From Nars to Rey!

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!

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.

Blue ice and great food

The best way to start a morning in Greenland is to look at your watch. Why that? Simply because with such a northern latitude you could easily wake up and believe its 8am when in fact it is still well into the night. In Narsarsuaq it's not really up to that point because its location is more south than Reykjavik for instance. This land extend so much south-north its incredible.

So after a good breakfast in our hotel, we decided to take a tour in the middle of the glacier mouth. The isolated place renders some amazing pure ice and with the air trapped inside, gives a bluish appearance.

The icing on the cake is, some vodka with a direct ice supply from the nearby ice cube! A delight and a good time sharing this with our  DC-3 friends.

A happy DC-3 pilot floating on ice

Trying some melted ice 

Cold but happy

Cheers!!

Glacier mouth, only ones on the water

After having enjoyed our tour we did some flight planning while Mireille and Markus bought Francisco and I a jacket in a nearby little store to keep us warm!! They are such nice and fantastic persons! Now we are equipped for the worst weather and the rest of the crossing without heater!

In the evening we went to the hotel's restaurant, not awaiting to be treated with delicious menus and some perfect cocktails, made at the table! 

The next day, once those cocktails evaporated from us, we went for a little take off and landing with a great fly-by over the airport in order for Greg to film us like if we would be arriving, all this for his movie which we are all eager to watch. Here are some footage from inside, I had the pleasure to be flying this under the good advice from Cisco.

It was such a nice experience, making tight turns in the fjord.

Again, in the evening, we all went to our now favourite restaurant and had the same dinner as the previous evening, treating ourselves to some good times.

The next day we will have our second crossing, the one that will bring us to Reykjavik, already looking forward for this flight.

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!

Teterboro - Québec - Goose Bay, 23rd August 2017

Good morning everyone, this is the day we leave New York!

On the ramp at TEB

It was not so sure we would be able to enjoy the day in the air that much initially. In fact some big thunderstorms were arriving the night before and fortunately passed over quicker than planned so the next day a tad bit cooler air was flowing from the north east and clearer than planned sky welcomed us at Teterboro (TEB) Signature flight support. We also met Bob, an American gentleman who made his fortune in Treadmills and Bio food. I will not say his age here but to let you know, he was already a 10 years old child when the DC-3 first made his maiden flight. In shape he is!

It was a nice feeling to be back at the controls of HB-IRJ, was missing the traditional sound of its two Pratt 1830-92, each pulling us with 1200 horse power. 

Loaded up and fuelled for our leg towards Québec Jean Lesage we departed TEB runway 01 for some beautiful landscape over the Appalaches range.

Overhead Albany

The approach at Québec was a reminder for both Francisco and I about our flying in Canada. Francisco did his licences here in the 90's and I had the chance to fly an International Air Rally back in 2004 with Samuel, who will be my best man for our wedding planned in February 2018. It is also with a good laugh that we listen to Québec airport ATIS (Automated Terminal Information Service) in french, stating the different clouds present within the Terminal Control Area of the airport. They have a translation for everything.

South side of the St-Lawrence river

Approaching the airport area, good memories

After a windy approach and a well deserved stop for lunch at nearby Archibald micro brewery, we went back to the airport and refuelled for what would be also a memorable trip along the St-Lawrence river direction Sept-Îles and then Goose Bay. 

Goose Bay is a well know airport for the actual pilots who fly small airplane across the Atlantic as a well deserved and maintained airfield. It is a military base and therefore its runway and apron are free of snow year round and the supply of Avgas, oil, maintenance and hotel accommodation is plenty. Our flight time between Québec and Goose Bay was estimated to approximately 4h10 minutes. A fairly long flight finally. Weather was good, windy but fair and only upon approaching Goose Bay did we encounter some thunderstorms close to the approach course. We had to ask for radar vectors and fly and IFR approach to brake out of rain and clouds at 1500 feet/450 meters above the ground. By the time we landed it was completely dark outside and both the runway without center light and the dark apron was a surprise to us. We parked the airplane, went to the nearby shop to rent our dinghies and installed the small bladder tank for an extra 45 minutes of Avgas for our next day crossing. In Goose Bay Greg will leave us and fly back to his next adventure, it would be not before Reykjavik that we will meet him again. 

Those pictures show the spirit of the flight.

Markus taping up the scoops to avoid cold air

Departing towards Québec old city

Old Town and harbour 

Far end, Montmorency waterfall and the Orléans Island

Friends have a Bed and Breakfast just there

Thousands lakes

The front is approaching

Markus looks upon us and our tired eyes!!