Ferry Flight. Home in Time For Xmas

Discussion Hub World Discovery
, , ,
1

Get called into the multiflight chief pilots office. Multiflight is a cessna and piper dealer, a FAR145 repair station and a major UK cessna and piper parts stockist.

It seems like my days of delivering aircraft parts across Europe in the Piper Comanche is over. Too slow and not enough payload, the business is growing and the aircraft need some modest growth to stay useful.

The brief is simple, take myself over to San Jose Del Cabo where a freshly overhauled Beechcraft Royal Duke awaits my attention. I am to take 30 hours of conversion training in the Duke, take a check flight with a FAA examiner, obtain my US Commercial Airmans Certificate with instrument, turbine and multi engine ratings and ferry the Duke home to Leeds in the UK, via the north atlantic route.

Luckily my instructor is also the FAA check airman, so that helps.

30 odd hours in, certificate in pocket with ink still wet and we are on the ramp at San Jose del Cabo airport, supervising the fuelling of both main tanks and the ( simulated by adding 700lbs of passenger weight and then subtracted again when i put 50 gallons per side of fuel in the mains) 100 gallon ferry tank.

I have a long, arduous journey ahead. Last year, tried ferrying the Comanche from Leeds to Fort Lauderdale and was brought down over iceland on xmas eve, due to severe airframe icing.

Even with the ferry tank, I cannot make the southern route to.thd Azores.

The Duke is equipped for icing and pressurised, so should be able to.fly above a lot of the weather.

Route.

https://yamaha-enduros.com/index.php/forums/attachment/57967

Time to go. Departed San Jose at silly o clock and set out north west for my first leg to San Diego, some 660 miles.

14000ft over the Baja Peninsular, a compromise between sightseeing and fuel burn. At the halfway point, it became clear that I was going to be cutting into my reserve fuel, so took it to 18000ft to get a bit more efficiency and leave my ferry tank alone.

https://yamaha-enduros.com/index.php/forums/attachment/57968

6AM local time and the sun is about to come up. 200 miles left to run.

s

https://yamaha-enduros.com/index.php/forums/attachment/57969

Landed on the north runway at San Diego. What a huge sprawling airport that is.

On the ground..

https://yamaha-enduros.com/index.php/forums/attachment/57970

2

none of those links work, I get a “401 Unauthorized” error

3

Hmm. Apologies.

I will fire up my pc again and embed the pics directly onto here instead of copying them across from another forum.

Edit, put the pics on flickr and copied them directly over to here, they should work now.

1 Like
4

So here I am at stupid o clock on a very misty San Diego apron. My jacket is wet, my hair is wet, the aircraft is wet and it is decidedly miserable.

Still, I have a job to do. I have planned to fly from San Diego, California to the Dwight D Eisenhower airport, Wichita, Kansas. A distance of some 1012 nautical miles.

It is doable, but I will need rely on my 100 gallons in the ferry tank and keep a very close eye on fuel consumption along the way.

Funny how the mind works, I find myself with an annoying earworm, humming “carry on my wayward son” as I climb into the cockpit and start the pre start checks.

Cold, dark and decidedly damp..

I get her fired up, get my taxi clearance to head to the approach end of runway 27. Still humming the earworm, I check the direction indicator, decide which way to go for 27 and sally forth.
I run along the taxiway, runway to my right, reach the approach end of the runway and turn towards the hold. The runway light boards tell their sorry tale. runway 09 to my left and runway 27 to the right.
Diddle, I have taxied to runway 09, what a plonker. So I take the backtracking taxi of shame to the end of runway 27.

Finally, runway 27, 3AM local time, 11:05 UTC, about to set engine torque and prop settings before takeoff. Gotta ensure that I do not bust the max torque or overheat the turbines.

Initial climb out to 14,000ft and let the ground speed settle before doing a quick and dirty, mental fuel burn calc. Not great, time to destination vs fuel burn means that I will reach Wichita with around 20 gallons fuel reserve or about 14 minutes of flight time. Nowhere near enough of a buffer if the airport is closed and I need to divert.

14000ft is not going to cut it.

