Murph's Audio Files:
Taxi (14:53)
Departure (19:53)
Enroute (11:09)
Arrival (23:46)

Euro Caravan 2000

The third annual Mooney Caravan to EAA Airventure in Oshkosh, WI. Growing from 42 planes the first year to 76 the second year, this year's Caravan is expected to draw 100 Mooneys. For the first time, two aircraft will participate from overseas, as Marcel Geering (1981 262)and Flemming Pedersen (1965 M20E) arrive from Switzerland.

Madison Dinner

One of two Swiss airplanes arrived at Madison this year for Mooney Caravan 2000. Flemming Pedersen, who flew his 1965 M20E across the Atlantic last week, explains why weather extended his and Marcel Geering's crossing to almost five days.

Pedersen also explained in detail the difficulties of flying to Africa, saying the difficulties were in the planning. Lack of avgas supplies are one of the key problems, though regulatory issues and the cost of clearances and services are also a problem. No avgas is available from Luxor, Egypt all of the way to Nairobi, Kenya, Pedersen explained. And unexpected difficulties are present: with no response from Telexes to Eritrea, he finally learned that it was because enemy Ethopia had cut off all Telex services.

Even with all of the problems, Tanzania is worth seeing because of the game parks and the scarcity of tourists. However, you do have to protect the airplane from hyenas, which will chew on tires and fairings.

He will be returning home via the Azores. Next on his plans: a six-month trip across the Middle East and into the Pacific.

Needless to say, the winners of the longest-distance flown were Pedersen, his partner Ray; Marcel Geering and his co-pilot.

Geering's departure:

From: Marcel Geering
Subject: Departure
Date: 14 July, 2000

We leave on Sunday and try to fly the same day to Iceland, the day after to Greenland. We plan to be in Syracuse/NY on Friday or Saturday to join the Northestern Caravan. However, the weather in Europa is exeptionally bad for this time of the year. I spoke with Flemming Pedersen today. He is leaving Geneva tomorrow.
We try to meet in Island and fly together to Greenland.
We will keep you informed about our progress.

Marcel Geering

Pedersen's departure:

From: Flemming PEDERSEN
Subject: We are on our way to Oshkosh!!
Date: Reykjavik, 16 July 2000

Dear friends and family,
'Honey-Mooney' left as planned Geneva Friday 14 July in the evening a 1755 LT bound for Guernsey with final destination Oshkosh and to participate in the Mooney Caravan 2000; the third organized by Jonathan Paul in Salinas, California. As usual we were delayed by slot restrictions by Brussels. The weather had been horrible the whole week before our departure and it was pouring down all day Friday with freezing level lowering to about 6000 feet by Saturday and horrible head winds out of the NW. The climb out in IMC in the PAS holding pattern was interesting due to strong mountain waves from the Jura mountains: occasionally we were descending! Anyhow, after some time we broke out on top at FL100 and later we had to go to FL120 and 140 to stay on top. At FL140 we had 40 KTS on the nose, so the ground speed resembled more that of a Piper or a Cessna than a Mooney.

So soon we gave up the comfort of being on top and went into IMC at FL80 (below the freezing level) to improve our ground speed. We had 30 - 35 knots right on the nose all the way, and made it into Guernsey only 10 minutes before closing time at 2100 LT.

We were picked up by Bob and Fizzy in VIP style and driven directly to the best Italian restaurant in Guernsey 'Rosario' and had a lovely evening which later was finished in Bob and Fizzy's new Jacuzzi. What a great way to start a 4 week flying holiday! And how convenient to have such good friends so close to one of the very few airports in Europe with tax free AVGAS.

The next morning the IR satellite photo showed quite nice weather over most of our route to Reykjavik except for the last hour before Reykjavik where a fairly active warm front was clearly visible. The movement of the clouds clearly indicated a strong NW flow and the MET office confirmed it to be about 35 knots at FL100 most of the way. We therefore gave up the idea of a non-stop flight from Guernsey directly to Reykjavik as the headwind increased the flight time from 8 to 10 hours, and we decided to make a stopover in Glasgow for refuelling, stretching our legs and minimizing the duration we had to wear the horrible immersion suits for the cold North Atlantic.

