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 Overview --> Trans-Atlantic Florida-Europe 
Trans-Atlantic
Florida-Europe Tuesday, 3th of June 2008: We left Kissimmee on the 3rd June, and
had a good ‘shake-out’ flight to Salisbury in Maryland. Preparations
over Maryland crab-cakes for our entry to Canada (flying into Quebec)
tomorrow!
Wednesday, 4th of June 2008: We’re stuck. A big low over the
mountains north of Boston has us on the ground in Laconia, New Hampshire
(yup, we don’t know where it is either and we’re here!). Hoping
to get out tomorrow, and into Quebec.
Thursday and Friday, 5th and 6th of June 2008: Still at Laconia…
A combination of poor weather (where has the sun gone?!) and magnetic
compass issues has us firmly on the ground for three days now. Morale
okay, and a weather window for early/mid next week over Greenland and
Iceland means that we can still catch up to our schedule (but it’s
going to be a lot of flying every day). Forecast is good enough to go
this afternoon in theory, so the next post should be (finally) from Quebec.
We’ll keep you posted (perhaps with some more interesting photos
as well!).
Saturday, 7th of June 2008: We were about to get in the air, when our transponder decided to stop
playing! This is the piece of equipment which puts an identifying number
next to the dot on the radar screen – it’s not a great idea
to go without. This, combined with the weekend, has us stopped again until
Monday morning. So, we have hired a car and will drive to Quebec!
After a night out in Quebec, I left Richard there to see the sights,
and drove back to Laconia. A big thank you to Lee and his team, and then
I took Never Say Never about 20 miles south to Concord, where the transponder
will be repaired on Monday morning. I will then fly her up to Quebec to
meet up with Richard again. Our ‘weather window’ is still hanging
in there across the Atlantic, so although we are now six days behind schedule
it’s not yet a complete disaster. We do need, though, no more problems
from now until Denmark (fingers and thumbs are now crossed in a big way).
The next update should REALLY be from Quebec…
Monday,
9th of June 2008:
Richard has gone back to the US, I think, so this part of the journey
stops here. I hope to come back in about a months time to complete the
mission – I’ll keep you posted. Sam.
I am now back in Belgium and Never Say Never is all wrapped up at 
Monday, 14th of July 2008: Mike and I meet up at the airport, but without his luggage! We spend
the night at Montreal planning to get to Quebec City the next day.
No luggage for Mike! We check Never Say Never who is perfect, and organise
the packing and cockpit layout - we hope to leave tomorrow. Thank you
to everyone at Ailes Quebecoises - safe flights all!
Still no luggage, we continue preparations.
Luggage arrives, but we are now waiting on an adaptor so that we can
fill our oxygen system (for flying over the Greenland ice-cap). Another
delay, we are getting a little frustrated). We are promised the adaptor
by 6 pm the next day.
We follow the adaptor's progress by UPS, and intercept it at the depot. By 1100 we finally have everything we need, and the oxygen is filled (thank you Quebec Air Maint!). We do a speedy met (poor, but improving), and file our plan. We then find out that our destination has no fuel! We need this leg, as there are no other options. We depart anyway, planning to fuel at Wabush on the way so that we only require 50L at Schefferville, rather than the 300L we would otherwise need. Quebec-Wabush-Schefferville - FINALLY we are in the air, and trying to catch up on 4 lost days! The flight starts in low cloud and rain, but quickly improves to fantastic visibility and blue skies - a great flight. We see this amazing river formation, and then this heart-shaped lake! On arrival in Schefferville, we rush about to find 50L of car fuel (Never We get to bed at 2300, we have an early start tomorrow.
We are up at 0330 (it has been light since 0200!), get into our immersion suits and get into the sky. The weather forecast is great, but a headwind and low cloud force a change of plan en-route - we have to abandon our hopes of being in Greenland tonight. We called Greenland ATC for their hours on the Iridium (in case there was flex on timings) but unfortunately it's not going to be possible. They did, though, ask us to bring Coca-Cola andSevenUp! We'll go shopping tomorrow! We divert and take fuel in Kuujjuak (and breakfast), and then continue
to Iqaluit. On the way north, we see our first every icebergs, and then
the breaking pack ice. With the time pressure off for getting to Iqaluit
- We are going to check out the night life tonight - should be an experience.
We have a ‘day of rest’, and sleep for the first half of it! Thanks and good luck to Rosie and Sam (and thanks for the medical support) – only 2 months to go! Thanks also to Bert, safe flights…
In the afternoon, we go and find some abandoned icebergs and the ‘road
to nowhere’! We had hoped to take a small boat out into the harbour
– but this proved a difficult task as the tide was out until 9pm!
At the end of the day we topped off NSN’s tanks (thanks Curtis!),
and then went back to the hotel to sleep. In bed at 2300, alarm set for
0200!
We’re at NSN for 0230, check the weather, file our flightplan and go! The first 4 hours of our 5 hour leg are uneventful as we cruise at 8000ft over the broken pack ice between Canada and Greenland. We collect a tail wind just off the Greenland shore, ending our ‘return to Canada’ plan; we are now committed. The weather in Greenland is considerably worse than forecast, so we go to plan B – drop down beneath the cloud and run in the 90 miles along the fjord (mountains over 6000ft within a mile on either side). The workload is high as we work our way up the fjord beneath a 300ft cloudbase, half a mile visibility in rain. Keeping one stage of flaps, we cruise at about 70 kts, and after a little over an hour arrive at Sondestrom (Kangerlussuaq). On arrival, the ATC (who flys a 172 out of the field) asks us, with a wink, if we had fun in the fjord!
Unfortunately (again!), the weather is not going to let us do the ice-cap
crossing – and indeed is barely going to let anyone leave anywhere.