I need at least 40 gallons reserve, so it I need to climb into thinner air and hopefully better winds.

I start a slow cruise climb to 20,000ft and settle down again. Another quick and dirty fuel calc. I have the 1/2 hour reserve endurance I wanted - just, but I am hardly fat. Time to make another decision, I climb to 24,000ft to see what happens. A quick calc, I will have 60 gallons remaining. Great. Happy bunny.

24,000ft and I am suddenly fat with fuel. Sightseeing has gone out the window. 3 hours to destination.

6

1 Like
5

We drone on. Just sat there monitoring everything as I try to read a book on my kindle, aircraft on autopilot.

6 AM local, dawn is approaching rapidly and I see we now have now burned enough fuel from the mains to transfer 50 gallons to each wing tank from the ferry tank.

Fuel transfer excitement over, we drone on and I pick up my kindle again.

Dawn approaching rapidly.

6

A completely uneventful hour later, the sun is streaming into my eyes, dazzling me. I recall my sunglasses are in my flight case, which is in the forward baggage compartment. Oh well, at least this aircraft is fitted with polarising sun visors.

Polarising sunvisor suitably placed and drama is over. Such is the riveting lifestyle of the ferry pilot.

We drone ever onwards..

30 minutes to run, I get a weather briefing for Wichita. As far as I need, excellent weather, 10kt breeze from the north and runway 01 right is in use.

100 miles out, I start my descent, hoping to reach my chosen altitude of 3000ft around 15 miles from the airport. Throttle back, open the oil doors and a quick check of every gauge, then its a slow descent.

We level off at 3000ft with 20 miles to run, Time to get ready for the approach and landing. Doors latched, harness tight, prop RPM increased as required, check oil doors open. Ice deflect doors, I elect to keep closed.

10 miles and airspeed has decayed to 120kts, so I select first stage flap and increase power to compensate and maintain 120kts.

20 miles out and we have arrived at our pre approach altitude.

Autopilot off. Got into position for a straight in four mile approach to runway 01R, slowed to 100kts, flaps full and gear down.
Below 2000ft and it is pretty choppy, A fair bit of throttle jockeying, with plenty of aileron and rudder action to keep her lined up and on speed.

Finally we touched down, pleased to report an absolute greaser of a landing.

Down on the ramp in Wichita. As I secure the aircraft, I appear to have a new earworm in my head. One sung by Glenn Campbell….

I shall plan tomorrow’s destination over a beer in the hotel bar this evening.

1 Like
6

Leg 3

This leg of flight takes me from Wichita Kansas to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. A distance of around 820 nautical miles.

I arrive at the aircraft contemplating my lot in life. I am doomed to spend the majority of this trip flying in darkness, purely due to the difference between GMT which is my local time and the local time at the location of the aircraft, and the time of year.

I suspect I will not really see much daylight at my takeoff time until Iceland.

It is cold, really cold and find the windscreen is iced over. I start the engines and pull the windscreen deicer knob to clear the ice. Nothing, the ice does not budge even after a five minute wait.

Nothing for it, out with the VR tablet, deselect real time weather, set up weather manually at 100 degrees F and wait for the ice to clear.

Once I had a clear windscreen, back into real weather and commence with the journey.

Only saw a windscreen so iced over once before, flying the comanche over iceland when forced down by severe airframe icing.

Got my taxi instructions and found the runway without incident. Ran up the engines and set the props, brakes off and we roll…. and roll, we do not seem to be picking up much speed. At the halfway point, we had 70 kts on the airspeed indicator and I rejected the takeoff.

Could not figure why it was barely accelerating until I hit the ice inspection light for the port wing. ICE, lashings of ice, all over the wing, the prop spinners, front of the cowlings, the air intake and the unprotected part of the leading edge just outside the cockpit window.

I hit the prop heat ground test button for the first time in anger and gave each prop two full cycles each, then hit the anti ice boot switch for another two cycles. Tried to takeoff once again and found the acceleration to be normal. Took off and climbed away on course and in a steady climb tom 25000ft.