Slot time again for our departure, but only 20 minutes delay. A special Guernsey offer reduced our landing fees to only 6 pounds - what a great airport. We stayed in FL100 most of the way as that was the minimum flight level to stay in UK controlled airspace (all airways in UK are class A), and we had constantly 35 knots on the nose: 115 knots ground speed like a Cessna! Handling at Glasgow was efficiently done by Exec Air, but for a price: we had to dump 75 british pounds (about 110 US$) in handling and landing fees; steep even by European standard.

I was carefully checking that the fuel truck was marked AVGAS, and told the refueller (who had been doing that job for 35 years and claimed NEVER to have made any refuelling mistake) about the recent fatal accident in Zürich where a piston plane mistakenly had been refuelled with JET A-1 (kerosene) and crashed seconds after take-off. To my big surprise I discovered after arrival in Reykjavik that according to the EXEC air invoice, my plane had been refuelled with 135 litres of JET A-1!!! Thank God it was only the invoice which was wrong, otherwise I might not have been here to tell the story. And I do not intend to complain about it since they only charged 0.35 pounds per litre, and this somewhat compensates for their steep handling fees.

We had the headwind of 35 knots as promised, and enjoyed looking down on Isle of Skye in Scotland where we spent a lovely holiday chez Bill and Deirdre a few years ago. In Scottish advisory (uncontrolled) airspace we were flying flight levels according to the quaint and old fashioned UK rule: FL85 IFR NW bound. Then after some negotiations with Shanwick (who somehow had not received our flight plan) we were finally given our oceanic clearance at FL80.

We had chosen the direct route Stornoway - Keflavik, where HF is required. However we were not able to make contact on HF with either Shanwick or Iceland on HF. And we were not the only one: there were several airlines (KLM, Air France, New Zealand) trying to do the same without ever succeeding. So for about 1 hour we were without radio contact with Shanwick or Iceland. This is probably due to the presently unusual sun spot activity and proximity to the magnetic north pole.

The last hour before Reykjavik we flew as expected into IMC in the warm front, and landed as planned at the old Reykjavik airport in the middle of the town with 3 km visibility and 700 foot ceiling. The wind, which earlier in the day had been blowing at 30 knots gusting to 46 knots, had conveniently dropped to 15-20 knots when we landed.

Today we did the Golden Circle tour: Geysir, Gullfoss, and Tingvellir national park (where we did a nice walk of 2 hours). Finished off the day with a swim in the thermal baths 'Blue Lagoon'.

Then Marcel and Leo arrived as planned with the second swiss Mooney participating in the Mooney Caravan 2000 to Oshkosh, and we had our first European regional Caravan dinner together in a nice (but expensive - as everything here in Iceland) restaurant in Reykjavik. They had much better luck with the head winds: almost no headwind.

Tomorrow we will both head for Jakobshavn, Greenland - weather permitting. Next e-mail will probably not be before Goose Bay or Bangor, since I have no Internet access in Greenland.

Greetings from Ray and Flemming

Pedersen's arrival:

Nuuk, Greenland, 19 July

Dear friends and family,
We had planned to leave Reykjavik early morning Monday 17 July with destination Jakobshavn in the Disco bay on the West Coast of Greenland. Marcel had called the MET office in Søndre Strøm, and based on their reports we quickly changed our mind. A very active low was centered on the Disco bay, and the weather in all 3 major airports on the West Coast was bad: rain, low ceilings, freezing level at 2-3000 feet. They said it would improve by Tuesday as the low would fill in and move northeast. We later heard that there had been 2 helicopter accidents in the Nuuk area due to the bad weather.

We later went to Reykjavik airport where satellite images and terminal forecast confirmed the picture. We chatted to a number of general aviation pilots at airport also westbound in light aircraft who had made the same decision. Only a Mooney M20E with similar range to 'Honey-Mooney' decided to go direct to Goose Bay, Labrador. We could have done that too, but both Ray and I were keen on visiting Greenland.

