The sights at Anchorage International

[mar]

Sir, the thread belongs to you

I just posted some pretty pictures 'cause I ain't had nothin' better to do.

That's the Queen's English in case you didn't notice.

Listen, I'm fascinated.

Twenty-one hours of fuel endurance. I had no idea the PBY had those kind of legs.

I hope you don't mind all the questions.

But do you handle all of the flight permits yourself? Or do you have someone organize it for you? I can imagine some local federale insisting on a certain amount of 'scratch' before you guys get the fuel truck...

I imagine since you guys all do your own mx that you feel pretty confident about whether or not she's up to an Atlantic crossing.

But in the (unlikely) event of an engine failure do you have flight planning that has calculated Point of No Return and Equal Time Points?

I suppose you could just set down on the water couldn't you?

 

[350DRIVER]

Chuck,

Very impressive and fascinating career.. What airline were you chief pilot at and how many years ago was that? I would love to hear some "airline stories" if you get bored and want to share, sure you got many of them..

Great site...


3 5 0

 

[JohnDoe]

21 hours endurance...........WOW!

 

[Timebuilder]

I suppose you could just set down on the water couldn't you?

He could. But, it sure would be COLD water.

I'd like to hear more about this, too.

 

[Cat Driver]

Mar:

We do all our own flight permits, Visas where needed, pay all our own navagation fees, airport fees and on and on and on........Dealing with bureaucracies is the most difficult part of international ferry flying.

But hey, I'd far rather pay some poor schmuck in a third world country bribe money to get things done than deal with some of the self serving pr.cks we have here in our country.

Yes we do all our own maintenance and err on the side of safety when getting these things ready for any long over water flight.

As to point of no return and all that stuff it really is not all that complicated. We were five thousand pounds over gross the last time we left Dakar ( we get overweight flight permits. ) so what we were looking at was the first six hours we would have had a drift down on one engine, after that it would have flown on one.

We always depart at dawn in case we lose an engine we at least can see the ocean for the landing.

The PNR is really easy with several GPS's running. And we always have our Sat phone in case something really goes wrong.

What really makes it interesting is the ITCZ weather without radar, that sometimes gives us some moments when we do not think about sex.

America West:

I was chief pilot for a Canadian Airline operating Twin Otters on floats IFR, we had center stored flight plans and did our arrivals using Victoria and Vancouver airport approach aids, then when visual just landed on the water.

Timebuilder:

Yes we could in an emergency land on the ocean and at least survive to get in our raft and survival suits, hell on a good day we could land and just fish until someone came to rescue us.

Chuck

 

[rchcfi]

Now this is what flying is all about!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mar]

The ITCZ

What really makes it interesting is the ITCZ weather without radar, that sometimes gives us some moments when we do not think about sex.

Sorry for the late reply. I had to go make sure the village of Atqasuk had enough stove oil...



I'd like to return to our discussion of navigating the Atlantic without wx radar. Does your quote mean that you'll avoid an Atlantic crossing during hurricane season?

Or will you do what it takes to make the customer happy?