Leg #13 London City to Lydd

One of the shortest legs of the T&E series, the flight from London City Airport to Lydd was 46 nautical miles. I refueled at City of Lights FBO with 37.03 gallons at $3.80/gallon. The departure out of EGLC was as dramatic as they get with a skyline in the foreground at what seems just off the end of the runway - metropolis obstructo-terribilis if I've ever seen one.



The weather was decent and kept things cool at low altitude as I stayed below with a few clouds at 1500 and a broken layer very close to above that. Along the way there were miles of quaint hamlets and small farming communities, I presumed.



I flew low and slow , following M20 to Dover and then turned west and followed the English Channel to Lydd. After landing, I went ahead and refueled with the good folks of GrowlAir-UK, purchasing 7.29 gallons of 100LL for only $3.50 gallon.

Stats: 0h 54m; 46 NM; 7.29 gallons of fuel (8.1 gal./h) Next flight is across the channel to the Netherlands. I'm really looking forward to my adventure through Europe.

Leg #12 Stornoway to London City

My first night flight was on this leg, 458 nautical miles from the outer Hebrides, Isle of Lewis to Great Britain, and the big bustling return to civilization: London! My decision to fly entirely through the night was partly because I could - should I have had any difficulties there were plenty of airports along the way, but the other reason was I was worried about a low pressure system getting too organized and heading inland.



First step was to refuel at BAI Flight Group in Stornoway (bought 48.420 gallons of 100LL at $3.40/gallon) which had good service and pretty good prices for way out here I thought). I did have about an hour of light and then 30 minutes of twilight, and then the moon was slightly in my favor.



The rest of the trip was pretty much uneventful, but darker than I had expected as I crossed over large swatches of darkness across Scotland. The first glimmers of light from London made up for all of that though as after hours of flying the city's lights looked like jewels.



My plan was to look for the Thames and then follow the river to London City Airport. All of that was easy enough but landing at night at EGLC, with it's notorious crosswinds and metropolitan hazards was a bit trying after five hours in the cockpit of Six-Five-Mike.



After landing I rolled to a stop and then taxied over to London City Airport Jet Centre to let them know I was tying down for the night and where was the closest pub, which was Royal Standard, though it was not recommended. Instead they suggested the Royal Oak, which turned out to be rather a sparse affair, but they at least served me Young's Bitter and that was quite decent indeed. Total miles for the day: 459. Total time: 4h 57m. Fuel used: about 37 gallons. Average speed: 92.7 knots. Average fuel usage: 7.5 gallons per hour.

Leg #11 Reykjavik to Stornoway

Departure weather in Iceland this morning was pretty good, though there were plenty fo clouds along the way. BIRK METAR showed winds 340 at 4 knots, unlimited visibility, except for a few clouds at 3500 feet, and scattered layers above at 5600 feet. Today's leg was 573 nautical miles across the lonely North Atlantic. Actually it wasn't that lonely, because I was able to tune into the HF bands and listen to the airliners overhead check in with long reports - apparently they do this every 300 miles or so...which is about every 45 minutes for those big jets.




Because there would be very few landmarks (in fact none over water), my plan for the day was pretty much as with the previous leg fly a rhumbline course corrected for average magnetic declination. A look at the winds aloft forecasts showed I would be flying into, or actually across an area of low pressure. The winds would be blowing one way for part of the flight, and would be changing directions throughout.





So I hoped for the best and forged on without making any corrections for wind. After refueling at Iceland Combined Air Operations FBO (48.136 gallons of 100LL for only $3.60/gallon), I received a weather report for the Hebrides - Stornoway reporting winds 310 at 10 knots, clear skies, few clouds at 2600 feet. Sounds like lovely weather and I would need it since my arrival would be after sunset. I cranked up Six-Five-Mike, taxied to Runway 13 and took off. The view of Iceland as I climbed to 7500 feet was pretty nice.




The rest of flight was bumpy at times but nevertheless quite pleasant and there's wasn't much to do but drink coffee above the lull of the purring engine, and imagine where the heavies were when they checked in at ALDAN, ATSIX, and GONUT (my favorite!).



As the evening wore on and the sun set, nighfall and clouds were my only companions. The faint ident of STN VOR awoke in me once again a sense of civilization. The winds had died down a little but not enough to compell me to sideslip a little on final just to shake off the rustiness of the long overwater flight. And after landing I realized then that I had done it - I had flown across the Atlantic in a single-engine Piper Cub. I have many more miles to go, but if I stopped now at least I'd know this accomplishment.

