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World Odyssey |
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From Russia with Love Tuesday 12 June
In Stockholm we run across a guy called "Q" who also flew around the world in a heli (in the center between me, Michel and our respective girlfriends). Sheer coincidence as there are only 4 other teams that have ever done this as far as we know. Q was flying back from Moscow and just happened to be refueling in Stockholm at the same time we were. He gives us some useful advice, such as "as a helicopter you can ignore all formalities and just fly wherever you want." Well, we try this with rather mixed results as you're about to read.
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We find out that the delay in getting our entry permit is due to the authorities being concerned that we will get lost in the Siberian wilderness, even with our Russian navigator on board. We assure them we have GPS (global positioning system) which is an extremely reliable satellite system that makes navigation easy and almost foolproof. So we finally get our permission to enter Russia, but as luck would have it, on the way from Helisinki to St. Petersburg, the "foolproof" GPS system fails and none of our 3 onboard navigations systems works. All of the GPS satellites simply shut down on us. A GPS blackout like this is extremely rare and something we have never experienced before. We wonder whether the American military, who owns the GPS system, had something to do with it as we are, come to think of it, over enemy territory.
Anyway, we navigate the last leg into St. Petersburg using visual landmarks on the ground and a Russian aviation map (with only Russian symbols no less). Our Russian navigator makes a little booboo in plotting our course and takes us over some sensitive military areas. Over the radio we hear that two Russian jets are prepared with pilots in the cockpit and engines running to find out who we are. Needless to say, we have no desire to meet them. Thankfully, the navigation error is resolved before the jets take off, but this little incident has our heli "grounded" by the Russian military in St. Petersburg for one day. No big hardship, as there is plenty of sightseeing to do in St. Petersburg. To keep ourselves amused, we even manage to find a Russian MI-8 helicopter to play with. To get into the spirit of things, Michel starts to wear a Siberian hat to prepare himself for the trip out east. A few phone calls to Moscow and the "navigation issue" is finally resolved.
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Copyright Dari Shalon 2004 |
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Our second day in St. Petersburg is due to the Moscow region being closed to VFR traffic (visual flight rules) because of bad weather. At this point we have now seen all of the essential tourist sights in St. Petersburg, so we're ready to move on. Tomorrow, inshallah and weather permitting, we will head to Moscow for a day or two, and from there into the great unknown of Siberia, with or without GPS. I will sign off now, as I just returned from dinner with my Russian navigator where we had a contest to see who can drink more vodka and still remain sober. I've learned a lesson: never challenge a Russian to a drinking game... |