We profited from this extra day in Reykjavik to get the oxygen bottle completely filled, and to go and admire Anne's landscape architecture creations: modern and abstract concrete objects located near the sea. She had just been participating in a Nordic architecture workshop in Reykjavik: 'Forgotten Places'. They are well hidden, but thanks to her detailed descriptions and map we easily found them.

Next day, Tuesday 18 July, we checked the infrared satellite image and Søndre Strøm forecast on the Internet, and decided to go for Jakobshavn. The low had moved NE as predicted, and the cloud cover over the ice cap looked thin and scattered. The enthusiasm for going was somewhat moderated when we saw the winds aloft charts: West 45 knots on the nose to Kulusuk, then veering NW and up to 65 knots before decaying to NW at 25 knots near destination. There was a Søndre Strøm SIGMET out for moderate to severe turbulence at most altitudes. After talking to Marcel in Keflavik on the mobile phone, we decided nevertheless to give it a try, as we could return to Reykjavik if it got too bad. An American ferry pilot bringing a Cherokee 235 to the US decided to go as well, while the Czech pilot flying a Partenavia factory demo to Oshkosh preferred to stay on the ground (most of the other aircraft needed to land in Kulusuk due to headwind and short range). Initially the headwinds were as forecast, 45 knots southwest veering west. We took FL80 while Marcel and Leo in the M20K (252) took FL120. Between Reykjavik and Kulusuk (on the Greenland E coast) we gained 10 minutes in flight time relative to them by staying lower. Near Greenland the winds decayed a bit at FL80. By Kulusuk we had to climb to FL130 (lowest level FL120 was taken by the Cherokee 235) and then the wind really picked up: we measured up to 65 knots at FL130.

In addition there was a strong, long and steady mountain wave, so for about 20 NM (between Kulusuk and MASIK (waypoint)) we were unable to maintain altitude with maximum climb power, and was forced down to FL110 before being able to climb again.

While in climbing attitude, our ground speed dropped to 50 knots. We were in VMC, and terrain clearance was never a problem. Neither was the turbulence: only light turbulence encountered. The only problem was that airspeed, groundspeed, vertical speed and altitude was not indicating what we liked to see! However the view of the Greenland East Coast, completely in the clear due to the föhn conditions was fantastic. Marcel and Leo climbed on oxygen to FL180 and had probably less problems with the mountain wave up there and they also much more spare power for climb with a turbo.

By MASIK both we and Simon Brooks in the Cherokee in front of us at FL120 had recovered from the strong mountain wave near the coast, and we were cruising about 4000 feet above the icecap. Soon Marcel (HB-DGI) announced from his great height that he changed destination to Søndre Strøm due to inadequate reserves. Honey-Mooney had taken 2 hours of extra fuel in the auxiliary tank on the back seat so we had a total of 12:30 hours of fuel on board. We reached Jakobshavn in beautiful weather after 7:30 hours in the air with still 5 hours of fuel left and landed 10 minutes before official 'closing' time which is at 5 PM LT. They don't really close, but the steep landing fee of DKK 610.- about triples after five! The flight time without headwind would have been about 5:40 hours.

Nevertheless this icecap crossing was easier than the last one Angela and I did in 1991: we then had to abort the first attempt and land in fairly bad weather in Kulusuk, and barely made it at FL180 the next day just above the icy cloud tops at FL175.

We had planned to spend two nights in the nice little town of Jakobshavn. Here the Jakobshavn Icefjord spits millions of tons of iceberg into the sea every day and chained huskies (used for transport during the winter season) make howling concerts day and night. We had booked a midnight sun cruise by the icebergs the second night. The barometer was high at our arrival.

However a call to the weatherman Wednesday morning made us quickly change our mind: a new low with associated front was forecast to move into the Disco bay again with rain and clouds and freezing level down to 2000 feet forecast by Thursday morning. Nuuk and Søndre Strøm further south were not affected. This could mean serious icing problems which due to the high terrain could ground us there for several days.

