'm taking a trip that reality wouldn't allow. I'd never fly under the Brooklyn Bridge (which I didn't do! I don't actually know the names of any of the bridges I've flown under).
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| First Seven Legs of My Flight |
I started at the Washington Monumnent in a Piper Cub. I figured that, if I ever make it back around again, I'll want a monumental destination. That's the first red line that starts in the southwest corner of this map.
The second leg, which is blue, had me in a Zlin Z-50- an aerobatic plane that was would have gladly flown upside down or sideways if I'd allowed it. It took me at an average speed of 140kts up through New Jersey, past the Statue of Liberty, up Manhattan to Central park, down again, and along Long Beach.
I used a DC-3 next to leave Long Island, visit Islands Fisher, Block, Nomans Land, Martha's Vinyard, Nantucket, and Cap Cod with a major diversion to see how Providence, Rhode Island is situated.
Ever since, I've taken to flying a slippery European jet trainer called the Dornier/Dasault Alpha Jet and which will gladly sprint to 550 kts and 45,000 feet at full throttle, but can be flown as slowly as 120 kts. It's maximum hypothetical endurance is about 1500 miles, and I expect to never need to go that far in one sitting without finding an airport to land and "refuel" at.
Despite the jet, I've been flying at between 100 and 200kts. I've flown over Boston, across Massachussetts, to Bennington VT, landed just north of Schenectaday, and continued up through the Adirondacks to Lake Placid, landed, and then flew up Lake Champlain all the way to Montreal, then down again across the tops of the Green Mountains to my local airport in Berlin (the only I've visited so far that I've actually taken off from in real life, though as a passenger, not as a pilot).
Flying at few thousand- and often just a few hundred feet above the ground gives a very intimate picture of how the land is laid out. I often have to supplement the picture with my imagination. Imagine the cars are moving, the trees are sticking up above the average height of the land, and that water reflects off the water. It's an active exercise that's completely worth while since, when I remember the experience, it's not hard to include the imagined attributes.
I've been seeing the world in a new way too. In a few short hours I know things I can't unknow about the country I live in- things I couldn't have felt out in any amount of driving. I've followed coastlines and rivers, canals and lakes, pushed over the tops of moutains, scanned beaches and islands I'd never known except to glance at, maybe, on a map. And I've visited monuments- gone out of my way to see things I've actually seen, to improve the connection between the two experiences overall.
It's really nothing like browsing an atlas. Going point-to-point provides a kind of connected context that my mind has a lot more respect for. My personal map of the world actually is expanding, filling in, fleshing out, in the most hoped-for way.
I don't know how much exploration I'll be able to do. I plan to cross the White Mountains next, then go up the Coast of Maine. I'm headed to Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and from there to Greenland, then Iceland. Before I started in Washington DC I took a test flight. I flew a DC-3 from a field in Greenland to the coast of Iceland. I did it in realtime, at a realistic speed, and without the benefit of autopilot. I wanted to know whether I could stand it. There are much vaster expanses than that in store for me if I persist.
I don't know yet what course I'll take. I've mapped out several courses. One is about 25k miles and takes me through Europe, across Asia, down to Australia, across Antarctica, and home via South America. That's the simplest interesting route I've considered. I'm already a thousand miles behind the pace if I'm going to get it done efficiently.
I've mapped a more ornate version that entails 45k miles- one that takes in some of Africa and the Far East.
And then I've mapped one that takes me to almost every country on Earth. The only exceptions are the occasional island nation. It clocks in at a minimum of 95k miles. It meanders mightily, as you can see bleow. It would take months of steady flying at the rate I'm going. Of course, I can speed up. It will still take months.
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| How to Visit Every Country in the Eastern Hemisphere |
Should I worry that I'm spoiling myself for an actual first view? When I fly over virtual Mont Blanc, Rome, Sahara, Pyramids, am I dulling the opportunity to actually visit these places, experience it with my own eyes?
Should I hold back? No. No explorer can be romantic about preserving the unknown. You have to kill the dragons.
