Arrived Tuesday night in Abu Dhabi. Our hotel restaurant was open to a light meal menu at that hour, enough to satisfy us at 11:30 PM. Spent a good part of yesterday refueling our plane for a departure at 7 PM today.
Needed to get back to the airport this morning around 9 o’clock for an extra drum of aviation fuel; we were able to do three drums yesterday, but could not get our fourth until today. Will arrive in Nagpur, India around 5:30 AM tomorrow morning; it should be about an 8 1/2 hour flight.
Our friend and meteorologist Steve Pellettiere suggested a morning arrival rather than late afternoon to avoid any weather issues. We only plan to be in India for two nights and then on to Singapore.
We found Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emeritus to be extremely clean. We stayed in a modern hotel — no alcohol, no time for lunch yesterday. Had dinner at a local BBQ restaurant last night. I had a full chicken dinner for five US dollars. Zvi just had a large salad, which was enough for dinner. We have found hotels and food to be much less expensive than in the United States. Our ground crew here has been very helpful and we were whisked through customs and immigration rapidly. All religions are respected in Abu Dhabi.
We still are working very hard to promote Alzheimer’s donations. Spending a lot of time with locals and hotel staff and encouraging them to follow our flight and to support a cure for Alzheimer’s.
It is so amazing to see what you are doing to raise awareness and money to fight this dreadful disease. Thank You 🙏🏻
Ed and Zvi took off on time at a little past 7PM UAE time , 11:00 am Eastern Thursday October 13 2022. Their flightpath can be followed on flightradar24, although because of communications differences, they are not listed… Just look for the small aircraft leaving Muscat for the Arabian Sea crossing.
I loved the pictures listed above, shows you what it looks like when you build in the desert and the Arabian Peninsula countries are best at it.
A little history of the UAE…The UAE’s rich history is rooted in trade and tied to Islam, which came to the region in 630 C.E. The Emirates’ location between Europe and the Far East attracted merchants from India and China and was prized by Europeans, particularly the Portuguese, Dutch and British.
Ed told me of 2 and a half hours of clear moderate turbulence during the flight from Crete to Abu Dhabi. Turbulence did not show up on the weather prog charts for low level flight there so I did some more digging. I found out that frequent CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) is common over desert areas from 2000 to 10000 feet except up to 20000 feet in the fall winter and spring. All due probably to the hot dry sand and desert soils radiating daytime heat back into a dry atmosphere causing Thermals as part of the nighttime cooling process.
On this leg there is brief dessert areas then the Arabian Sea… A waning Gibbous moon will illuminate there trip aloft as they cross the water.
Over India, the monsoons are receding south as is typical in October. The men will be on the dividing line of hefty storms to the south and almost clear to the north… Arrival in Nagpur should be at about 8-9pm eastern Thursday October 13. We’ll look forward to their report after resting up Friday the 14th.
SPsr
Ed and Zvi are on their way to Bangkok as of 10:30 AM eastern… They have a night flight with mostly clear weather over india, some clouds and light showers middle Indian Ocean and clear weather expected in Bangkok at 9 pm EST Sunday October 16…. Winds are mostly on the nose but not too bad about 10-15 knots.
I talked to Ed and he stated the men are excited and have met many in Nagpur, spreading the word about their mission for research and the cure for Alzheimer’s. I see the donations so far are up to $14, 000 so we are doing great but must keep on promoting to get to out goal. We are a third of the way there! Tell you family and friends about our mission, and thanks for your support.
Steve Pellettiere