So we went down to isfjorden for another walk and lunch, decided to cancel the midnight sun cruise and move on to Nuuk by 3 PM in the afternoon so we could land before their 'closing' time at 5 PM. We had a beautiful flight along the edge of the icecap and over the long fjords down to Nuuk (Godthaab), where we checked in in the reasonably priced 'Sømandshjemmet' (Seaman's home) and had a fabulous 'nouvelle cuisine' dinner in a new restaurant called 'NIPISA' in the centre of town.

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Almost in Oshkosh!

The weather for moving on to Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada looked fine. Slight tailwind component most of the way and only problem was a low centered over Labrador with rain, low ceilings and visibilities in Goose Bay. Nearest alternate with customs is Gander or Sept Iles, which is several flying hours away, so we put in 10:30 hours of fuel for the 4:45 hour flight to Goose.

There are no permanent Canadian customs official in Goose, so the Canadians require us to call customs at 1-888-CANPASS and advice. Only problem is that such a call is NOT toll free from Greenland, we were put on a hold with nice music, and we spent 30 minutes and close to 200 DKR before we came through to a very unfriendly customs woman!

The weather en route was nice, and we really needed the HF radio since we were out of VHF range for 3 hours. The HF worked fine most of the time, except for one particular position report. We tried on several appropriate Gander VHF frequencies before we finally got through to SR102 (Swissair 102) on air-to air 123.45 MHz. He was very friendly and helpful and we had a long chat about crossing oceans in light aircraft. The crew of course knew Hans Georg Schmid (MD-11 captain with Swissair), who just recently went around the world twice in his home built Long-Eze. We will see him in Oshkosh.

The light tailwind was as forecast, and near Goose we calculated that with present groundspeed, we could in fact go on straight to Bangor Maine and still have 1:30 hours of fuel left, which was enough considering that the weather in Bangor was excellent and there are nearby alternates. Gander was very helpful on changing our destination and working out a good and direct routing. We then called up St. Johns Flight Service and got the winds aloft for the area between Goose and Bangor, and realized that the wind would turn and we would get close to 20 knots on the nose the last two hours. We did not have adequate reserves for that, so we had to go back to the original plan and land in Goose Bay, which had rain and 500-foot ceiling and 2 miles visibility. They were very busy with lots of German Air Force fighter planes making all sorts of approaches. One of these had had an accident and left the runway due to aquaplaning a few hours before we landed. After take-off in Goose, we were IMC for about 2 hours before we broke out and landed in Bangor in beautiful weather by sunset. The US customs and immigration official were very friendly and told us that the other Swiss Mooney bound for Oshkosh came through there a few hours earlier.

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Madison Arrival

Now it is getting boring!

Friday morning I was busy working on my talk 'Africa is tougher than the Atlantic' which I have to give tonight for the Mooney Caravan crowd (more than 200 people). Friday afternoon we flew a short hop down to Bedford Massachusetts to see Jean-Francois and his beautiful baby Taiying. (Yu-Hong was travelling). He prepared a delicious Lobster dinner. During the night an active cold front with thunderstorms moved through New England, and the next morning we went on to Baltimore to say hello to Stephen and Geltrouda (too brief, sorry!), and went on to Madison Wisconsin where the big Mooney formation for Oshkosh will depart from Monday morning. Flying weather was great. Several controllers (not very busy) were curious about our strange registration and wanted to know more. Going to Oshkosh? Which route over the Atlantic? Sunday evening there is the big dinner party for all the Mooney Caravan participants and I will have to present my little talk (which is ready now!!).

Ray and Flemming

PS. Not sure we will have internet access while camping in Oshkosh!

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Oshkosh: Aviators Paradise

> Dear friends and family,
Sunday 23 July (when you got our last report from Madison) was a busy day. While working hard in our hotel room on my PowerPoint presentation 'Africa is tougher than the Atlantic' for the Sunday night dinner talk in Madison, we got a phone call from the Mooney Caravan lead pilot Dave Piehler who said that we should come to the airport immediately as a journalist from Wisconsin State Journal wanted to talk to us. The efficient van service got us to the airport quickly, and Ray and I were interviewed and photographed and appeared the day after on the front page of the local news of 'Wisconsin State Journal': ''Porsches of the Skies' to take off'; ''Mooney Caravan' of 100 planes to leave Madison for Oshkosh'.

