Tag Archives: N92765

Back Home Again

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On this day three years ago I had completed a three-day trip that would take me from Deland, FL to Vienna, Austria via private aircraft. It was such a unique experience that I decided to recount it on its three year anniversary.

Somewhere over the clouds

Well, the fun is over and it’s back to work time. The piloting experience was unforgettable and if I ever get a chance to do it again, I’ll do it in a heart beat.

A non-pilot would have been bored by this trip. Most of the flight was in instrument conditions or over a cloud deck so there was no scenery from flight. Our departures were predawn and arrivals post-sunset so no local tourism. Even our ground stops were minimal so no sight-seeing there either. In fact, in reviewing my photos, I have none of Keflavik nor Esbjerg. This really was more about the trip than the destination.

My favorite experiences remain the over water legs from Goose Bay to Keflavik via Narsarsuaq. And I’ll never forget the pristine beauty of Greenland in general. Although for the life of me I have no idea how those 50 people who man the airport survive up there.

Enroute to Narsarsuaq

Another memory will be the ease with which we transited country borders. Only in Iceland did I even have to retrieve my passport. Contrast that with the commercial flight home during which my passport was needed three times (Vienna, Frankfurt and Chicago). And of course, private flying avoids the indignity of the TSA … but that’s a whole different story.

In the end, my folly-rich arrival was similar to our folly-rich departure – Upon arrival in Sacramento, I inadvertently got in the rental car bus instead of the parking lot bus (remember we originally went to the wrong airport on departure?) and then my luggage handle broke off. Hey, at least it waited until the end of the trip to break off.

Home, sweet home. And with plenty of fond memories!

The last 1,800 miles

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On this day three years ago I was participating in a three-day trip that would take me from Deland, FL to Vienna, Austria via private aircraft. It was such a unique experience that I decided to recount it on its three year anniversary.


Scottish Castle

This morning was special – Our launch was planned for 7AM local, which means when you back out rising, dressing, planning and such, it still required a 5AM wake-up call. At least it wasn’t 3AM like the last two mornings.

Once again the dark, pre-dawn departure lifted us up over water (North Sea). And once again the instrument conditions were so thick that we had no visual way of knowing if we were over land or water. But the flight proceeded uneventfully (albeit cold) and midway across, we were handed off from Reykjavik Radar to “Scottish” in anticipation of a “quick turn, technical stop” at Wick, Scotland.

Wick is at the far north tip of Scotland and probably the most barren spot on the world this cold, rainy morning. After breaking out, I captured a quick glimpse of a Scottish Castle facing north in the horrendously rough North Sea. It was beautiful, but …


Wick Airport

Wick is normally closed Sundays so we paid extra for the airport manager to come in and fuel us at near-Narsarsuaq fuel rates. But even that didn’t motivate him, and our “quick turn” was slowed by paperwork, forms, receipts and flight plans. Now we risked losing our slot time into Vienna airport.

We had one more over-water leg to Esbjerg, Denmark for our last technical stop. And this over-water leg was again 100% instrument conditions. In two days and 1,500 miles of oceans and seas, we had only seen water for 20+ miles approaching Greenland. So much for my desire to see zillions of icebergs.

Esbjerg had the worst flying weather encountered. The ceiling was so low that we didn’t see anything until 200 feet above the airport. If it’s a gorgeous city, I’ll never know.

Vienna Airport Landing Lights

Our time there was short (quick turn really means quick in Denmark) and we were back in the air – Over real land for the first time in two days. And the skies finally parted just a bit revealing first Germany, then the Czech Republic at sunset, and finally Austria below us. It was spectacular, but both of us were tiring from three long days on the road. Vienna Approach accommodated our needs by giving us a more direct routing to the field. And minutes later we were powering down and cleaning up the airplane – Old food stuffs, plastic water bottles and paperwork trash was carried out.

The aircraft’s owner met us, debriefed us on aircraft condition, and took us to the commercial side of the airport. My ferry pilot friend is off to England for a couple days of instruction and then he returns to the States next week with a different aircraft.

Me? I’ll have dinner with some Austrian coworkers tonight. Tomorrow morning I’m taking an early (another 4AM wake-up call, sigh) commercial flight back home. 5,491 miles from Deland to Vienna took three long days – The return flight will take 19 hours – Less than one fourth the time. Yes, the Lufthansa flight will have flight attendants, free drinks, movies and even some meals, but there will be no thankfully warm airport in Ottawa, no soft snow falling in Goose Bay, no scenery in Narsarsuaq, no fresh seafood dinner in Keflavik, no old military helicopter sitting in Wick, no joking line boy in Esbjerg, and no ILS16 into the Vienna airport.