At 2000ft, I found warmer air and the ice began to melt, at 2000ft, I was climbing at 1000ft/min at an airspeed of 140kts. By 10,000ft, I was still climbing at 1000ft/min, but clear of ice, the airspeed had risen to 170kts.

Not good, I doubt i would have got airborne, as soon as I tried to rotate, the wing would have probably stalled due to induced turbulence over the wing caused by the ice.

This morning has been a total bind, from entering the aircraft in VR, to actually taking off has taken 45 minutes.

At least the deicing boots appear to work ok.

Finally at 25000ft, in the cruise, 2hrs to run.

1 Like
7

on the ground at a very snowy Pitsburgh.

1 Like
8

We refuel at Pittsbough and set out on leg five, leaving US airspace behind.

Destination is montreal.

So we take off from a grey and snowy Pittsbourgh and set out on course. Nothing much to see on this 450 nautical mile flight and the second leg of the day.

The grey murk of Pennsylvania gives way to light grey murk, dark grey murk, Grey murk with ice in it, grey murk without ice, grey murk that is dry, grey murk that has snow and grey murk that is raining.

Finally land at Montreal, during a snowstorm and half a mile visibility. Did not see the runway approach lights until I was almost overhead and had to make a somewhat “creative” approach and landing. Still any landing you can walk away from is good, a landing during which you managed not to break the aircraft is better.

On the ramp at Montreal. Goodbye United States.

montreal
montreal1920Ă—1080 269 KB
2 Likes
9

Onwards and upwards

Where to fly next in the time available. The air traffic controller sat downstairs on the sofa, binge watching Stranger Things has announced that all airports close at a strict 5pm GMT and I had better be on the ground by then if I am to enjoy a chinese takeaway for my supper.

Goose Bay is out, too far in the time I have, besides I visited there in the Comanche last spring on my second atlantic crossing attempt.

Churchill Falls, Newfoundland looks doable, so I pull up the metar. six miles visibility in light snow. Hmm, looks like I will need to keep an eye on the weather there during the flight. I intend to divert to Labrador City if the weather looks like it is getting worse.

Churchill Falls it is

Climbing out from Montreal and on route for waypoint 1 Labrador City, and then to Churchill Falls.

Edit, looked up the airfield information for churchill and find the field is closed. Looks like Labrador City as the alternate.

1 Like
10

On the ground at a snowy Labrador City. To call it a city is like calling a poodle a wolf. It is a loose collection of huts.
After a nice flight at 15000ft with broken cloud, about 100 miles out, just as I was starting my slow descent to 4000ft, we encountered solid overcast and at 2500ft, 5 miles out, a snow storm once again.

It is -18C according to the OAT gauge and next weekend, I am definitely going to need the external power cart and engine heaters.

At just -4C in Montreal, the starters struggled to reach 17% on the gas generator rpm and I had my hand on the fuel levers ready for a hot start. They stayed in the green but only just.

On the ramp at a snowy, desolate Labrador City airport. I hope the hotel bar has bottles of Birra Morretti in stock. Labatt Ice as an alternative, but god forbid, Molson. That stuff gives me a headache.

1 Like
11

Returned to the aircraft to find it badly iced up and in need of the external power cart and engine heater. Even so, on firing up the engines, both turbine temps hit yellow at self sustain speed until the compressors spooled up.

Then came the deicing rigmarole, prop heat on, prop ground test button pressed for two cycles, de ice boots inflated, tank vent heat on, electric windshield heat and defog heat plunger pulled out, Ice doors open, oil doors open. Finally everything cleared after a few minutes and made for the runway.

On the ramp at Lab City. External power and engine heater def required in those temps.

Put the ICAO for Goose Bay in the nav system and set out for a short positioning flight of some 200 odd miles.

Weather was better than expected, metar for Goose showed broken cloud at 4000ft and light snow flurries.

On route to Goose at 14,000ft

Made it to Goose without incident, although once again, I experienced extremely turbulent air close to the ground with yoke deflections near 45 degrees to keep her level.

At the pumps at Goose Bay. Tomorrow it is farewell Canada, hello Narsarsuaq, Greenland, weather permitting.