While being photographed by the newspaper photographer, we were busy doing a 50 hour inspection of 'Honey Mooney' with oil filter, oil and spark plug change. Before we finished that, we got interrupted in our duties again, and a TV team from CBS channel 3 came and interviewed us. The reason for the media interest in our particular Mooney was of course that we were one of two Mooney's coming all the way from Switzerland to participate in this spectacular Mooney group fly-in to Oshkosh. And Marcel and Leo's Mooney had not yet arrived as they came in with the Northeast regional Caravan.

So we just finished the work on the plane at 6 pm, when it was time to move over to the big hangar and get my laptop hooked up to the video projector in preparation for the dinner talk. The talk went OK (Ray said!) and after me the famous Roy Lopresti gave a talk mainly showing how he and his team successfully squeezed 18 knots more speed out of the Mooney. He designed the very successful aerodynamic clean-up of the M20J (Mooney 201) in the mid seventies. Most of his aerodynamic modifications has been retrofitted on my old M20E and I have therefore profited from the same efficiency and speed increase, which is very important for long range flying. Monday 24 July was the day of the big 'Mooney Caravan 2000' event. Fortunately the weather was great, and we were briefed by Dave Piehler and Bill Rabek about the special Mooney Caravan procedures. Group photographs were taken, and our group leader Jonathan Paul briefed us on the start-up and taxi procedures to ensure that we would all line up on Madison runway 3 in the sequence we were scheduled to take off. At 12:20 Mooney lead (Alpha-one) got his VFR clearance to Oshkosh and we (Echo-five) started our engine soon after that.

The 97 strong swarm of idling Mooneys slowly taxied and lined up on the wide runway 3 while cars stopped on the nearby highway and numerous spectators were watching the show. At 12:30 Mooney lead got his take-off clearance, and after that a Mooney started his take-off roll every 6 seconds! Nobody talked on the tower frequency and only group leaders announced on a special Mooney frequency when each group lead was launched. There was an interesting conversation on the ground frequency. A local commuter airline announced: 'Wisconsin Air 37 request start-up clearance for Chicago O'Hare. How are the delays for getting into O'Hare today?' Reply from Madison ground: 'No problems getting into O'Hare today, but you are number 102 for take-off at Madison!'

Two parallel runways 36L and 36R (normally a taxi way) were reserved for our special Mooney Caravan arrival at Oshkosh which meant that in average a Mooney would be landing on each runway every 12 seconds! Everything went well and only two planes had to go around. There was allocated a Mooney air-to-air frequency which was initially rather quiet, but later got VERY busy with all sorts of comments regarding separation, altitude and airspeed.

The high rate of arrivals off course means that there are several airplanes on the runway ahead when you land and that it is out of the question to wait to land until the runway is clear. We were instructed to land long on the long runway, but by the time we arrived 25 planes had already landed on each of the two long parallel runways and there were plenty of Mooneys filling up the runway ahead of us so we actually had to land short to find some runway to land on. Our group (Echo group) got squeezed a bit more than most since our group leader made a minor navigational error by turning final a few miles too early, which made our flight path about 1 minute shorter than the preceding group (Delta group) such that we got too close to the tail of this group.

This forced our group leader to slow down to the minimum approach speed of 70 knots already 5 miles out. The briefed approach speed was 105 knots. The result of this was that we got VERY close to the preceding (Echo-3) and we just managed to create enough spacing for a safe landing on the wide 36L runway by doing some shallow S-turns. For a short while I thought that we might have to go around. Once on the ground we kept a good taxi speed and close separation from preceding to create room for those behind. VERY EXCITING!!

On the ground it is impossible for ground control to talk to every airplane, and we were all directed by ground crew to the desired parking position indicated by a panel displayed behind the windshield, most of us were going to 'Mooney Camp' which is 5 rows of 20 airplanes each at the Oshkosh North '40' aircraft camp. Here there is about 70 such rows. LOTS of aircraft were camping here. And this was in addition to thousands of homebuilts, warbirds and display aircraft parked elsewhere at this large airport.

