So the day arrived, the before last transatlantic crossing for our DC-3 tour.
Before heading to the airport, I tried to file a flight plan but it wasn't easy at all due to the bad internet connection at the hotel. You need a voucher to access it and it costs about 10$ for like 1 hour without being a stable connection. Anyway, so we tried to do our best checking the weather and for the flight plan filing, we simply went up the tower and asked the controller to file it for us.
When you cross towards Iceland, you mostly keep VHF connection all the way due to the numerous relays. The only trouble is that you must file via certain waypoints and should make a position report over it. Great news, radar coverage is so poor they might be hearing you but they surely aren't able to watch you. Therefore if you need to avoid some weather or don't want to fly north after having passed at the southern tip of Greenland, no one is able to say anything!
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| Our route |
So we made our way to our Gooney Bird and loaded all the bags in the cabin and in the back loading area. Everything was running smoothly, as we expected to land before airport closure of downtown Reykjavik, we were on a schedule but not in a hurry. This wasn't counting on the obvious mechanical issue that will only arise the day you need to fly because weather is becoming bad for the rest of the week!
Ready to start, Cisco flying again as Pilot Monitoring and therefore starting the right engine. The left one was already running smoothly when...pushing the start button, nothing happened, not one prop turning on the right side! Was it an hydraulic lock? Not possible because it never turned a single inch.
Then trying again, only to watch incredulously that those propellers were actually going to coarse pitch instead of turning! Our starter button acts now on the propeller pitch?!
Shut down and a hurry into the terminal to ask to delay the flight plan and also if the local maintenance could come and help us with some extra tools. Markus is already opening the cowling when I come back and Cisco is on the phone with Paul, happily sleeping some 6 hours back in time from Greenland. Well, now he isn't sleeping anymore.
Fortunately Paul advise us of the modification that American Airlines did on their DC-3's, they installed a relay in the wheel well which either acts as the started or the pitch control of the props. A quick cleaning of it, a little slam from the hammer and.... it works!
Just enough delay to make us sweat a bit trying to pick up the lost time in order to arrive before 10 pm in Iceland, before the high winds and especially the runway closure!
Let's now see some nice pictures of the scenery below from Greenland.
The rest of the flight was just a smooth one with the occasional showery weather you might encounter over the Atlantic during the summer, fortunately without having any thunderstorm nearby. The only part which mad eye sweat more was the landing that day, stormy weather with some strong wind upon landing in Rey! Here is the video of it, thank's Markus!
Warm welcome once on the ground by the great Icelandic DC-3 Team led by Tomas Dagur, a fantastic person whom I'll have the chance to meet again two years after during the 75th D-Day birthday Atlantic crossing with an US crew.
The following day we basically only took a day off, weather wise it wasn't the best and we wanted to have some time off for ourselves after this great adventure. We also picked up Bastien Otelli, writer and photographer for (in extenso) Piloter Magazine. The wonderful article is available at the end of this blog. Bastien is also a larger than life person and his good sense of humour will last long in my memory. Here is a picture of our group dinner in one of the best restaurant downtown.
Bob Moore wrote a special note on everyone's book, a little booklet he bought us in Greenland. This is also some great memories. Team drinks like would Peter say!
It was time to call this a night and have some rest before the next day's amazing formation flight with the Icelandair Dakota. Time for more pictures from Katsu and Bastien.
