britfrog 180 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 The phone rang, and I picked it up “Captain Porter?” the voice asked “yeah what can I do for you? “ would you be interested in a little ferry job?” , well I had not much to do at the moment so glibly responded “why not?” , I enjoy the odd little challenge, Carry a baton from New Zealand to Australia? How difficult can that be? little did I realise just how Big a challenge it was going to be! I had flown in from Christchurch (that is another tale to tell) Into what can only be described (politely) as the bottom of the world ,awaiting hwmbo , I know he likes things low and slow, so knowing the small airport he is coming from just up the road a spell, I decided to busy myself preparing my equipment for the next leg. Luckily there is a fair restaurant in the terminal , and a fairly agreeable lady behind the counter with a lovely knowing smile, so I keep returning under the pretext that it is so hot, well all the locals think it is , so who am I to argue? 18 degrees isnt my idea of summer but there you go. I had borrowed a corner of one of the hangars to organise my equipment as the trip that I have ahead of me will be pushing the limits of my aircraft and no doubt myself. [/url] Checking the bladder for leaks before fitting. Flying nearly 1000 miles across some of the most unfriendly seas on earth is not something to be taken lightly and requires not only a lot of preparation but a lot of official permits, equipment checks and stamps on various forms before a flight plan is authorised. The last time I had gone through this rigmarole was some years ago when I helped ferry an Arrow 4 from Arizona where my friend had bought it , across the US and Canada stopping in Labrador,Greenland and Iceland before landing in the UK at Glasgow still that is another story that may one day grace the annals of Mutleys. The roaring forties is an enormous region of the southern ocean where the winds and the seas gang up on any unprepared sailor , and aviator for that matter, so my regular visits to the tower next door to the terminal are an ideal opportunity to get a weather update. Most people think that the roaring forties just roar in an easterly direction, in actual fact in most cases there is quite a large amount of a northerly factor in their direction on most days they will hail from around 220 or 240 degrees and this reduces the headwind component which could either make or break my adventure. To further complicate the issue my course is roughly 280 degrees however my magnetic heading will be miles different at around 255 degrees , Why is it the Canadians get to move the magnetic pole where they like on their shield? Deep thanks indeed that I am obliged to carry 2 gps's, one fixed in the aircraft the other a hand held. I am also obliged to wear an immersion suit, not just carry it in the aircraft as it takes about 30 minutes to get into this horrible apparatus, which I swear was designed by some masochist for another purpose which we wont go into. So having gone over the check list once again there is nothing to do but await Joe with the baton. As I await the customs man comes in with his dog, not much work for a drug sniffing dog down here I thought, “off to Tasmania then ?” he says in a bored voice as his dog approaches my emergency dinghy, yes I replied and jump up because it looks like his dog is going to cut a leak on my dinghy, but no he is more interested in the smell emanating from it. “he always likes the smell of those dinghy s it is the explosive material in the flares” he adds I heaved a sigh of relief because it is one thing getting the dinghy out of its satchel when needed, It is a totally different game putting it back in, no wonder they charge £300 for the privilege, so I was not about to open it up voluntarily The 337 that I am ferrying has a quoted range of 928 Nm and the route that I am flying is 953 nm so it doesn't take the brain of Britain to figure out that when one adds a certain headwind component it is going to be a racing certainty by the end of play that I will be getting a trifle damp. With that nagging thought running through my head, long before I arrived here, I had hired an auxiliary fuel bladder which I can place on the floor behind the front seats and pipe it into the main fuel lines which come down from the wings just behind the front seats and then under the floor to the fuel pumps. It isnt the largest at 168 litres but it should prove sufficient as long as all the other variables play ball and don't throw a curve at me, hence my constant visits to the weather briefing guys. Finally Joe arrives but it is too late in the day to make a start and the weather looks like it should be better tomorrow so it is off to to my hovel , disguised as an international hotel to have dinner and get my head down . Dawn finally arrives , I had not slept well , the enormity of the journey ahead, played on my mind, and I had gone over all my equipment checks again and again in my head , until like counting sheep I fell into a fitful sleep for a couple of hours. I struggled out of bed with my eyelids full of sleep and stroll over to the still yawning weather man who had come in early to be able to give me an accurate forecast. It appeared from his point of view that despite my misgivings there was no feasible excuse that I could drum up to avoid the inevitable forthcoming departure so with just a couple of coffees inside me I headed over to the hanger to don my equipment. The plane was fully fuelled the night before , the weather was within the parameters demanded by ATC there was no reason to dally further except my growing desire to keep my feet on Terra Firma. 