While setting up our camp and tents near our Mooney, we saw swarms of airplanes of all sorts coming straight in on runway 9 via the standard RIPON/FISK VFR arrival procedure, all silent on the radio, while the tower controller talked fast and continuously and directed them to touch down on various designated touchdown spots on the runway. The RIPON/FISK visual holding pattern literally looked like a swarm of bees!! Later the Bonanza's had their group fly-in and by the end of Monday afternoon the aircraft camping area was practically full although the EAA convention officially only starts on Wednesday.

We had a busy week and saw lots of interesting airplanes, went to forums and seminars, and watched the air show for 3 hours every afternoon. Wednesday afternoon Margi and Gerard Moss arrived from Rio de Janeiro with their beloved Romeo together with two Brazilian pilots. We went out to Kelly's bar near the university. This bar is normally is packed with students, but this time of the year packed with aviators of course. We met there two Australian earth rounders, Gaby Kennard and Claude Meunier. Ray met a whole bunch of Kiwi aviators which made him happy.

A week at Oshkosh is a total immersion in aviation. We followed a very interesting two hour course in ditching. According to the statistics, 92% of all light aircraft ditchings are successful, so we hope that the course would help us to be in the right 92% should it happen. Thursday evening we had our Mooney barbecue between two rows of Mooney's. Near the Discovery Stage we were mingling with the 'earth rounders' at their parking. Here we met Jon Johanson, Horst Ellenberger, Jorge Cornish (also participating in the Mooney Caravan 2000), Hans Gutmann, Hans Georg Schmidt and many others. The 'earth rounders' meeting was organized by Margi Moss and Hans Gutmann and we were kindly invited to this meeting with the label 'potential earth rounders' as Angela and I are preparing for the big trip in 2001/2002. We also met a couple of other potential earth rounders like Andy Hopper (from Cambridge, UK) and Rolf Frieden (from near Geneva). Very interesting contacts and we can certainly profit from the experience of others. The main earth rounders meeting was at Saturday in the 'Nature Center'. Here we had lunch and listened to many interesting talks by Dick Rutan (Voyager 86, LongEZ 97), Jon Johanson, Horst Ellenberger (ditching the Pacific in a Bonanza), Don Taylor (now 81, first to round the earth in a home built), and Thomas Casey (only round the world on floats). Interesting people! And thanks to Margi and Hans for taking the initiative to organize such an interesting event.

Friday evening my cousin Kirsten and husband Bill from California joined us and we had an interesting dinner together with Don and Carolyn Luschar and Jonathan Paul. Kirsten and Bill, thanks for advancing your journey to Wisconsin such that we could meet up again!

Departing Oshkosh can be as interesting as arrivals. If weather is VFR, it can be fairly simple as no talking on the radio or clearance is required and the departure rate is high. Saturday morning it was IFR for several hours, and when Marcel and Leo called up 'Clearance Delivery' for start-up, they were kindly instructed to call back in 3 hours! Saturday afternoon we got a perfect weather briefing from the local FAA Flight Service Station and filed an IFR flight plan. The weather was forecast to be solid IFR all morning and an active front was located along our route of flight.

Ray and Flemming

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OSH to Azores

Dear friends and family,
The alarm clock went off at 5 am our last day at Oshkosh, WI. We quickly folded up the wet tents, loaded 'Honey-Mooney' with our stuff and called up 'Oshkosh Clearance Delivery' at 5:59 am as the weather was IFR and forecast to be that all morning. To our great surprise we got our route clearance and start-up clearance right away (no time for breakfast) and soon took off into the low, grey overcast sky. We hit as expected worse weather on the other side of lake Michigan, and it was rain, rain, rain almost all the way to Chatham, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Only the last 20 minutes (Providence, RI, Martha's Vineyard) we could see the ground again and was able to make a visual approach into Chatham, where landed after a bit over 6 hours in the air. The tailwinds which we had hoped for on our eastbound flights did not really materialize.