1 Like
12

Metar for Narsarsuaq indicates 2000ft ceiling, 4km vis in drifting snow. To cap it all, if I come in over the Fjord, I will have a substantial tailwind down the runway. Landing into wind means I have to come in steep over a mountainous area.

All this and the prospect of the field closing during the flight, and with other diversion airports also closed, means todays flight is a no go.

13

I open an eye and wonder where the hell I am.

Two minutes ago, I was dreaming I was at home with the missus asleep beside me and to find myself in a strange room with no missus is a bit of a surprise.
Of course, I am in a hotel room in Goose Bay.
I pull out my kindle fire and idly get the weather up for Greenland.
Yikes, it is excellent for the flight and here I am lollylagging in bed expecting another scrub day.
I phone the FBO and request them them to get the line boys to fire up the engine heater and plug in the external power, while I eat a quick breakfast and file the flight plan on my kindle.

Breakfast finished, I hop on the hotel shuttle bus and arrive at the airport lounge, go through the aircrew security point, get my passport scanned by customs and request transport to the aircraft.

The heater has done its job, two toasty engines.

time to go.

14

The engines are very happy to have been heated. The starters achieved 18.2% NG and when I gave the engines a drink, they lit and reached self sustaining speed very swiftly, with both dials well in the green.

We taxi out to the runway and take off, set the Century IV to ATT and NAV and spent a perplexing couple of minutes in a 500ft per minute climb while the aircraft circled the airfield.

How odd, it did not seem top have captured the programmed flight path.

I knocked it off and manually set us on the magenta line and re engaged. It would not engage. Even more perplexing, has it failed right at the point where i really need it?

A quick look around, and DOH! I had failed to enable the power trim switch. I flicked it on and the autopilot quickly turned to capture the magenta line.

This underlines the sovereign importance of following a checklist, instead of relying on memory alone. I have flicked that switch dozens of times, but this time I forgot it, probably in my zeal to get the engines started before they cooled down again.

We climbed out and soon found ourselves in the clag at 20000ft. I climbed to 28000ft in an attempt to climb over it, but no luck.

28000ft, the pressure differential between the cabin and outside was right on the red line and cabin pressure was at 11,000ft, I was also on supplementary oxygen.
The power levers were firewalled and still the engines could only produce 1000ft lbs of torque.
This was as high as I go.

After a few minutes, the weather radar started picking up heavy precipitation, right at the red zone, at this altitude, it was likely hail stones and with the pressure differential as it is, a hailstorm could very well cause the structural failure of a window, an explosive decompression, the bends and probably blown out lungs.

Time to descend to a more sensible altitude.

Slowly descending through 24,000ft for 20,000. Weather radar showing I was about to take a beating.

200 miles left to run and the radar was slowly starting to clear of red and turn orange. Thankfully 20,000ft coincided nicely with a layer of clear air between two levels of cloud.

As we got closer to Greenland, the weather radar started to clear further, changing from red, to red orange, to orange and green, then finally patches of green.
Thank the lord.

20,000ft with 200 nautical miles to run, and the radar shows an improving picture.

With 100 miles left to run, I begin a 1000 fpm descent and finally break out of the cloud at 11,000ft. A nice flight, I never encountered any icing, other than the windshield during the entire flight.

Narsarsuaq is about 50 miles, straight ahead at the very end of the Fjord. You can now see why drifting snow, a very low cloud ceiling, way below the mountain tops and poor visibility yesterday scrubbed the flight.

On the ramp at Narsarsuaq. I see I failed to retract the flaps during the taxi to the apron. Don, my old flying instructor would have had my guts for garters for such a schoolboy error.

Next stop, Reykjavik, Iceland, just three days less than a year, when I was coming the other way from the UK to Florida in the A2A comanche and had to put her down in an Icelandic fjord, due to severe airframe icing on Xmas eve last year.

Had to wait till May and warmer weather to attempt it again.

1 Like
15

Wow, Narsarsuaq seems so very long ago. At stupid o clock, I phoned Serviceair at the airport and requested the engine heater and external power setting up, had a quick breakfast and fortified myself for a long day.

