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Round the World in a RV-9A

Congratulations, John!

Welcome home!
Your journey has been a pleasure to follow.
I look forward to reading all about the details.

Dale
 
I registered here to congratulate you after my friend showed me your flight path on flight aware. Awesome achievement, and what a journey! I bet you were really ready to stretch your legs after that flight! Very, very cool.
 
RTW trip completed

After two hurricanes and waiting three weeks for a weather window to open, Thursday looked like the best day to fly from Hawaii to California. On Saturday another hurricane would sweep in from the east, disrupting the favorable winds at altitude. The weather forecast predicted tail winds for 70% of the flight. In reality, I encountered 1000 nm of head winds followed by 1000 nm of tail winds towards the California coast.

The 17 hour journey from Hilo to Oakland/Concord was very exhausting, especially since I had difficulty sleeping the night before. Prior to flight, "May" was loaded with 127 gallons of fuel and I was packed in the plane surrounded by fuel tanks up to the canopy top.

Now that I am back home, I will update the blog with entries for all legs from Pakistan back to the USA.

memoryflightrtw.weebly.com

Thank you all for for your kind words and support on my journey around the world.

John
 
Totally awesome feat John - heartiest congratulations. That?s a horrendously difficult initiation test to join a very exclusive club.

Cheers
 
What an inspiration!

John is the newest member of a very exclusive club.

A little perspective:

-Number of persons who have summitted Mt. Everest -over 4,000
-Number of persons who have swam the English Channel -1832
-Number of men who have set foot on the moon -12

Number of persons who have flown around the world solo in an aircraft they built themselves:

John Koehler is number 11

List of men in the same club:

-Don Taylor, Thorp T-18 1976
-Jon Johansen, RV-4, 1995, 1996, 2000
-Mike Melville, Long EZ, 1997
-Dick Rutan, Long EZ, 1997
-Ike Bartlett, Mustang II, 1999
-H G Schmidt, Long EZ, 2000
-Bill Randolph, RV-8, 2005
-Bill Harrelson, Lancair IV, 2015
-Hank Chang, RV-8, 2015
-Gordillo Miguel, RV-8, 2016

Notably, 5 of the 11 built and flew RVs.

We are all justifiably proud of John!
 
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The 17 hour journey from Hilo to Oakland/Concord was very exhausting, especially since I had difficulty sleeping the night before. Prior to flight, "May" was loaded with 127 gallons of fuel and I was packed in the plane surrounded by fuel tanks up to the canopy top.

I was wondering about the fuel load - I planned on 133 gallons in my plane for the same leg, very close to yours. I can put 67 in the wing tanks and plan on a 66 gallon turtle-pac in the right seat.

When you get a little free time I would love to chat with you about your power settings for the trip.
 
Steve,

You forgot Brian & Sylvia Foster
Maybe not solo, but neither were Melville/Rutan. They were in their homebuilt RV-10

Plus Manuel Queiroz in his RV-6.

None the less, great achievement by John and one less recruit to the flat earth society!
 
John is the newest member of a very exclusive club.

A little perspective:

-Number of persons who have summitted Mt. Everest -over 4,000
-Number of persons who have swam the English Channel -1832
-Number of men who have set foot on the moon -12

Number of persons who have flown around the world solo in an aircraft they built themselves:

John Koehler is number 11

List of men in the same club:

-Don Taylor, Thorp T-18 1976
-Jon Johansen, RV-4, 1995, 1996, 2000
-Mike Melville, Long EZ, 1997
-Dick Rutan, Long EZ, 1997
-Ike Bartlett, Mustang II, 1999
-H G Schmidt, Long EZ, 2000
-Bill Randolph, RV-8, 2005
-Bill Harrelson, Lancair IV, 2015
-Hank Chang, RV-8, 2015
-Gordillo Miguel, RV-8, 2016

Notably, 5 of the 11 built and flew RVs.

We are all justifiably proud of John!

Great info Steve
 
I was wondering about the fuel load - I planned on 133 gallons in my plane for the same leg, very close to yours. I can put 67 in the wing tanks and plan on a 66 gallon turtle-pac in the right seat.

When you get a little free time I would love to chat with you about your power settings for the trip.

Greg,

I sent you a PM with my telephone number if you would like to chat. My 66g turtle-pac could only be filled to 50g when laying horizontally on the passenger seat pan. Therefore, I needed to add a 20g Big Buddy turtle-pac to obtain the extra fuel capacity (and peace of mind) in Hilo. Upon landing at Concord I still had 4.5 hours of reserve fuel when burning 6 gph.

It sounds like you have a real super tanker of an aircraft.

John
 
John,

I just re-read your blog and thoroughly enjoyed every post. Your RTW trip looks like the adventure of a lifetime. I'll be at AirVenture 2019 all week so I hope to meet up with you and shake the hand of my hero! Well done.
 
John,

I just re-read your blog and thoroughly enjoyed every post. Your RTW trip looks like the adventure of a lifetime. I'll be at AirVenture 2019 all week so I hope to meet up with you and shake the hand of my hero! Well done.

Ron,

Thank you for your interest in my flight. It truly was a trip of a lifetime and exceeded my expectations. See you at Oshkosh!

John
 
Congratulations!

I am really impressed by your RTW flight. I hope to someday do that in my airplane too, although I'm not yet flying. Great job, and thanks for including your VAF family.
 
RTW

John, congratulations again on a truly amazing accomplishment, under many difficult circumstances. Well done!

Alex, - Thank you. Many local pilots helped me along the way with encouragement, aircraft service, filing flight plans, food, accommodations, etc.

My handlers from G.A.S.E. (Eddie and Ahmed) did a great job arranging overflight and landing permits, schedule PPR (prior permission to land), monitor my flight progress, send METARs, and perform pilot checks.

The RV is an amazing and capable aircraft.

John
 
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VAF,

Blog
https://memoryflightrtw.weebly.com/blog

Photos
https://memoryflightrtw.weebly.com/photos.html

I have updated many sections of the trip blog and added additional photos.

This was a tough trip, with very unfavorable weather around the planet and many obstacles along the way.

I plan to fly "May" to Oshkosh in 2019 and hope to see you there. Fly safe.

Sincerely,

John

Wow $31 per gallon of Avgas! My highest fuel was $12. Great story updated John thank you for the offline message as well. I have a similar trip in mind but too many unknowns not sure I can handle it.
 
Epic! Inspirational! Informative! All the rest of the Right Stuff. Thanks for not only sharing but thinking of what others might learn from your experiences.
 
RTW RV-9A at AirVenture 2019

If you are visiting AirVenture 2019 and want to see an RV that has flown around the world, ?May? will be on display until Saturday. Location: The intersection of Knapp and P-1 (across from Fightertown). I will be at the plane to answer trip questions on Thursday from 9-10am. I hope to see you there.
 
I want to see it and meet the pilot! I will never forget watching the flight track and the California IFR missed approach (at night) and diversion to another field with better weather... after flying from Hawaii.
 
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