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Another one strikes out for the New World

Amazing. I am blown away at the flights people are making. What a dream world. I can't imagine the planning involved. I just did my first night cross country and it took almost as long to do the planning as it did the flight!

Best of luck. Have a great trip.
 
My hats off to Ron.

That's a tuff part of the world to cross. Miles and miles between airports and weather that's not friendly and water that's is filled with ice cubes the size of buildings. Alternate airports? Lol.

I had a friend that took a Lear 25 to Europe many years ago. On the way home they had to use the ground painting mode on the radar to get into sondrestrom as they were running out of gas. When they got home they bought a Lear 35 and sold the 25.

What kind of preparations did Ron do for the journey? Can you share a little more on fuel, flight planning, survival gear?

Cheers.
 
My hats off to Ron.

What kind of preparations did Ron do for the journey? Can you share a little more on fuel, flight planning, survival gear?

Cheers.

I called round to see Ron before I left on my trip across the pond. He is borrowing the auxiliary tank that Manuel Queiroz used on his RV-6 round the world flight. I doubt he needs to fill it to the level required for the Hawaii to California leg!
We used the Mustang MSF300 dry suits on the over water legs. There's an outfit at both Wick, Scotland and Goose Bay, Canada that does one or two way rentals of dry suits, liferafts and lifevests.
I think Ron used White Rose Aviation to arrange his permits etc, though it can all be done yourself with a little effort and research.

Unfortunately, I will be missing Oshkosh this year while the RV-8 is getting re-certified; but I'm sure you'll give him a good welcome when he arrives.

Another recent notable crossing was Andy McKee in his Silence Twister - G-FUUN who was following a few days behind our group on a similar route. He's currently in Toronto on his way to OSH
 
amazing.... like rockwood said I worry about crossing FL...

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Ron's RV was built by Andy Phillips of Andair fame.

Hopefully Ron should make Goose Bay today. The weather is looking quite good if a bit gusty.
 
Weather

I'm a professional weatherman. Just looked at the weather charts. May be stuck there for awhile. Might be a small window Monday July 17th.

Stay Safe.
 
From the reception committee waiting in Maine,

Ron is fine and so is g-rvtt, but the weather certainly isn't. There have been a series of lows between Greenland and Canada, and today the cloudbase is 400ft. Tomorrow Friday looks good though and we hope he can get going again.
 
Weather

The surface and upper Low are between Labrador and Southern Greenland. Good news is looking at the latest Satellite shot the Low is starting to weaken or what we call filling. Lots of breaks in the cloud now so probably a window to go tomorrow. There is some isolated cloud at 1500 but generally across the water cloud are scattering. Winds at 6000 feet tomorrow are generally 270 at 20 knots. Freezing Level is between 5-6 thousand feet. Surface winds at CYYR tomorrow morning is 27015G20.
Keep us updated on his flight.

Thanks.
 
It looks like Ron has just crossed the Canadian coast heading for Goose Bay and all looks set fair onward to Bangor.

No more $150 landing fees, $14/gallon Avgas and $250/night hotels for a while.:D
 
Ron is on his way again, bound for Bangor, Maine, for customs and on to Bar Harbour. He will be joining up there with John Michie, an RV-6A builder from England, and Joe Waltz with his RV-8 from Houston. I believe the plan is to remove the long range tank and tour the US before heading for Oshkosh.
 
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The Route

I think a lot of pilots don't realize that the Goose Bay-Greenland-Iceland route does not involve long distances.
A little history on this route. In the early stages of WWII there were very few operational cargo aircraft larger than a DC3. The northern route was developed based on the limitations of the DC3. Goose Bay, Greenland and Iceland airports were all built or greatly expanded in the early war years.
The Greenland airports were all named Bluie West with a following number. This was a result of US Navy surveys with each area being assigned a letter of the alphabet. On this route the designation was apparently only used in Greenland.
The longest leg on this route is roughly 800 statute miles. The Piper Twin Commanche can fly this leg eastbound with only the optional factory tip tanks for additional fuel. Total fuel 120 gallons, 114 useable. The TC can fly the longest leg on 1/2 of that fuel. On the Greenland leg this leaves adequate reserve fuel to reach a distant alternate.
The problem on this route is weather, it is likely to be rotten even in mid summer.
In the post WWII era I believe the first to do this in a light airplane was Max Conrad in a 125 hp PA20 Pacer. Two round trips Minneapolis to Switzerland. This led to a long career ferrying small airplanes all over the world.
In the early 50's Peter Gluckmann flew a 90 hp Luscombe from San Francisco
to Berlin, round trip. He had some limited instrument training but was not instrument rated.
Much later Mira Slovak did it westbound in a Fournier motor glider. It has been done in an ultralight.
 
Well, according to his tracker, Ron and his bright yellow RV-7 G-RVTT are at Oshkosh.

'Hope to see some pictures soon!
 
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