This was going to be a major push for home.

Fired up the aircraft at 6am local time and took off in pitch black and heavy sleet showers. As soon as I lifted off, I was immediately on instruments, zero visibility.

Set course for Iceland and settled back in my seat, ready for a long boring flight. The sun came up and we trundled on without incident, landed at Reykjavik to refuel, and went on our merry way, with Wick at the North Eastern tip of Scotland punched into the nav system as the first waypoint and Leeds Bradford Airport as the final destination.

The weather at Leeds was not great and I resloved to keep a good eye on proceedings.

On the ground in Iceland for a quick refueling stop.

The weather was worsening at Leeds and it became clear that it was a no go with a zero ceiling and 150 metre visibility.

Time to seek an alternate. Looked at Doncaster.. No go. 200ft ceiling with light rain and mist. Add to this that I would be landing in the dark and no sirree bob.

Wick was showing fine, CAVOK as was Edinburgh and Aberdeen so maybe have a look further north than yorkshire.

Tried Teeside, nope, no go. 1200ft aggregate ceiling with clouds as low as 200ft, in rain and mist. And in the dark. Teeside was out.

So formed a tentative plan to land at Edinburgh with Aberdeen as the Alternate. An hour later, it was clear that Edinburgh was going rapidly downhill. Latest weather said that Edinburgh now had a 600ft ceiling and by the time I arrived there, it would be dark and probably worse. Edinburgh was out. The weather must be heading north.

OK, I will plan to land at Aberdeen with Wick as the alternate. Put Aberdeen into the nav and passed over Wick and set forth for Aberdeen, some 110 miles south. 10 minutes later, I checked for a weather update for Aberdeen.
Oh dear lord, now reporting 900ft ceiling in light rain, and i still had 30 minutes to travel, so what is marginal now, will likely be socked in by the time I reach there.

Completely out of options, Wick or one of the Shetland Islands it will have to be. The weather was OK at Wick when I flew over 10 minutes ago, so I turned around and headed back to Wick.

So close to home, but yet so far away. I break up for Xmas on tuesday, hopefully at lunchtime, so I will maybe get to deliver the aircraft to Multiflight at Leeds Bradford on Tuesday afternoon….. and be home in time for Xmas.

On the ground at the desolate Wick airport. I was out of options. Sun had already set and twilight was approaching. So pretty much took off in the dark and landed in the dark, it has been a very long day. I am shattered and in need of a beer.

2 Likes
16

Arrived back at a misty Wick aerodrome and settled into the cockpit. OK, first thing is to get the Leeds Weather. Not perfect with a 1200ft ceiling, but doable.

This time, fuel burn and overall SOG not being a significant issue, it only being a relatively short flight of 330 miles, I elected to descend and remain in contact with the ground as soon as we got past the Yorkshire Dales and sneak in under the clouds.

We were in low cloud constantly, but managed to keep the ground in sight. Eventually, like an old friend, the golfballs of Menwith Hill, the United States NSA listening post hove into view, a well known visual marker for Leeds Bradford as it is 12 miles directly north of the airfield.

Menwith Hill spy base To port.

Landed at Leeds Bradford and bounced her on, I suppose I will be paying for two landings in one there. My fault, I reefed her round far too close to the end of the runway in impatience, found four very close, white PAPIs glaring at me and had to get rid of a fair bit of excess height quickly, setting up a very poor approach and having to seesaw back and forth on the throttles to stay on speed.

As everyone knows, a bad landing results from a bad approach and boing, we were back in the air for another 20ft or so before she settled back to the runway.

Taxied back to the Multiflight hanger and found everyone had finished for xmas and gone to the pub. I had to unlock the hanger doors and tow the aircraft inside myself, before closing up and finding my car in the car park.

So much for the heroic, dashing aviator returning home as a conquering hero…

On the ramp at Multiflight. Back in time for Xmas. The missus is very pleased. Any flights conducted during the holidays will be in the A2A Comanche, I am heartily sick of the Duke cockpit.

2 Likes