We have settled in for the afternoon, hoping for better weather in the
morning.
Weather is a no-go for direct to Kulusuk, with no sign of improvement for the next 2-3 days. Plan G (or H, I forget!) comes in to play. We decide to route round the southern tip of Greenland which keeps us low and out of icing. Greenland airports open at 0815, and close at 1645 (outside of these times is an automatic USD1000 handling fee). We do not have enough time to make Kulusuk in a day, so fly a fantastic 4 hours to the southern tip of Greenland. We arrived in Narsarsuaq at about 3pm, in glorious sunshine, watching the icebergs float silently by! Whilst we were there, we met Joeri from Antwerp! He’s flying Antwerp-Mexico in a beautiful Mirage (at 27,000ft). Reykjavik-southern Canada will be about 8 hours – it will take us at best 12 days!
We spend the afternoon spotting icebergs, and then some planning for
tomorrow. We are planning a first leg to Kulusuk, quick refuel and then
to continue eastbound. We ‘need’ to get to Iceland tomorrow,
before a low comes and sits on eastern Iceland until the end of the week.
Time for a bit of good luck with the weather – fingers crossed.
Well, no surprise for this trip, but the weather north makes it impossible Curiously, whilst our progress is blocked by weather, the situation here
is completely different. It is still very warm (t-shirts) and there is
not a Fingers crossed for the weather tomorrow - it's time for something to
go our way now!
We set off north for Kulusuk with an 'okay' weather forecast. A four
hour route, over the ice cap and then up the east coast of Greenland. The clincher was the issue of a sigmet, severe turbulence within 15nm
of Kulusuk below 7000ft. In case you are wondering how we get our in-flight
met and flight info, we are really utilising the satphone link - it has With a mix of disappointment and frustration we turned NSN around and
headed back to Narsarsuaq. A little over 4 hours in the air and we were
back where we started. The only silver linings - a great flight back with
low-level down the glacier, and that the forecast for tomorrow is looking
'much better' - whatever that means out here! Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
Although the weather forecast was far from perfect, it was the best we
had seen for a few days. In fact, it turned out to be much better than We landed at Kulusuk, took fuel, and headed out for the 4+ hours to Unfortunately, Mike's time has run out - so we scoured about for escape I will fly out tomorrow to Egilstadir on the east coast of Iceland, to
After Mike's departure, I set about deciding what I was going to do. Although Vagar looked okay, there was a forecast headwind of 25+ knots - too much. The forecast for tomorrow looks better. Planned to fly to Egilstadir on the east coast of Iceland, so that I had a short(er) run to Vagar tomorrow. I took off into a 25kts, gusting 30kts wind (take off roll was about
30m I had about 30 minutes on the ground, for fuel, weather checking and filing the flightplan, and then I was away. I needed an absolute minimum of 80kts groundspeed to make it and had under 75kts for the first 20 minutes. Then, as I came to the cruise at 7000ft the headwind dropped off a little and we started making good headway (90kts - everything is relative!). This was just as well as my diversion was Wick (about 6.5 flying hours). All the way, checking the Vagar weather as it can go from open to closed with fog in under 5 minutes. Approached into Vagar (down a steep fjord) and landed uneventfully 30
Aagh, Fog! Cloudbase 200ft, visibility 1000m - and forecast to get worse.I spent an hour listening to Atlantic Airways flights failing, one after another, to complete their approaches, waiting for a window. During this time we had the base down to 60ft and less than 300m visibility. I met Carlo, who was flying his 1949 Beech to Switzerland, and together we formulated an exit plan. Vagar airfield is curious in that it lies between two fjords, but Due to my delayed departure from Vagar, and the 'now standard' headwinds, I was running about 3 hours late - but still enough time to make Aarhus. A quick refuel and re-plan and we were back in the air again. The flight to Aarhus was very relaxed, a Summer Sunday evening flight with everyone very chatty on the frequencies. What was interesting was that the terrain below could have been Quebec - 2 weeks on and we were back where we started (geologically speaking). I crossed in to Denmark, and was approaching Aarhus as I heard on Approach: 'hey Sam, it's Lasse - we're coming in a jet to say hello!'. We agreed altitudes and Lasse flew head on directly above us! After 5 minutes of formation flying (not easy with a Lithuanian fighter jet and a STOL bushplane!) we broke off and I landed at Aarhus. Lasse, I have to admit, as a welcome, it shows style! Into town for a beer and my first real meal in about 4 days, hopefully
Sunday, 28th of July 2008: We completed import formalities during the morning, and at 1300 all was complete. Never Say Never became an official EU citizen (although she retains her 'N' (American) registration). I left Aarhus, and flew down to Kortrijk, routing down the Dutch coast. On the way I had a brief conversation with Army 121, she was flying an Army Air Corps Lynx helicopter to Gutersloh airfield! Through thick European haze (the visibility in excess of 100nm that we had in Greenland is now a long way away) I approached Kortrijk shortly after 1800. I landed, and was met with a huge welcoming committee (and even the press). Thank you for everyone who was there, an amazing surprise, Thank You! I would also want to thank Mike for being the perfect fly-buddy - providing that ideal combination of precaution and "let's get this done". Thanks! Last but not least, Bea - thank you, you're the best. Africa, here we come...
 The Summary: I know that there are times we are relaxed, and there are times that we are terrified. In the middle we are 'out of the comfort zone'. This trip put us in that zone for long periods of time - but this is where you learn, and this is where the satisfaction comes from afterwards. I truly believe that this is a trip that all 'little aeroplane' pilots Sam. PRESS RELEASES on Sam's Transatlantic flight - Streeknieuws Wevelgem-Kortrijk (PDF-document 1,34 mb)
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