Recreating "The Hump"

[Guest Bill Kestell]

Hi, John.

 

I've read accounts of aircraft being in visual contact while enroute, though the impression I got was that this was more a coincidence rather than a planned hook-up. Still, with hundreds of flight ops ongoing simultaneously in a relatively confined area (the major fields in Eastern Assam) ... with many of them heading to a single location, Kunming, I can see it happening. So many questions ... so little time. :D

[Guest John Girard]

I'm reopening an old thread here and am curious if anyone is interested in revisiting this topic. Bill, Romeo 33 Delta, joined BVA just before the plan fell through the cracks. Since then he and I have discussed this at length. Bill's dad was a pilot lost over the Hump and my dad was also a pilot there at the same time so we have more than a passing fancy for this. Bill has sent me detailed maps with routes as well as FSX airports for the airbases located in the CBI Theater during WWII. These are complete with accurate runways, buildings, parked vintage a/c, and even working NDBs. These are all easily downloaded and installed as FSX scenery files! He also has a collection of vintage a/c such as C-46, C-46, C-54. A fantastic recreation ready to use. I also found it easy to add the basic FSX defAult pop-up comm panel since the vintage panels are accurate but difficult to tune in the sim. For those of you who don't like NDB nav, you could load the default GPS just as easily. Let us know if you are interested.

[Guest Jorge Salguero]

As usual, I'm interested, unless the time doesn't suit me at all. Count me in for now

[Guest Bill Kestell]

Just chiming in ... as JohnJMG wrote, we have just about everything we need put together so it shouldn't be much longer. Generally it looks like we would stage flights out of one or more of the Upper Assam Valley bases (Chabua, Sookerating, Dinjan) and fly to Kunming and back via one of two routes. High Hump (@1943) requiring minimum 20,000/21,000 foot cruising altitude along a single course out and back or the Low Hump (@ late 44 onward) requiring 15,000/16,000 foot cruising altitude along Route Easy outbound and Route Charlie inbound. I have checked and I had no problems flying the MS DC-3 on the Low Hump. More in a bit.

[Guest Bill Kestell]

Hello, everybody ...

 

Just to let you know that IT IS MOVING FORWARD. We're just ironing out some minor glitches and are now hand-in-hand with Evan and the A-Team. It's not just a dream any more!

[Guest John Girard]

I want to chime in on this and to try add a bit of perspective for any members not very familiar with the air transport operations in China-Burma-India Theater (CBI) during the 1940's. I realize that many, if not most, BVA members enjoy flying mostly modern jet airliners. This event, in my mind, is a chance to look back and compare today's a/c with those of 70 years ago in the most realistic way we can. The a/c used in the Hump Operation were designed in the 1930's for the civil aviation market. No one imagined these planes having to fly over the Himalayan Mountains under the worst possible conditions. Additionally, (and many BVA members should be able to relate to this) the vast majority of crew members were not seasoned airline pilots but were young men in their early twenties with minimum flying experience. The NavAids were few and primitive by today's standards - NDBs only - no radar, no GPS, no VOR, no DME, and not even accurate maps. Early on, the crews included a trained navigator who could navigate by celestial navigation. That was quickly cancelled because the weather was so bad that celestial nav was virtually impossible. The weather was, arguably, the harshest in the world for flying. Winds sometimes reaching 100+ mph at altitude, icing was common for the entire 1,000 mile round trip, heavy fog was common on takeoff and landing. The a/c were not pressurized and cockpits were heated by gasoline burning stoves which were inherently dangerous given that the cargo was often a load of 55-gallon drums of 100 octane gasoline. A/C were often loaded beyond their maximum rated capacity and flown at their maximum altitude. At the Chinese end of the trip, the a/c were defueled to a level considered necessary for the return trip - sometimes there was not enough to make it back to India. The urgency of the mission was such that, at one point, the general commanding the operation declared that, "There will be no weather over the Hump." This meant that no pilot was authorized to abort his flight nor return to base because of adverse weather. The resulting casualties were such that this operation was the only one in WWII for which the Presidential Unit Citation was awarded to a non-combat unit. Aircrew that survived a crash or bailed out faced a daunting challenge. Some spent months hiking to safety out of the mountains and jungle. I've made quite a few flights in the sim over this route but I'm really looking forward to flying it within the realistic scenario that BVA can give us.

[Cody Outten]

I'm on break so I'd be willing to help.

[Gilles Lagace]

BVA's Events Team (the E-Team) will gladly support and help with this project. :)

 

The E-Team is a group of BVA members that work together in collaboration with our Scenery Team to scout airports and check if the scenery file for an airport is up to date, we also prepares routes and flight plans that our pilots and controllers use in our scheduled Events. Please view our "Calendar & Overview" webpage regularly to plan attending our Events.

 

You should see "The Hump" project posted there, when the organizers are all set with final details for this recreated historical Event.

 

http://www.bostonvirtualatc.com/Events/CalendarandOverview.aspx

[Evan Reiter]

The Hump has officially been added to our events calendar for 2015! This exciting, unique event will be held on the weekend of July 11-12.

 

The first day of the event will involve a briefing on the flight to follow, including some learning materials about the way navigation was managed before the advent of GPS, radar, and other modern methods. The briefing is scheduled to begin at 1pm ET on Saturday, July 11.