Lessons I’ve learned:

  • It is cold in Northern Canada and Europe during the winter. Trust me! (Although I found the cold rain and wind in Ottawa, Wick and Esbjerg felt much more severe than the -15C, dry snow in Goose Bay.)
  • Narsarsuaq, the airport we worried the most about because alternate airports are few and far between, was the most accommodating. In fact, it was the only “visual” airport. All the others required instrument flying.
  • Greenland is stunning from the air. It’s pristine, pure and clean, or at least it sure looks that way. It’s very moving to stand alone and look at the majestic peaks surrounding you.
  • It’s very possible Ottawa, Goose Bay, Reykjavik, Wick and Esbjerg are stunning as well, but either darkness or weather prevented us from seeing them.
  • Would I do it again? In a heart beat!

Going home tomorrow …

Keflavik or bust!

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On this day three years ago I was participating in a three-day trip that would take me from Deland, FL to Vienna, Austria via private aircraft. It was such a unique experience that I decided to recount it on its three year anniversary.

Goose Bay

Arriving at the Ottawa airport at 5AM local (2AM California time), we were met by a full compliment of airport crew. Seems they weren’t seeing us off, but they were there to welcome the NY Rangers hockey team on a charter from their previous game in Calgary. Unfortunately, we launched too early to meet the arriving Rangers. (And my math suggests the Rangers left Calgary at 2AM local after their game to get to Ottawa at 5AM. Sure doesn’t sound like fun to me!)

Our departure from Ottawa was in complete darkness, and for the next two hours we droned along without lights from below (no one seems to live in NE Canada) nor above (overcast). Even as the sun rose, and for the last hour to Goose Bay, there was no visibility until we broke out 1,000 feet above the runway in the winter snow. Gorgeous, but cold. -15C if you’re interested.

Immersion Suit

The Goose Bay folk were extremely friendly, filled us with coffee and danish, and helped us try on our immersions suits – Just in case we needed to immerse ourselves in the North Atlantic Ocean. Serious, but not without some hopelessly funny moments.

We found out another turbine Malibu (N194JL) had preceded us by two hours, but after launching back in to the clouds toward Narsarsuaq, we soon found ourselves the loneliest pilots in the sky. And when Gander told us “Radar contact lost, squawk 2000,” we knew we were on our own. No radar and only intermittent radio for over a thousand miles of cold, dark Atlantic Ocean.

Once in a while we would hear west-bound commercial flights overhead exchanging ride reports, but it was pretty clear we were the only people in the sky at 27,000 feet for miles and miles and miles. We never heard another non-commercial flight. And just to frustrate us, a low pressure zone, while providing a nice tail-wind, was also reducing visibility to less than a mile. We saw gray in every direction and wouldn’t have known if we were over land or water. Reaching our “fuel point of no return” (either continue to Narsarsuaq or return to Goose Bay) we started overhearing reports Narsarsuaq was sunny and clear. That would be nice – We hadn’t seen blue sky since Florida.

Over Narsarsuaq

About twenty miles from Greenland landfall, the skies parted and revealed a beautiful Alp-like scenery. And thirty miles later, and still thirty miles from Narsarsuaq, we saw the field, canceled our flight plan and approached the scenic airport – The lone controller told us there was no other airport traffic, no other area traffic and no other anticipated traffic. Land at your leisure – And we did.

It was eerie standing alone on that runway after engine shutdown. Not a sound except for the wind howling through the mountains and fjords. I swear I heard Indian chanting, but it was probably just my imagination. Too soon we were refueled and launched back into the blue sky. An approaching Dash 7 turboprop heard us leave and offered in a heavy, Nordic accent:

“To my friends in the departing Piper Malibu. It is beautiful and sunny in Narsarsuaq. Why don’t you stay a while and enjoy our hospitality and friendship instead of flying off to Europe and all that winter rain?”

Narsarsuaq Airport

Never would have heard that in American skies! But we needed to continue, thanked our new pilot friend, and turned further northeast toward Kelflavik. We spent another 20 minutes over Greenland enjoying the glaciers, the mountains and the virgin, white snow, but once back over the ocean, we entered the clouds.

And with nightfall less than an hour away it was getting cold at 27,000 feet. Specifically, the outside air temperature was -44C and simply overwhelming our limited aircraft heater. We droned on for another two hours in the dark, cold, cloudy sky trying just about anything to keep warm.

And then, maybe six or seven hours after losing radar contact, another controller crackles through the static with the words “Radar contact, squawk 7206, contact Keflavik on 119.7.” And with that, the biggest part of the adventure had ended. Iceland could see and communicate with us, and we would be on the ground in another hour. It was cold and dark and windy (Winter in Iceland, who would have thunk?) but only a cab ride separated us from dinner and a beer. Yum!