The final tally for the day was 573 nautical miles in 5 hours 19 minutes. I burned on average 9.02 gallons per hour and averaged 108 knots ground speed today, not bad.

Leg #10 Narsarsuaq to Reykjavik

Departed the southwest coast of Greenland this morning at 1136 local and flew in and out of clouds all day long, just maintaining a rhumbline course corrected for average magnetic declination: final heading 097 magnetic. That was basically my flight plan - that and fly at an altitude of 11500 feet MSL all afternoon and evening.

After reaching altitude noted a airspeed was 90 MPH (about 78 knots), and with the engine humming along nicely at 2200 RPM I was only burning 6 GPH by the meter. Looking down i could see nothing but icy blue water, and ahead of me nothing but cluds, mostly with tops a few thousand feet below. Six hours later I started to pick up Keflavik VOR. It was bearing 125, but i could not tell how far away it was becuase my DME only goes to 99.9 NM and that's what it showed and that's what it always shows whenever the distance is 99.9 NM or greater. So I had to wait. Fortunately it was not too long. A few minutes later the DME started ticking down and I turned toward the VOR but there were lots of clouds. About an half hour later I noticed the plane was being blown off course with winds from the southwest.

At 8:19 PM Iceland local time I noted 35 NM from KIF VOR and I started down. AT 8:26 I started picking up the NS NDB slightly left of the nose. I made that turn direct now and noted lower winds. A few minutes later I was able to make out the Reykjavik ATIS, which reported information Tango winds from 182 at 5 knots, visibility 17 miles in light rain (must be pretty light), few clouds iin layers from 800 to 1800, and a broken layer at 5000, landing and departing runway 19.

It's 8:33PM and Land ho: Keflavik off the right wing. 11 minutes later the airport was in sight and five minutes later I landed on runway 13 and taxied to a grassy area next to a large hangar out of the wind.

Distance: 668 NM
Time: 7 hours 13 minutes.
Average speed: 92.6 KTS
Fuel Used: 48 gallons (6.65 gallons per hour)

Leg #9 Goose Bay to Narsasuaq

The flight from Goose Bay was the longest leg, yet. At 674 nautical miles it took 9 hours and 8 minutes from Canada to Greenland. First sight of land put me well south of Narsasuaq, which was a bit disconcerting. I was also a tad low on fuel and worried about how much is actually usable in the Super Cruiser. I had a little extra in a 2-gallon emergency plastic gas can. I found a smooth patch of semi-grassy yet mostly-gravelly bit of terrain near a small, long lake and set her down. After I added the extra gas I took a little nap. When I woke up the winds had picked up a little, and there was a fine dust all over me and the plane. It was sort of grey-green and almost seemed volcanic, but soft at the same time. The last little bit to Narsasuaq was, thankfully, only 25 minutes of flying.

Leg #8 Presque Isle to Goose Bay

LEG 8 - PRESQUE ISLE TO GOOSE BAY

This so far was the longest leg of the journey, but there are longer leg, yet - so at 1930Z I checked the weather in northern Maine (yep it's still cold as heck), loaded 50 gallons of the good stuff at New England Flight Support, Crown of Maine Office, taxied The City of Washington out to Runway 1, and was airborne by 2017Z. This would be a long flight and over some fairly barren landscape, so I decided to fly a bit higher than usual and leveled off at 7500 MSL on amagnetic rhumbline of 057.

Lucky me the autopilot wasn't acting up and we hummed along nicely for almost four hours before I noticed a gradual change in the terrain. Looking at the sectional it seemed to me that I was a bit west of course, veering closer to Churchill Falls than Goose Bay, which was confirmed with the ADF pointing out that the Churchill Falls NDB was over that-a-way. A few minutes later the Wabush VOR started ditting and dahing, and within a few minutes I had a fix: 68 miles west of planned track after 366 nm. Well there's still plenty of time and enough fuel, so using the 1-in-60 rule of thumb I calculated a new course of 097 to Goose Bay, turned on course, tuned in to the Goose Bay VOR and waited. Here, from my log:

0000Z - waiting

0005Z - waiting, wondering if I should make extra correction for winds - nah - I'm pretty close.

0030Z - waiting, wondering if I should have made a correction for winds on this leg. Skies clearing. 2300 RPM.

