10 day expedition through Egypt in Disco 3's

[nwoods]

The link below is to a mildly interesting, horribly written article about a 10 day self-supported expedition through the sand seas of Egypt in new Discovery III's (LR3).

http://rovering.squarespace.com/jour...-raid-exp.html

[Hltoppr]

Yeah, not a whole lot of detail there about the actual travels....

-H-

[maxingout]

This looks like a publicity stunt rather than an expedition. One spare tire on the roof, no jerry cans on roof, no water containers on roof, and when you look in the windows, there is no gear visible. They obviously had support vehicles carrying fuel, water, camping supplies, spare parts, tools, and whatever else is needed for an expedition.

Taking an unloaded vehicle over the sand dunes and on desert tracks isn't what I would call a ten day expedition. I would call it a ten day outing.

When we went into the Empty Quarter of Arabia for a nine day trip, we carried 13 jerry cans with a total fuel capacity of 430 liters of fuel. We had two spare tires, $3,000 worth of spares, tools, 200 liters of water, firewood, food, camping gear, recovery gear, high lift jack, and lots of other gear crammed into our Defenders.

This picture shows what an expedition equipped Defender looked like when we made our trips into the Empty Quarter each year.

I would like to see how the Disco III would perform with a full load of expeditionary gear on board.

Attachment 19856

[nwoods]

I am not defending this article at all. I completely agree with you that the writing of the article is 100% marketing blather from start to finish, but it does say, "While tackling these obstacles, the Discovery 3’s not only had to carry their passengers, but enough fuel for the ten day trek.", and there is a picture showing the D3 with a single jerry can mounted to the rear bumper, along with something else I can't quite distinguish on the right side:


Interestingly, that same photo shows that the rear seats are up and in place, and that there is another type of vehicle following, looking a lot like a Land Cruiser front end?

[maxingout]

"Enough fuel for ten days" also makes me wonder how arduous the trip really was. For a nine day Empty Quarter trip we had long range fuel tanks plus thirteen jerry cans, and we would cover about 1100 kilometers on that amount of fuel. About 50% of the mileage would be in challenging conditions - large sand dunes that were soft.

If they had fuel for ten days inside their vehicle, it makes me think they were sticking to well travelled tracks. I would think they were on a lot of corrugations and not so much soft sand. A lightly laden vehicle on hard desert tracks would get better mileage than we did with our load of fuel and supplies on soft sand and no desert tracks.

[maxingout]

One of our friends took a Discovery across the Arabian Empty Quarter on a trip that was more than a 1,000 kilometers offroad.

To make that trip, he constructed a massive fuel tank (with internal baffles) that he put on the floor in the back of the Disco I. Then he put camping gear on top of the fuel tank. The Disco made the crossing without a problem accompanied by two Defender 110s.

We found that stock Discoveries were extremly capable, and did not require much customization to make long trips. They simply put on a roof rack, and they also amputated the lower half of the plastic front "bumper" so that the plastic wouldn't engage the sand at the bottom of a slip face and get ripped off.

The Discoveries were great expeditionary vehicles if you figured out a way to carry the fuel, and if you only had two people on board. They went everywhere the Defenders did without a problem.

[nwoods]

One of our friends took a Discovery across the Arabian Empty Quarter on a trip that was more than a 1,000 kilometers offroad.

That sounds like a really interesting adventure. Can you share more on that, perhaps in the Trips Completed thread? I love hearing about these "real trips" instead of just the weekenders that most of us do.

[maxingout]

When we lived in Arabia we made two nine day trips into the Empty Quarter each year. We would typically have from three to eight Defenders for a 1000- 1200 kilometer trip offroad.

Each Defender carried two boxes of firewood on their roof rack as each truck was responsible for two nights of campfires. We had two spare tires, and thirteen jerry cans. Eight jerry cans were on top on the roof rack and five jerry cans were inside in a specially constructed box. We bolted our roof racks into the rain gutters so there was no chance for them to move. We also had vertical supports for the roof rack from the windshield clamps and from the back of the truck. We also had permanent ladders up the back.

We calculated our fuel consuption in the following manner. We measured our distance on the geological survey map, and then increased the measurement by thirty percent because we had to do a lot of tacking in the sand dunes. It was rare that we could travel in a straight line. We then took the total calculated distance and divided by 3.5 because we knew that we would get an average of 3.5 kilometers per liter of fuel with heavily laden vehicles in soft sand. With a load of 430 liters of fuel, we could get 1200 kilometers offroad and probably have one jerry can of fuel in reserve when we came out of the desert.

My definition of being lost in the desert didn't have anything to do with location. It meant only one thing. We didn't have enough fuel to make it out. Thankfully, that never happened.

Desert navigation was rather simple in Arabia. We basically navigated into a box. We carried enough fuel to get across the box to a known exit, or we had multiple exits along the way that we could take simply by turning to the right or left and heading in a straight line. It really didn't matter where you were because you knew that if you kept heading in a straight line, you would eventually emerge from the desert on to a highway that marked an edge of the navigational box. We used a different navigational technique when there were bedouin tracks that we could drive in. We would simply follow a track that headed in a direction that we wanted to explore, and when it was time to exit a quadrangle, we simply followed progressively larger tracks that would lead us out. The only time we cared where we were was if we were going to do a rendezvous with another group, or if a vehicle had to be left in the desert, and we needed to return to make repairs.

We had three different Defenders in Arabia, and we spent an average of sixty to ninety nights per year camping in the desert. We took lots of pictures, but unfortunately, they are all in storage in Kentucky. When we finally move our household goods to Phoenix, I will have my maps, photos, trip logs, and other stuff to share. Until then, I have a small collection of photos on positivegraphics.com on panels #3 and #4.

Once I get my stuff from Kentucky, I can post some of our trips.

[maxingout]

This is our typical Empty Quarter set up.

Two boxes of firewood on front of roof rack. The wood consisted of hardwood and softwood blocks from dumpster diving, and then the wood was packed in boxes.

Eight jerry cans lying flat on the roof rack in two rows.

Second spare tire on roof rack.

Camping gear in duffles on roof rack.

Vertical roof rack supports are visible.

First Spare tire on the rear door or attached to a Piv-Lok. spare tire carrier.

Michelin XS tires - good for sand.

The camping gear with five additional jerry cans in a wooden box totally filled the cargo section of the truck.

Four adults occupied the seats.

You can see one of our long range fuel tanks in the right rear wing behind the wheel.

That's the basic set up for a nine day Empty Quarter run.

Attachment 19908

[Zeero]

I can confirm that the only LR3 in this Eqypt article was the one in the lead.....the only one in the group as a matter of fact.

The only thing this LR3 did was lead the way.

This by no means down plays the LR3 as a capable vehicle as he had to hit all the obstacles first.....BUT, this LR3 was modded so minimally, no HD springs installed over the air system, and low poundage rack....

The other vehicles in this group carried majority of supplies.

This was in fact quite a tough trip, and shouldn't be downplayed to make anyone think it would be EASY.....they were self supported entirely......

All the article boasts is that the LR3 lead the way, and nothing more.

I say congratulations to them for quite a difficult journey, never downplay the ruggedness and harshness of the environment in Northern Africa.