Dead Reckoning

Now I know where to park my iceberg.

Andrew and his lovely assistant in Wick Scotland.  Andrew’s company, Far North Aviation, is who we rent our raft and survival suits from before crossing the north Atlantic.  He has a great system in place where you pick up the gear in either Scotland or Canada, depending on which way you’re going, and drop it off on the other side.  It’s a lot better than hauling all that crap stuff on the whole trip.  Andrew is also our go to guy for flight plans or help just about anywhere in the world.  He’s got connections everywhere, just ask him, or don’t, he’ll tell you anyway.

Here’s the route for this week’s ferry flight from England.  It was 5058 miles that I had to do in record time in order to get home in time fro my daughter’s graduation.  I finally got the ok to takeoff from Goodwood England with the Baron at 3:00 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon and parked the plane at the Tamiami airport in Florida at 5:00 o’clock Thursday afternoon.

  On this trip I ran into a situation I’ve never come across before.  In Iceland I met two young men from Austria flying a Twin Cessna 404 from Germany to Florida.  Neither one of them had over 500 hours or had ever flown over the ocean before so they hired a 71 year old pilot who had enough experience to satisfy the insurance company.  That night at dinner one of the boys asked if he could fly in my plane to Florida because he had no confidence in the piloting skills of the old man they were with.  Apparently their flight from Germany  to Iceland was not what one would call inspiring.  I told the young man that he needed to stay with his friend and help him stand up to the old pilot if they thought he was putting their lives in danger.  I told him that one of them should fly all the approaches and the old man could just sit there and offer sage advise.  They didn’t think the pilot would go for that and they were too junior to him to really have any say in the matter.  I really didn’t want to bring along a passenger in this trip.  Mostly because the other front seat is where I keep the life raft.  If we had to ditch I would have to get him out of the plane first and then try and get the raft out of the back before we sank.  Another reason is that extra weight means a slower airplane with reduced performance, adding one guy wouldn’t make that much difference but when dealing with hundreds of miles of open ocean I’ll take every edge I can get.  I also just like flying alone so I told him no.  In the end he just refused to get in the plane with the old pilot and after telling him that he had a family emergency booked a flight home.  I guess not everybody is cut out to fly the north Atlantic.  The remaining young man and the old pilot made it to Greenland and Goose Bay but after that I don’t know because I pushed on to Bangor while they called it a day in Goose.  I guess if I don’t hear about a 404 crash I’ll assume that they made it to Florida.

Saints be praised just as I was about to pop smoke and make like a sheep herder I got the call that the bank had released the Baron and I could finally get the heck out of Dodge England.  Things were starting to look doubtful because I HAVE to be back in Wisconsin by Saturday for my daughter Claire’s graduation.  I’m still not out of the woods because the weather gods still have a say, and I’m not going to go and get myself killed just to save the boss some money.  If it looks like I might miss the graduation I’ll leave the plane where ever I am and run home, I only have one little girl and a man has to know what’s important in life.  I was able to make two legs today despite the late start and had a beautiful flight to Wick Scotland followed by another to Iceland.  The weather was just challenging enough to be interesting but not too scary in an unfamiliar plane, and the ILS approach into Reykjavik wasn’t too sloppy if I do say so myself, which I do.  I did manage to snap a few pics along the way of an unusually cloud free Iceland ice field even though the Baron is a crappy camera platform.  I’m not sure why there are roads over the glacier but I bet it’s a pretty drive.

That’s right, we eat pretty damn good on the road  AND get a special price.

I was in the Goodwood aerodrome’s maintenance office on Friday afternoon when I found out that I was grounded for the weekend.  Taking pity on me the manager took me out back behind the hanger where some of his mechanics were enjoying an end of the week beer and would I care for a Fosters?  Why yes, indeed I would.  They then proceeded to try and come up with ideas on how I should spend the next two days.  After drinking thinking long and hard the mechanics concluded that there isn’t much of anything to do in the area except maybe go to the horse races on Saturday.  The chief pilot showed up and after hearing the plan kindly loaned my his all access members badge that would not only get me in for free but allow me into the high class mucky muck area.  “Although you might have not be allowed in if your not wearing a jacket and tie.”  he warned me.  Not a problem I assured him, I’d have just as much fun slumming with the rabble in the common area, as least I’d have something to do.

The next morning at breakfast I met two couples how were also heading out to the races and after chatting with them accepted their invitation to ride with them to Goodwood.  At the entrance I was stopped by an apologetic old man who sadly informed me that my polo shirt was lacking the required tie necessary in the restricted area but if I’d care to donate five pounds I could borrow one from the small selection he had.  It seemed like a good deal and after finding one that didn’t look half bad was declared “quite dashing” by Sally one of the wives in our little party.  We found a table outside and shared a pitcher of some fruit, tea and gin concoction called Pimms before they left me to my own devices to go have some lunch.  As I sat finishing my drink a group of about fifteen middle aged men were pushing two tables together and wondered if they might steal a few of the empty chairs at my table.  I assured them that it would be fine and as a matter of fact they could have my table as well.  “Jolly good!” they shouted and “Won’t you join us for a drink?” they asked.    To which I’m sure you know my answer.  It turned out that the group was a bachelor party and I fit right in.  They were a great bunch of guys and I spent the entire day with them drinking and betting on the ponies.  I even won a fair amount on the first two races and managed to end the day up a small amount.  Afterwords the guys invited me to accompany them to Portsmouth for dinner so with nothing else to do I hopped on their bus and spent the entire evening with them.  I had a great time with those guys and on the cab ride back to the B&B once again marveled at just how unpredictable ferry flying can be.  You just never know what the next day will bring.

This thick steel hanger door in Singapore was riddled with bullet holes and bomb damage from a Japanese attack in World War Two.  The pilots who worked there said that the hanger was going to be torn down next year and I’ve been trying to figure out how to get that door shipped over to the United States.  It’s simply the coolest hanger door ever.