Tag Archives: North Atlantic

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 …

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?