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| Helsinki-Vantaa Airport around 8 in the morning local time | Some water spray on the tarmac as I start up the engines | Taxiing to runway 04R |
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| Turning onto the runway | ||
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| Rolling | Just as I was rotating I heard something very similar to a birdstrike... | ...but as all the engines were still working and I was quite far along the runway already, I decided to go ahead with the takeoff |
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| Was quite a long takeoff run, I had to pull up sharply to avoid hitting the trees | ||
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| Turning right on course to Beijing after checking all systems are working | Passing through 5000 ft on climbout and setting altimeter to standard baro pressure | |
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| Rather unrealistically, the rain changes into hail around 10000 ft | Breaking out of the clouds only moments later | Passing the VOR in Porvoo and continuing east |
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| Some of the usual hail damage on the window | Above the Gulf of Finland, still climbing | |
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| Approaching Russia | There's the coastline below... | ...and Pulkovo Airport in St Petersburg directly ahead |
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| Overcast clouds around St Petersburg now | At this point the rate of climb had slowed down considerably... | ...so I decided to level out to cruise at FL350 for now |
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| Passing Belozersk around 20 minutes later | Just as I cross the Urals the stall horn sounds and I notice I'm losing altitude quickly! | Climbing back to cruise altitude after recovering from that stall... the engines must have been accidentally throttled back or something |