 

Following that, the flight itself will take place at 1pm ET on Sunday, July 12. The trip across the mountains takes just under 4 hours, including potential time spent in the "stack" at the arrival airport.

 

Mark your calendars. This will be like no BVA event we're ever held before.

 

More information about the event will be posted on our website in 2015.

[Guest Jorge Salguero]

If you need help coordinating stuff, I can lend a hand. Let me know if you need anything, and count me in!

[Guest Grant Williams]

Uhm... hi... I'm back, kinda.

 

I will wait until I get off work at 6 tonight to hop on and read everything that I have missed out on and catch up with everything that has been said!

 

Glad to be back! :)

[Guest Grant Williams]

Okay, so I'm kind of caught up on everything that has happened since I was gone. Is someone making a pack for this with everything needed, or what's going happening! I'm excited to kinda be back. :)

[Guest John Girard]

Welcome back. Since, I think, you first brought up the subject of creating a Hump Event, it is great you are again with us. Romeo 33 Delta has done a lot of work on the plan and he proposed, with my input, it to Evan and the three of us discussed it in pretty general terms during a phone call. Evan introduced it to the A-Team and E-Team. The E-Team (Events Team) approved it as an official event and has it tentatively scheduled for July. It is in their hands now. Contact Airtangofive for more info and to volunteer your help/ideas. At this early stage nothing specific has been promulgated so I think there is plenty of opportunity for input. There are many other events in various stages of planning so I'm sure that the planning tempo will increase as other events are completed.

[Evan Reiter]

The event has been scheduled over two days:

- Pre-event briefing: July 11, 1-2:30pm ET

- Flight: July 12, beginning at 1pm ET

 

Bill ('Romeo 33 Delta') has done amazing work in getting together aircraft, scenery, and route packages for us to use. I'll be working with Steve ('TheBlueRiband') and our Events Team to make this event happen this July. Of course, I expect John and Bill to be key parts of the team, and we'd love to have you as well given you came up with the original concept!

[Gilles Lagace]

The event has been scheduled over two days:

- Pre-event briefing: July 11, 1-2:30pm ET

- Flight: July 12, beginning at 1pm ET

 

Bill ('Romeo 33 Delta') has done amazing work in getting together aircraft, scenery, and route packages for us to use. I'll be working with Steve ('TheBlueRiband') and our Events Team to make this event happen this July. Of course, I expect John and Bill to be key parts of the team, and we'd love to have you as well given you came up with the original concept!

 

Contact Airtangofive for more info and to volunteer your help/ideas.

By all means, the Events Team is supporting the efforts for "The Hump" but we are not the leaders of the Event. We look forward to having the INFORMATION and PACKAGES be shared in this Forums by the those who own the original concept, and those helping them along the way.

 

Thanks again for this great idea! ;)

[Guest Bill Kestell]

Hi, folks!

 

Well, I just finished the "Flying the Hump Challenge" and I can't tell you how much fun I had this afternoon. I've been flying the Hump for over 2 years, but this was the first time I got to fly it with a SKY-FULL of C-46s and C-47s and with REAL, LIVE ATC!

 

My hats off to Evan and all you BVA folks who labored on this behind the scenes. Kudos as well to you marvelous controllers who did real Yeoman service. Who ever heard of non-radar ATC??? In US Navy terminology: BRAVO ZULU! And I want to give a "shout out" to gwilliamskc. I stumbled across this thread that he started back in January 20, 2014 when he broached the idea of a Hump Flight. I was sad not to have seen him Sunday ... maybe down the road. It was his post that got me interested in BVA and this exceptionally great community! Here's to ya', gwilliamskc!

 

I hope all of you who joined us had a good time. If you did; tell your fellow pilot friends. Maybe we can do this again sometime and have and even bigger turnout ... though I wasn't at all disappointed about our roster today.

 

Cheers,

Bill

(Romeo33Delta)

[Mark Lemire]

I also participated and must say it was one of most memorable events that comes to mind in my several years of flying in BVA (the other event was probably the Colorado VFR challenge). The real kicker was stacking up to land, with the final approach procedure all based on flying a specific bearing past an NDB at a specific airspeed and using a stopwatch. Even ATC did not rely on the usual radar, using position reports and a stopwatch to go by, and Kunming approach did a great job juggling everyone's position in the queue. I came away with huge respect for those who actually put their lives on the line with these flights and the operators who supported them. There was obviously a lot of time and thought that went into planning for that event, including the route, navigation, historical background, ATC procedures, and scenery design. A big THANKS to everyone who helped make that happen and like Bill, I'm hoping our new BVA venue will provide us with an opportunity for more events like this and a wider audience.

[Joshua Marshall]

Glad to hear that all the pilots had I great time! Myself and the other controllers had a great time during the event!!

[M. B. Ingersoll]

Very late reply (I don't get on the forums often enough) but I gotta say "The Hump" was, as the others said, a great experience!  I thoroughly enjoyed it, too.  I can see that a LOT of research was put into this event and I can't imagine how much time was spent in the planning.  Thanks to all who took their time to set this up for us - and thank you to their families, too!