At Chatham we met a very friendly local pilot who drove us to the nearest restaurant for lunch. After lunch we met up with Barbara Dean and Bob. We got our tents dried and had a nice lobster dinner with them at a nearby restaurant while the extensive frontal area with rain caught up with us and it rained most of the night.

Next morning we got an automatic and perfect weather briefing via DUATS. IFR at departure, good weather en route over Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and very low IFR (close to ILS cat I minima) at our destination Saint Johns, Newfoundland due to a low pressure system southeast of there. It was however forecast to lift a bit by the time we got there. We left all of our camping gear with Barbara and Bob to lighten the aircraft for the heavy load of fuel required for the Saint John to Ponta Delgada leg.

Near Halifax we started to worry about the weather at St. Johns: winds 060 at 25 knots gusting to 38, visibility 1/2 mile in rain, RVR 2000 feet. Yuk, yuk, yuk. Challenging ceiling, visibility and wind!! We got an updated TAF (terminal forecast) from Halifax FSS, and they had now changed their mind as no improvement was forecast at all and the weather was now forecast to occasionally drop below ILS cat 2 minimum. We were seriously worrying about going to one of our alternates, Gander, Stephenville or St. Pierre (french). They were fortunately all well above minimums. About one hour before landing the visibility at St. Johns went up to 1.5 miles and the wind veering towards the east getting more favourable for the expected runway 15.

The winds had been mostly neutral crosswinds, but as we approached Saint Johns, they were forecast to go up to 25 knots and be right on the nose. Actual winds were a LOT worse: for the last 45 minutes before Saint Johns we met very strong easterly head winds up to 55 knot which seriously started to dig into our reserves. With the gear down on the ILS 15 our maximum speed is 105 knots and the GPS showed only 50 knots ground speed, and we also experienced light to moderate turbulence due to the hills near the airport. That ILS approach was definitely a challenge and I wanted to do a perfect job as we definitely did not have enough fuel for a second attempt, but had to divert immediately to Gander if something went wrong. Considering the wind and turbulence I did a pretty good job, and it was a pleasure to see the approach light exactly at decision height.

We later learned from the FBO that Saint Johns hold the North American weather record for fog, and that the allied originally put the airport there to make it difficult for the enemy to find and bomb it! But it is closest to the Azores, and that was why we were keen to get there.

Our friendly FBO at Saint Johns, Newfoundland were as friendly and efficient as anywhere in the US. Free van service to town, no landing fees or other fees, just pay the fuel (we needed a LOT!) and go.

We did a quick weather check before going to our hotel in town. The deep low southeast of Saint Johns and associated frontal system was not forecast to move away for several days, and the wind was again most neutral, first straight east giving us a 10-15 knot headwind, then soon veering to southwest giving us a small tailwind component of about 5 to 10 knots. Filed our flight plans and called Angela in the Azores and told her to expect us landing in Ponta Delgada, Azores the following evening around 19:30 local time.

Early up, a quick breakfast, and off to the airport. Winds had dropped a bit, but still 1.5 miles visibility in drizzle, and a ceiling had lifted from 100 feet to 200 feet. The St. Johns FSS had the weather and NOTAM package all ready for us and a look at the satellite infrared movies revealed some nasty mega-CB's (thunderstorms) right in the centre of the low which had not moved and was straight on hour route.

Since route changes due to weather are much more difficult over the ocean due to lack of radar contact, we filed a new flight plan which took us almost straight south for the first hour and therefore south of the CB's in the centre of the low. Although a longer route it gave us more favourable winds around the south side of the low. This worked exactly as planned and we got some beautiful photos of several big CB's off our left wing. The airlines all went around them. Most of the way we were on top of a solid undercast at FL90 and later FL110. The position reporting on HF radio worked impeccably both with New York and Santa Maria radio.

The cold front we later had to cross was not too active and we were only in IMC for about 10 minutes while going through a not too active rain shower. The weather in the Azores was very good thanks to the well known Azores high which was centred right over the islands with a pressure of 1030 mbar. Our slight tailwind component therefore tapered out as we approached the high pressure area an saw the first Azores islands Flores and Corvo bathing in sunshine. Later we saw the caldeiras of Faial and Pico from above.