0100Z - I ought to be getting closer - it's been about an hour...waiting for VOR or NDB indicators. I wonder if I should have made a correction for wind on this leg.

This went on some time, as I monitored the engines and autopilot, until:

"da da dit da, da da dit da, dit da dit" - the VOR! the VOR! Yay!

0111Z - picked up Goose Bay on 117.3. Heading of 100 is very close to calculated 1-in-60 heading of 097.

0138Z - picked up the Goose Bay NDB on 257 KHz.

ATIS indicates calm winds, RWY 8 in use - bonus! Arrived at 0220Z, and tied down at Avalon Flight Center - Labrador. 3 gallons of fuel remaining.


-

For more on how to make enroute track error adjusments, see: here

Leg #7 Teterboro to Presque Isle

With a consecutive day of good weather I decided to launch for Presque Isle, Maine this afternoon. This leg was a tad longer (436 NM) than what I've done lately and of course sans GPS, but the scenery was great, and there were enough characteristic landmarks to help me verify my course. It was also an important point of arrival for this trip because it was here that Truman & Evans began their historic journey.

The magnetic rhumbline heading is 052, but the corrected heading with forecasted winds at 6000 (I would be flying at 7500) was 042. I left at 12:33 PM, climbed to 7500 and set my heading and waited for the first landmarks - everything looked good after 30 nm. Three hours later I discovered I was over Bethel, ME - I though I am glad to be here, but am about 9 NM west of course. The winds aloft must have been lighter than anticipated. I decided to maintain my course as the scenery was great and the rugged terrain of the Presidential Range Wilderness Area passed under my left wing, with lots of fingerling lakes to the east.

At 4:31 PM I picked up the Presque Isle VOR; it was about 23 degrees right of my current course and about 62 NM away. So I was still just a few miles left of course, maybe a tad more, but within reason. I homed in toward the VOR, making wind corrections as necessary until I saw the airport, and then turned into a long shallow base leg, and then final, and finally landed RWY 1, with only a slightly moderate left crosswind after 4 hours and 29 minutes of flight time. Fuel burn: 35 gallons (7.8 gallons (and $29.50) per hour).

Leg #6 - Lancaster to Teterboro

This afternoon was a nice short flight, and I wanted to capitalize on this opportunity to make a critical assessment of my navigation skills. I have several legs in the not too distant future that will require a rather precise application of aeronautical navigation skills. The "nautical" part of that is especially apropos, since many of these flights will be across vast expanses of water. The weather was VFR along the entire route this afternoon from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Teterboro, New Jersey, so I wasn't too worried about the weather; I just needed to find some good landmarks, estimate arrival times, and go.

Fueled up in Lancaster at my own SparkleGate-Amish with 30 gallons of 100LL and made a final check of the weather - the outlook was VFR for New York, New Hampshire and Maine. Of course the leg to Maine wouldn't be until tomorrrow, but all the same it gave me a good sense of good weather, with just some moderate north winds at planned cruise level, 5500 MSL. I would have chosen 3500, but there were moderate headwinds, yet almost no winds a few thousand feet higher. (How will I do without all this good information once I leave the US?).

I departed Lancaster at 4:46 PM EST and flew a magnetic-corrected rhumbline heading of 079 for 111 NM. I identified three major landmarks along the way: Lake Nockamixon, Lake Lebanon, and then the Chatham NDB. I'm not going to get too much into the details, but will point out that I was able to identify all of these while I was enroute, and my only concern was that I was a bit south of course in New Jersey, which I noticed because I flew right over Newark. This was a only a few miles south of course, so it's not a huge deal, and it was a good landmark to set me up for Teterboro - where I landed after 1 hour and 14 minutes of flying and had burned 11 gallons of fuel.

Leg #5 - Dayton to Lancaster (was Harrisburg)

Left Dayton this morning at 8:56 AM and flew a corrected rhumbline of 095 - 343 NM to Harrisburg, PA. T&E stopped in Harrisburg, and that was my original goal, but Lancaster is just a stone's throw away and I've always wanted to land here, plus they had a deal on gas - can't beat that. It was a little bumpy starting out and I wasn't expecting that for cold morning air, but things smoothed out nicely. Started with 40 gallons and landed with 12 gallons. Next leg is to Maine and then it's on to Canada and the wintry North Atlantic.