45 minutes later I am standing beside my craft feeling a bit like Charles Lindbergh but no one seems to take notice, it is just another departure to them, goodness me the seals of my immersion suit are tight on my wrist! and on my ankles, this is some kind of torture device! My circulation is being cut off. I get ready to climb aboard for my 9 hour flight and all of a sudden I get an uncontrolled desire to spend a penny! Oh no! it will take at least 20 minutes to wriggle certain parts of the anatomy out for a quick relief , and the sheer thought of that dispelled any further desire out of my mind. I closed the door and sat down feeling like the Michelin man, the safety belt would not go around me , having wrestled with it for what seemed an eternity, getting myself into a sweat, I resigned myself to flying without it , hell if I ditched I could get out quicker! Rather than be dragged down into the abyss by an octopus around me. My last item of equipment was a large plastic bag which I placed between the seats, this may prove crucial in the case of a ditching , at the last minute one blows up the bag, then uses it as an air reservoir as the plane sinks until the plane is full of water and you can then open the door and step out, with ones own air supply,I hope I don't get to test this theory. The start up was text book as was the taxi out to the single runway and the Atc accepted my read-back of his clearance. with a happy “bon voyage” The first part oif the flight was to fly along the coast passing some spectacular scenery this region well deserves its name of fjord land however progress is slow the calculated economic cruise speed is just 125 knots, at which the plane uses about 75litres an hour. Continental the engine manufacturers maintain that to get the best fuel economy you should run them 25 -50 degrees on the lean side of peak EGT but I prefer to run the slightly on the rich side of peak and suffer the extra consumption. After a while I became aware that my direction was no longer carrying me along the coast but taking me further and further away from it , time to make some major checks ! check and cross check the gps heading with the rmi and the compass. Was that a misfire? --- its sods law, as all pilots know, a plane always sneezes when it crosses a coast, well that certainly made the heart rate jump up a notch or two but it soon settled down to the monotony as the blue ocean spreads itself from horizon to horizon. Bored? No chance one cannot be lulled into a false sense of security so one has to concentrate and rigidly stick to a pattern of checks every 10 minutes, fuel, radio, engine, direction AAAAA ahh yes altitude, the rudimentary cessna autopliot was reducing the work load. I had taken off using the main tanks but quickly swopped over the the auxillary which sadly had no contents guage, but with regular glances behind I could check it as it slowly grew smaller. I intended to run it dry before swopping over, at that point I would be able to calculate whether or not I had enough left to continue or turn around. I was cruising along at 12,000 feet between 2 layers of cloud but could see the angry sea below just waiting to devour me given the chance. The auxiliary tank finally ran out and as everything still appeared normal I tried to make contact with Invercargill to give them an update on my position and my intention to continue the flight, however I was out of range and all of a sudden I felt very alone, I had earlier turned one of my radios onto 121.50 the emergency channel, just in case, but there was no chatter on it. If I ditched now only my two ELT's would signal to the world my plight, I just hope my dinghy doesn't have a leak. My loneliness made me all too aware of how the early aviators must have felt, back then, some didn't even have a radio, and some didnt even end up arriving in the country they had intended to. When I first crossed the north Atlantic it was before gps's had been invented so a lot of navigation was by Dead Reckoning, or stick your finger out of the window to see where the wind was coming from and then make a guesstimate of which heading to take. Today I have the comfort of a gps quietly checking off the miles and assuring me that I am on course, despite being out of range of all normal navaids. The comforting roar of the engines continue, thankfully. After what seemed an eternity, ok perhaps 5 minutes less , having finished my zillionth scan of the instruments I thought I saw the VOR indicator