We’re at the most northern part of our journey right now, in a country where winter sunrise is 10AM and sunset is 5PM. Tomorrow we cross the last major body of water, the North Sea, and proceed to Scotland and finally Austria. I guarantee that unlike the North Atlantic, we won’t be the only ones in the sky.

I need some shut-eye so I’m ready to go tomorrow!

The First Steps

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On this day three years ago I was participating in a three-day trip that would take me from Deland, FL to Vienna, Austria via private aircraft. It was such a unique experience that I decided to recount it on its three year anniversary.

Somewhere over West Virginia

It is said every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first steps. Or in our case, a detour or two. Let’s see, the flight databases had problems, it took longer than thought to get a rental vehicle to take us to the plane, we zigged when we should have zagged and had to double-back on the Florida Interstate, but the creme de la creme was that we went to the wrong airport to pick up the plane. So we re-calibrated and drove to the correct airport.

Arriving at the plane paint shop presented another set of surprises starting with a discharged battery – I guess the paint shop figured someone else would fix the battery and they didn’t need to tell anyone. Then the fuel truck wouldn’t come to us because the paint shop’s last customer had flown away without paying their bill. It took a while but we were finally underway more than two hours late … which meant our flight plan had expired. But friendly air traffic controllers helped us through that obstacle.

The only surprise during the flight was the pilot’s headset was inoperative. The two college graduates in the front of the plane took less than a minute to resolve that little obstacle. Other than that, the flight was downright uneventful and four hours after leaving Deland, Florida we arrived in Ottawa, Canada.

Safely in Ottowa

The only notable differences between Deland and Ottawa? One had bright sunlight and shirt sleeve weather, the other was pitch-black dark and -3C with 20kt winds howling down the runway.

We had dinner with a local NavCanada employee who told us about the lengths she goes to to track down aircraft owners. (Unlike the USA, you have to pay for air traffic control in Canada.) What amazed me is that she uses all public, online databases to find owners. Google is her best friend. Who would have thought a semi-government agency would use public tools to do their job? In the US, first choices to do investigative effort would be the FBI, local sheriff, phone company and neighbors. But here, they just use Google. Amazing.

It’s now past 10PM in Ottawa and we need to be wheels up at 5AM tomorrow in order to get to Narsarsuaq before the airport closes at 3PM local. (Narsarsuaq is quite a ways north and the sun goes down early up there during the winter.) Bottom line is I’m cutting this short to get some shut-eye.

Tomorrow will be the real fun day!

Crossing the North Atlantic

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On this day three years ago I began a three-day trip that would take me from Deland, FL to Vienna, Austria via private aircraft. It was such a unique experience that I decided to recount it on its three year anniversary.

N92765 Exterior

Many years ago, after Dad returned from yet another European business trip, he would drag out the slide projector and screen, mumble some incantation (he was probably swearing at the old projector) and amaze us with pictures of his travels. After the last slide was displayed, the screen would go bright white. Our standing joke was that was a picture of the ice covering the North Pole.

Years later, I had an opportunity to fly from Europe to the States and experience the “North Pole” for myself. Well, as it turns out, flights from Europe to the States rarely go north of 60 degrees latitude and the only thing to see is blue water and zillions of icebergs.

N92765 Cockpit

But all the blue water and icebergs captured my imagination and attention. When I started flying, I would flightplan a North Atlantic crossing for each airplane I owned. Unfortunately, the over water distances exceeded my range, and the thought of  ”swimming” the North Atlantic killed any desire to fly to Europe … until … One day I had a conversation with a ferry pilot – One who frequently flies aircraft that can cross the North Atlantic. One thing led to another and soon I was asking to occupy the co-pilot seat on a subsequent crossing.

Earlier this week he called – An Austrian plane had been in Florida for some refurbishment and now needed to go home to its owner in Austria. Was I interested? For a bright guy, that was his dumbest question of the day.

Fast forward to tonight – I’m in Orlando and in 12 hours or so we’ll launch for Vienna, roughly 5,400 miles in a northeasterly direction. Tomorrow we will get as far as Ottawa. The real fun will be day two as we negotiate Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador; then Narsarsuaq, Greenland; and into Keflavik, Iceland for night number two. On day three, we’ll stop in Scotland and Denmark, and reach Vienna in the late afternoon. We’ll traverse more than 97 degrees of longitude from Orlando to Vienna, and move up and down 36 degrees of latitude – Orlando being the farthest south, and Keflavik being the farthest north. Our route is here, but graphically, the route looks a little like this.

Hm, just blue water and icebergs. Wonder why it thrills me so much?