We had a beautiful view of the western end of the São Miguel island as we were cleared for a visual approach to runway 12 in Ponta Delgada, where we got a warm welcome from Angela and Audrey. Since we knew from bitter experience that landing at night in Portugal is EXTREMELY expensive, we were happy to land at 20:37 LT which is 14 minutes before sunset at 20:51 LT. We finished the evening with a superb seafood dinner in the 'London' restaurant before going to bed in the charming guest house 'Casa nostra Senhora do Carme'. Welcome to paradise!!

Ray and Flemming.

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In Paradise!

Dear friends and family,
Incredible, we have already spent a week in this wonderful archipelago called the Azores. The barometer has been 1030 mbar or so all the time and the weather accordingly.

On the first (and largest) island São Miguel, we went for two very nice walks, one along the steep west coast, and another around the crater lake 'Lagoa do Fogo' and down to the sea on the south coast. Beautiful flowers are growing wild everywhere (hydrangea, african lilies, wild ginger, etc. etc.), the air and the sea is sparkling crystal clear, the air is 25 degrees and the sea is 22 degrees, and the local population is extremely friendly and helpful, and there are hardly any tourist around. In short paradise!

The long range tank was quickly removed from the rear seat and stored with the fire brigade at the Ponta Delgada airport, and Friday we flew from Ponta Delgada to Graciosa island in the central group via Santa Maria, which is the only airport in the Azores with AVGAS. Our departure from Ponta Delgada got delayed for about 1 hour since we were haggling about the landing fees: 37'000 portuguese escudos (about 200 US$) since they claimed we LANDED AT NIGHT AT 20:37 LT!!! The ANA S.A. (the private company operating all portuguese airports) employee admitted that on the 1 August 2000 the sun actually does not go down at Ponta Delgada before 20:51 LT, but claimed that ANA S.A. has 'an administrative sunset at 20:00 LT'. Numerous phone calls to various important directors and officials at the airport could not change this.

I can assure you the ANA S.A., IAOPA, AOPA Portugal (if this exist..) will get a lot of letters from me having to pay a night landing fee for landing in Ponta Delgada in bright sunshine. The landing fee exceeds the cost of the fuel we burned all the way from Canada to the Azores!

Any how, our stay in paradise continued unperturbed: we stayed in a very nice residencial (guest house) in Santa Cruz, Graciosa, where we did a superb crater walk followed by a nice swim in the sea below. One evening there was a popular party in the village of Guadelupe, with young bulls running the street and young Azoreans teasing them. Nobody got hurt (at least not very much), but we took safe positions behind stone walls (like the local women and elderly). The landing fee in Graciosa was only a gracious 1400 escudos.

After a short VFR hop last Sunday of 15 minutes we were off to another island in the central group, São Jorge, where we are staying in a nice hotel in the main town of Velas. Yesterday we did a gorgeous 4 hour walk with intermediate stops for lunch and swimming along the wild north coast of São Jorge. Loads of hydrangea and other flowers again, remote villages along the coast abandoned since an earthquake in 1980, a charming taxi driver who was so proud of his island that he took us for long and free detours to see the best views on the north coast. It was his last duty trip for the day, so he said he had plenty of time! Paradise, paradise!

Please promise not to tell this secret to anybody, we would like to keep the islands this way, unspoiled by industrial development and tourism.

Ray, Audrey, Angela and Flemming.

Marcel's Return from Caravan

Our Mooney HBDGI returned Friday, August 18th, 1330Z to Zurich Airport after 85 hours of flight. After the Caravan, Leo Widler and I turned it over at Chicago Du Page to Peter Stevens, who flew it, together with his girlfriend, via Washington all the way up to Canada Greenland Iceland and Scotland. During the whole trip, we had no serious problems. The only technical trouble was a crack of about 4" in the windshield, which was temporarily repaired in Washington.

Marcel Geering HB-DGI

Revision: 10/28/2010

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