move, nah just my imagination, but no it shivered again, well this was good news I tuned my radio to the Hobart frequency and thought I would see if they could hear me. “, Hobart N79252 do your read me? Silence, I try again Hobart N79252 do your read me? There was a hissing noise , then all of a sudden I heard a voice say he could read me all fives and how were things going? I gave him an estimate of my arrival in his overhead based on the gps info I had and I heard awww geeez !!!!! whats the problem I ask? “Awww I just lost the sweepstake” what sweepstake I ask, “aww we all had a bet on what time we would get your first transmission and I lost by 20 minutes” I apologise, no idea why, and continue toward my hidden friend over the horizon. Before long the coast of Tasmania hove into sight, it is a welcome sight and then all of a sudden I feel hungry and remember the bacon sandwiches that had been pressed onto me at the last minute by the lady at the restaurant back at Invercargill , I open the tin foil and there written hurriedly was a note on top of the sandwiches wishing me good luck,. I bolted down the sandwiches and the rush of sugars as they were digested really woke me up and it wasn't long before I started a gentle descent to remain clear of the controlled airspace around Hobart. As Atc was quiet they gave me a routing direct to the ILS of launceston , however as if to sling a final test at me, the weather was not going to play ball. Launceston was quoting a visibility of 900 metres and a cloud base of 300 feet, well that should be get-in-able providing it didn't get worse,so it wasn't long before I was established on their ILS and gently letting down towards an invisible runway . No matter how many times you shoot an ILS in anger it is always nice to see the ground, but the first view can be disorienting as you are in deep cloud it is natural to expect when you get free of the cloud everything should brighten up, but in fact the opposite is true and it can make you feel as if you are upside down , because as you clear the cloud the ground is much darker than the cloud you were in, however this is short lived and the need to concentrate is paramount and as the DME and altimeter count down I start to strain my eyes to see the first glimmer of the approach lights. 1,000 feet,-------700 feet------- was that a light? No just my imagination, 500feet --------double check the guages, and then Voila!!! there they are, the heart rate starts to slow and ones confidence grows, check the airspeed too high , reduce power , three greens , that's one less thing to worry about, flaps full? Arrest the ballooning by trimming forward and as the airspeed erodes the ground gets closer, over the piano keys , pull it back a bit, watch the speed , use the rudder to keep it straight, there's a bit of a cross wind , pull it back and re trim to keep a speed of about 75mph and then at the last second before the wheels kiss the ground cut the power and pull back a bit more to keep the nose wheel high. A little squeal, reduce the back load on the column and gently let the nose wheel touch the ground , apply some brakes and there is the turn off. ATC aim me at a parking spot normally for larger airliners in front of their attractive terminal and I shut down as the guys from customs come out to carry out their duty . l] Job Done! Now where is the next baton carrier? Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,497 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 Bravo Nigel, you were pushing it a bit there with the endurance but it shows what meticulous planning can do. A very enjoyable PIREP thanks for getting the baton safely to Launceston. Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 Great PIREP ! Glad to see you made it OK. I tried the finger out the window thing to test for the wind direction. It must have been weird weather that day, as no matter which direction I headed, I always had a head wind! Link to post Share on other sites
hurricanemk1c 195 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 Superb story there Nigel! Link to post Share on other sites
stu7708 244 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 Great PIREP Nigel! Great shots, and a story nicely put together... And a big thank you for taking this marathon of a leg Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,315 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 Excellent PIREP Nigel. As realistic as one can get, I enjoyed the read. I guess you gave the local porcelain a good thrashing when you finally landed, eh? Link to post Share on other sites
rosariomanzo 545 Posted February 14, 2014 Report Share Posted February 14, 2014 Superb, well done! Link to post Share on other sites
SEATAC 400 Posted February 15, 2014 Report Share Posted February 15, 2014 Good job Nigel. I'll be collecting the baton shortly. Link to post Share on other sites
rob16584 42 Posted February 23, 2014 Report Share Posted February 23, 2014 Fantastic story Nigel, loved reading it Link to post Share on other sites
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