 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||
|
Friday, May 9, 2003 Final report, from Redstone, Colorado, by John van Bladeren It is my pleasure to compose the concluding chapter on the flight to Europe in N8256Y with my good friend, Karl Hipp.
… a Chevrolet Caprice, no shocks … probably 8 mpg
In terms of the final flight, the event was straightforward as we departed Watertown, South Dakota at approximately 0830 hours. Paonia, Colorado (7V2), Karl's home airport, was approximately 600 miles away and on the other side of the Continental Divide. The weather people were not very optimistic, but we plotted a path down to Colorado Springs, then across the divide. We were into the clouds at 300 feet, and on top, initially, at 6,000 feet. The winds were not an issue on the initial leg. Continuing on, we were in telephone contact with Friedrich Rehkopf in Munich, Germany via the satellite telephone. We, in fact, spoke with Friedrich a number of times during our flights. Friedrich was following the progress of the flight on the web and on one occasion e-mailed the web site to let them know that what was being shown on the web was not in real time. The web display was corrected. On this particular day, Friedrich went to his weather page to say that the weather on the other side of the Divide was not as bad as the earlier forecast had predicted. Friedrich was right!
The trip over the Continental Divide at was made at FL 180. We picked up just a smattering of ice on the climb. Karl was piloting, and his familiarity with the terrain made the trip a very safe one. Once we got to the west side of the Divide, the clouds below us were broken to scattered. Predicted head winds of 40 to 50 knots simply did not materialize. We saw headwinds of 20 knots.
Once past Aspen, we began a descent and were able to cancel, 40 miles from the Paonia airport in good VFR conditions.
The landing was made, and we arrived grateful for our friendship, and for Twin Comanche N8256Y. It had served us well, with only two bad sparkplugs (both Autolites) and an oil drain tube to write up on the squawk sheet. Also, the right engine vacuum pump quit on descent into the pattern at 7V2. This would have been a no-go item to cross the Atlantic. Not at all bad service from 57Y! We logged 80.23 hours tach time for the trip.
Acknowledgements: I want to thank and recognize some people who made the trip memorable. Obviously, my first person to thank would be Karl, for asking me to take the trip with him. I, like a number of people, had never thought of making a Lindbergh trip. I discussed it with Barbara, and she said, "Sure!" If she did not think it was crazy, then I had better accept the opportunity. I am glad I did, as it was truly a great adventure. Thanks also to the following people for their interest in our flight and their contributions: Glenn Plymate and Omri Talmon,for relaying the information to all of you who have been reading about the flight, and Nancy Boyd for posting our reports on comanchepilot.com. Steve Welter, for providing the ATT foreign access telephone numbers to the internet. Harlaan Hamlin, for supplying the Iridium Satellite telephone and tracking system. David and Jen Buttle, for welcoming us into their home in London and for arranging the welcoming committee at Blackbushe with ICS members John Vahgasti and Ben Ayalon. And David, again, for his moral support as we spoke with him often using the satellite telephone. Friedrich Rehkopf, for the moral and technical support during the flights. Mike Dolan, for loaning us an European database card for the Garmin GNC 300 XL. Peter Fox and the European tribe, for providing a reason to fly to Europe and for making us so welcome at their flyout. Tony Brown, from Leichester England, for loaning us two rear Comanche seats for use by Judy and Barb to travel with us in Europe. Rich Bullock, for providing Europe and North Atlantic Jeppesen enroute charts. Rob Stadie, who is based at Blackbushe, for arranging a replacement oil drain tube. Thanks all, Jvb Postscript: As a post note to the flight, it happened that Princess Judy was flying from London to Atlanta, Georgia at the same time we were flying from Iceland to Goose Bay, Labrador. About 50 miles out from Goose Bay, Gander Center said there was a Delta Flight 59 trying to contact us. We went to 123.45 as instructed and it was the captain of Judy's Delta flight. He informed us that Judy was concerned, but she was having a good flight. The captain did this in response to a note from Judy. While he did not talk to us much, the crew was curious about our flight and did speak with Judy about the trip. They gave her our exact position, only about 100 miles from her, and speculated that we would safely reach Goose Bay. They gave her a printout of the weather in Goose Bay, and the flight attendants gave her a bottle of Champagne for being brave enough to let Karl challenge the Atlantic. It is truly a small world!
the morning of his departure, home to Oregon
|
|||||||||||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
