Goose Bay to Narsarsuaq, 24th August 2017

As you all know by now, flying, even when fatigued, doesn't bother me at all. Of course when you have to fly an airliner 4 legs a day and be responsible for the safety of all passengers you have to limit yourself to the federal limitations and also look at your personal fitness level. If you cannot deal with it then you have to call unfit to fly. 

In our operation with the the DC-3, the stamina level is so high you might actually think you are OK to fly although you feel tired. So when I woke up this morning of the 24th August under a thick fog layer, I wasn't ready for more sleep. In the contrary, with only 4 hours of sleep I've never felt more ready to wake up and fly!

Great help from these guys at Woodward

Not looking tired at all...

Little did I know at that time that I would visit this place again 2 years after for an other Atlantic crossing with a US airplane and its crew, going for a stroll across to celebrate the 75th D-Day anniversary.
So back on track and this time for THIS crossing. We prepared thoroughly our HB-IRJ in order to set up our two GNS430 GPSs and the third VFR GNS 695 that enables us to navigate with a fantastic terrain database. It wasn't really helpful crossing the Pacific as well...you mostly have water and our destination Shemya was a small flat island but here, going towards Greenland we surely preferred to have this backup. 
Anyway, the crew and bags on board, it was time to ask for the oceanic clearance departing CYYR (Happy Valley/Goose Bay) towards BGBW (Narsarsuaq). All levels at or above FL060 require a clearance, a routing, a speed or for those flying above a Mach number to keep and an HF radio. Those very specific requirements enable radio operator to communicate with airplane in non VHF environment but the radio is of very bad quality. For those who want more theory behind this, please visit this wikipedia link .
Basically we agreed on the route and speed and level but hey, no radar means we can navigate according the freezing level. Safety first. 
After getting through the fog layer, here is the amazing sunrise in front of us. Flying east towards the sun, a beautiful sight.

During that crossing we weren't a tiny bit worried about endurance or payload as we didn't need our special bladder tanks like during the pacific crossing. however we encountered some weather enroute, especially approaching the greenland coast. As some of you might know, we check METARs and TAFs before we fly. Those TAFs are generally quite accurate in most part of the World whereas the ones issued for Greenland can change completely avec short after being issued. The one we had called for a nice scattered clouds at hight altitude for our arrival time. This is what we had only about 80 miles ashore.

Pretty much scary isn't it? At our low altitude we weren't able to speak to any controller from Narsarsuaq nor on VHF to Gander or Nuuk. Therefore we tried on 123.45 the international chatter frequency. An American Airlines hight above us got our request finally and was able to relay our demand for some weather update. To our relief, the actual weather at destination wasn't too bad. After some 20 minutes we finally came out of the worst weather and the coast appeared ahead in our line of sight.

The glaciers that span mostly north of Narsarsuaq bring some cold air downstream from their ice cap and for that reason, moisture usually form as fog patches along the fjords. Luckily we made it just before rain came and bad weather would force us for a two nights stop. 

Getting into the fjord. To the far end you have to be careful and choose the correct valley otherwise you might get stuck

Go right! Left could be the shorter way but cables and a mountain pass would have blocked us

A nice waterfall with some ice cubes, whiskey anyone?? ;-)

The runway is pretty long but the approach type in BGBW if you have to fly IFR can make a big challenge especially in a DC-3. Here is the approach plate.

Performance wise our DC-3 would have some troubles to fly the missed approach

We were able to make a visual approach, coming in to land for a short final after a crooked right base. What a feeling. Landing onto the base called Bluie West 1 during WW2. At that time airplanes weren't able to fly across the Atlantic without an intermediate stop enroute between Canada, the USA and Iceland. Mostly had a stopover in Nars as they called internally or Bluie West 1 as it was officially called to prevent giving up names to the enemy. After landing, Bob, who was carrying bags more than a 747 can carry and our troop deplaned, heading towards our nice place for two nights, the...you named it, Narsarsuaq Hotel!

Glace sandwichs mineral Wasser!

It is a land of desolation for a person like us. Nevertheless it is such a cool place to relax, go on tours to discover the area and make huge treks in Greenland. Our tight schedule did not allow us to do much as we had to plan our next flight but on the "off" day we saw some incredible landscape. See you tomorrow!