Operation "Snow cap"

Mission 04 - Sir Vilk's PIREP

Gentlemen,

I finally did make it to Locarno. I arrived thursday at about 11.40 local.

Yes, I know, reporting late as usual...

Flew there directly from Buochs, following the route mr. Darkwing suggested. A very straightforward vfr flight and no technical problems on the way.

As you may (or may not) remember, a while ago I purchased a PC-6 Turbo Porter with floats in Denmark; even before we moved to Helgoland. Well, I had it flown to Pilatus in Buochs for a complete overhaul and upgrade,
but it's not ready yet.

Anyway, for the time being I'm allowed this ex-Mount Cook Line PC-6 that they still had on stock.

Nice flying birdie.
Mr. B. 'whirly' Sumpter did some work on the acf and upgraded it to v4x and I'm trying to 'adapt' one of Mitsuru Ishikawa's cockpits for use in this plane...

Regards,
Brick






Follow up message from Sir Brick:

Prior to my flight to Locarno I did a 'quick tour' of the search area.

I can imagine that the big, fat, Antonov would need quite a stretch of
'reasonably flat' terrain to land; so I tried to spot a few possible
locations.

I took the PC-9 and cruised the area at an average speed of 190 kts and between 10k and 12k ft. altitude. I followed a path taking roughly from Buochs to Meiringen, Ambri, Locarno, Munster, Ambri and back to Buochs again. Zigzagging here and there.

The most likely locations seem to be several 'snowy plains' which I've marked on the chart. The 2 larger ones (in orange) could be the place we're looking for...

Regards,
Pedro