Leg #4 - Kansas City to Dayton

Really wanted to depart yesterday for Dayton, but there were icing airmets across all of Missouri and northwest Illinois (though most of pireps were from aircraft above 12000 feet) and turbulence and IFR sigmets too - the best decision was, "NO GO".

This afternoon the weather was much better and winds aloft forecasts indicated some wonderful tailwinds. After refueling at Flipside's FBO, I departed Kansas City at 2:15 P.M, and turned on a direct heading for Dayton, 486 NM distant. At 3:48 I had basically been scud running for the previous hour and sometimes was losing sight of the ground as I dodged between a broken layer at 5500 MSL. So it was not unexpected that I would experience a bit spatial disorientation and truly I felt a bit lost and felt that something was not quite right. For one thing, I expected to see the Mississippi River, and it's a pretty good landmark, and not seeing it in that time made me question whether I had already corssed it when I was weaving through a variable brokwn layer and supposedly blistering-strong tailwinds.

I tuned in some NDB's that were along my planned route - nada. Either my ADF receiver is bad, or I'm off course, is what I was thinking. At 3:51 I discovered that I was far south of course and just north of St. Louis. Fortunately I had charts and tuned STL VOR and then re-calculated heading and ETA - estimated one hour additional of flying and it seems the winds were blowing much more out of the north than were forecast. Flight service said the forecast hadn't changed and I could expect strong tailwinds from the west from St. Louis to to almost Dayton, and there it would be a right quartering tailwind.

At 4:44 I was 11 NM south of Vandalla VOR, again it appears the winds are out of the north more than expected, so I over-correct and tune Dayton VOR and wait. I was still dodging a broken layer, but as I got closer to Dayton things started to clear up a little. At 6:21 I received the VOR and at 6:52 PM I set down at KDAY, and almost out of gas. Next time I'll try to keep closer tabs on winds and see what I can do to make a more accurate heading estimates along the rhumbline. I know that over the Atlantic I won't have the pleasure of radio beacons on which to fall back.

Next leg is to PA - Harrisburg. I wonder how the winter climate will affect these legs across the United States and into Canada. I'm also happy to report that "pbot" has joined me in the second Piper Super Cruiser and will fly Truman's NX3671M with me around the world. I am very happy to have him along and I'm sure we'll both have much to report on as we fly two Pipers, solo!

Leg #3 - Destination Kansas City

After some costly repairs in Coffeyville due to [see my post about Cub Repairs], and a break in the weather, finally (no more 100 foot ceilings at MCI), I departed at 8:48 A.M. with winds from 160 at 20 knots gusting 26 knots. Needless to say, liftoff was early and breezy. Was only 11 NM off course at my first check, Kansas City VOR, and was set up perfect for right base and cleared to land 19R. There was a strong left crosswinds and I used up more runway than I probably should have just trying to grease the landing. Started with 26 gallons of fuel and landed at 10:05 with about 17.4 gallons.

Diversion to Coffeyville

After two solid days of low IFR in Oklahoma things improved, and there were clear skies up there for a change. With that sunny outlook I decided to head north to (or at least toward) Kansas City. The weather briefing before the flight indicated very low visibility (1/16 of a mile in fog), but the forecast suggested that things might improve by the time I got there, at least enough to make a normal ILS approach. I didn't mind finishing the flight with pop-up IFR, but definitely wanted an out if conditions deteriorated, or the forecast wasn't as planned. It was good that I did.

So, after a leisurely and late breakfast I headed out to the airport and fired up Six-Five-Mike, and departed with clear skies and 9 knot winds from the south, and turned north toward Kansas City, some 271 nautical miles away. Departure time was 13:07 CST. A little before 2:PM I checked in with Oklahoma Flight Service Station and got an updated weather report for Kansas City. FSS said the fog was still "terrible" around KMCI and that a report from the tower was lots of commercial traffic making missed approaches, though a few were getting in.

The fog extended east from Emporia to Whiteman AFB to the south, but she noted that almost all the airports more than 100 NM south were reporting VFR conditions. Airmet Sierra showed how optimistic was the initial forecast - low ceilings below 1000 and visibility less than 3 miles with conditions continuing beyond 21Z and through 03 zulu. It was time to activate plan B!

I tuned in the CNU VOR and changed heading to Chanute, KS, a pretty good ways off course, but still generally in the right direction. The only problem with a diversion was that after conditions improved, I would probably need more fuel to continue the flight. About 35 miles from CNU I called FSS again and got them to check with the airport, and discovered that they did have some fuel but their pumps were damaged. She said there were several airports to the south of Chanute that did have fuel.

