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Race Finale and wrap up…

Posted by Mad Mike on Feb 23rd, 2007

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, team AVSim was making it’s final push. We had finished our final requirements, and just needed to make our way from Cork, Ireland down to the Canaries and then complete a quick dash to each of the islands before finishing in Grand Canaria. SimOutHouse’s team decided to try to make some time up after their disasterous tran-Atlantic crossing attempts (it took them 3 tries!) by going for the two bonus airports in Norway. AVSim hadn’t bothered with those bonus airports because it would take almost as long to get to them as we’d pick up by visiting them.

No, the real competition at this point would be from FlightSim.com. We intensively checked their forums to get an update on their position. As we arrived in the Canaries, one of our team members started calculating how far behind us they were. It was looking like they’d arrive in the Canaries about 5 hours after we did, but they had 6 hours of bonus time on us. The run through the Canaries would give us up to 3 hours bonus time, but it would take some time to perform. We guestimated that it would take a little over an hour to fly all the hops. In reality, it took closer to 2 hours. So, we clawed back 1.5 hours, putting us 30 minutes ahead of FlightSim.com and forcing them to have to run the bonus run as well.

As we got to the final hop in the Canary run, all of the AVSim team members that were available hopped online, jumped in P-51 Mustangs or P-38 Lightenings and off we went. It was a glorious sight lining up on a runway with 10 warbirds in various paint schemes. We flew most of the hop in formation, with some members splitting off to show off their aerobatic skills before joining back up for the landing. Our race finished at 10:38am EDT - 4 days, 38 minutes after we started. All we could do is wait and watch to see what FlightSim.com would do. If they had a crash or maybe a pair of baton handoffs, it would spell disaster for them.

Alas, they managed to make it in and finish safely. Once all the bonus time was tallied up, FlightSim.com was declared the winner, finishing 49 minutes ahead of AVSim.com. This is the closest finish the race has had to date, and all of the teams should be very proud of their achievement. The level of airmanship, professionalism, and friendship exihibited by all the teams was second to none. It was also extremely rewarding to share a hobby that tends to be very unfocused with such a dedicated group of individuals.