Tyumen to Novosibirsk in an Antonov An-24 on August 6, 2005

Tyumen to Novosibirsk in an Antonov An-24

LivewireExpress flight 3880 is a two hour flight that starts off at Roschino Aero in Tyumen, Siberia and finishes at Tolmachevo Airport in Novosibirsk, Siberia flying the wonderful An-24. Today's journal will contain a rather intimidating 20 images. This was due to the mass of interesting features that occurred during this flight. I actually snapped off 179 shots during the flight which I pared down to 115 shots when I removed duplicates caused by me snapping a whole lot of nearly identical shots while trying to catch lightning in a few of the scenes

A flash of lightning illuminates our fuselage as we begin our startup procedures at Roschino Aero.

Lightning was striking everywhere about us, but there was fortunately no rain at the airport. Embarrasingly, I couldn't figure out how to rotate my landing lights into a forward-facing position.

As we taxied to the runway, lightning continued to illuminate the skies.

Takeoff was pleasant and uneventful with no significant winds or turbulence.

ATC vectored us off the runway heading and we began our ascent to cruise altitude.

The city of Tyumen was just waking up down below. Tyumen is the administrative center of the Tyumen Oblast. It is also the oldest city in Siberia.

Light shines down on the winding rivers below.

Once we made it to our cruise altitude of FL230, we were greeted by the lovely Aurora Borealis, which continued for the next half hour.

The ground was visible for a long while until we encountered this storm front. Lightning illuminates the aircraft from below.

For a while, the storm clouds of this powerful thunderstorm remain below us. You can see the ground bathed in light from an unseen lightning strike.

As the flight continued, the sky began to brighten as the sun rose in the east. The clouds started to reach much further into the sky at this point.

And then we plunged into the tempest!

For the next forty-five minutes we were in and out of rain clouds. Unfortunately, some of the worst turbulence I've ever experienced as a virtual pilot was present amongst those clouds.

We were tossed about the sky like a rag doll but the sturdy, old Antonov pressed onward.

We were treated to a beautiful view of the sunrise before being battered by the wind and rain again.

Magnificent clouds stretched high into the sky.

Eventually, we exited the rain and, at the same time and much to my relief, the winds and turbulence died down as well. ATC instructed us to descend to 9,000 ft.

We continued down to 2,400 ft at the direction of ATC. I was pleased to see the visibility was relatively clear below the clouds as we had to make a visual approach into Novosibirsk.

We landed safely on runway 7 at Tolmachevo.

At the gate, we are greeted by a couple of GA aircraft as well as one of our good friends from EuroLivewire.

This flight lost -$1,456.68 total revenue.
(PAX: 7 Economy Class)

I hope you all enjoyed!