Diversion #2 - headed to Coffeyville, KS - KCFV - with fuel and an NDB on the field! Easy breezy - just tune in and point the plane. Twenty minutes later at 14:41 local I was on the ground in Coffeyville. Hopefully conditions will improve tomorrow - it's just the way weather is - Truman and Evans suffered most of their delays because of weather, and I know it will get better. Here's the report and forecast from NOAA:

KMCI 182153Z 06006KT 1/16SM R19R/3500VP6000FT FG OVC001 03/03 A2990 RMK AO2 SFC VIS 1/4 SLP130 T00330033

KMCI 182202Z 1822/1918 05006KT 1/4SM FG VV001
TEMPO 1822/1824 1/2SM FG OVC001
FM190200 08005KT 1/4SM FG VV001

I estimate distance covered with all the turns to be about 173 NM, so that put my ground speed average at 110 knots - pretty good for this old bird, though it sure came at a cost - for this leg 65M burned 100 lbs of fuel in 1:34 for about 9.5 gallons per hour.

Leg #2 - El Reno to Oklahoma City

Holding Short Turf Runway 17

Left El Reno, Oklahoma this morning under clear skies - there was still frost on the turf strip at 99F, though. Took off runway 17 with the winds coming straight down the runway at 9 knots. Course 112, magnetic 105. Flew over Wiley Post airport then headed south with downtown off the left wing. Tower cleared me for runway 17R, but we asked for 18 which is only 3000 feet long - but plenty long enough for a Piper Cub. Started with 173 lbs of fuel, landed with 161 lbs. Next leg headed north - Kansas City here we come!

Leg #1 - Amarillo to El Reno

Departed Amarillo at 4:30PM with winds from 210 at 16 knots gusting 23, but at least it was mostly clear. A little gusty for the first third of the flight, then calmed down a bit and cleared even more. With enroute estimated winds aloft at 240/17 I flew a magnetic and wind corrected rhumbline course of 081 magnetic. ETA was 6:06PM. Landed at 6:14PM. Would have been exactly on time if I hadn't had trouble finding this teensy airport with a 2600 foot turf runway. Burned 90 lbs of fuel for a rate of 51.9 lbs per hour (pph).

FS9 Aircraft Textures

Rhumb Lines

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far away is all her seamen know.
-- Arthur Hugh Clough

I've been thinking a lot about navigation lately. T&E had extra avionics installed in their planes, but it was still long before GPS was around. So what was it? Probably things like a radio ranging receiver, such as an ADF. With these a pilot could even tune an AM broadcast radio station (but usually a non-directional beacon or NDB) and use the ADF receiver to tell which direction it was located. Another type of navigational aid is the VOR, which is a high-frequency (up to about 30 MHz) radio ranging device.

As I think about my own journey, I consider the possibility that T&E may have had sextants on board but I wonder how often they were used. Probably seldom, since it appears that they were oriented at least well enough to be able to reach airfields for each leg of their journey.

Surely T&E used any instruments they could to help them navigate, but they relied as much on visual landmarks - rivers, hills, ponds and coastlines, as well as radio towers, cities, and buildings and so forth when they could. I'm not sure what they did for ocean crossings and for other longer legs when even radio aids were not around, or were unusable. I'm thinking they probably used rhumbline navigation.

The shortest distance between two points on a sphere is known as a great circle route. Interestingly, it not depicted as a straight line on a flat (or plane) map, but rather as a curve. The problem with flying a great circle is that the heading constantly changes. The practical solution has been known by sailors since at least the 1600s and is known as plane sailing, or rhumb line navigation.

Rhumb line navigation is especially appealing because the pilot has only to fly a constant course along the same bearing. For relatively short flights at mid latitudes it is almost the same as the great circle route, and is exactly the same at the equator. The difference increases in the high latitudes. For example, a rhumb line course around 60 degrees North latitude is about 8.5% longer than a great circle route. Obviously this would be problematic for especially long voyages.

The longest leg of their flight across the North Atlantic was from Greenland to Iceland, for a distance of 670 nautical miles (NM), with Narsasuaq at N62 and Reykjavik at N64. Assuming 9% error, would equate to about an extra 60 NM of flying. I will seriously consider using rhumb line navigation for some of the legs on my flight around the world, but first I will calculate the great circle route distance and rhumb line distance for each of those legs and share them with you here.