What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Round the World in a RV-9A

I have been following this since the start. What an amazing journey. Looks like the long legs is about it left. Hard to believe a person could fly a homebuilt around the world.
 
zoomed into Bali on Google maps. it appears scooters are the mode of travel. all the riders I saw wear helmets. a sign of intelligence.
 
He left Australia about 5 hours ago and is getting close to the Solomon Islands. https://memoryflightrtw.weebly.com/tracking.html

I still can't believe he will fly from Hilo to San Francisco area. I bet he has to wait for good winds!

Depends on his ferry tank, I still haven't found out what he's using. My 9A with IO360 and constant speed prop has no trouble maintaining 20-21 nautical miles per gallon in still air, though at a slower than normal cruising speed. 2100 miles that way means 105 gallons plus reserves as you see fit. I can put 67 in my wings and plan a 66 gallon turtle-pac in the right seat, that gives 133 gallons.
 
Greg, I could see you giving it a shot! Looks like it is about 2300 - 2500 miles, depending on landing airport. As the song says, thats a long time to hang in the sky.

I admire this guy for having a dream and doing it. I think I would have wanted to spend more time exploring and hitting a few more of the fun places. Maybe he had a time limit or maybe he has traveled all over before. Im just impressed he can actually make the flight from Hilo.
 
The shortest route for that leg is actually Hilo PHTO to Half Moon Bay KHAF, at 2006 nautical miles direct.
 
Very impressive John! I can't imagine the amount of logistics behind your trip. Tailwinds to the way home.
 
yeah. 100% flying and 100% logistics.

over the Pacific you don't have to look out for airplanes over Ripon!

bring it home.
 
4 More Legs

He's in Port Vila,Shefa, VU.
Only 5,590 miles left.
Maybe another 8 days or so?
 
South Pacific crossing

VAF,

Tomorrow I depart for Pago Pago and will prepare for the upcoming long legs. The plane holds up to 124 gallons of fuel, but even with this capacity I will need to fly fairly slowly to ensure the range.

I had hoped to be in Oshkosh by this time. Weather delays in the far north and illness in India slowed down my progress.

John
 
VAF,

Tomorrow I depart for Pago Pago and will prepare for the upcoming long legs. The plane holds up to 124 gallons of fuel, but even with this capacity I will need to fly fairly slowly to ensure the range.

I had hoped to be in Oshkosh by this time. Weather delays in the far north and illness in India slowed down my progress.

John
Good luck John. What is your setup for the extra fuel?
 
RTW Flight

Hi John.

Just wanted to say that I'll be watching your flight across the Pacific back to California.

Safe travels.
 
John left Pago Pago to his next stop at Christmas Island. It initially appeared he was going to try for HI, but he just recently turned towards Christmas Island. Or, perhaps he was just optimizing winds.

What a journey - I can't even begin to imagine it.
 
I have lost tracking on John through the app on the website. Does anyone else have a track or a position?
 
I had heard from him that his plan was to go non stop to Hilo and bypass CXI because the fuel situation there was questionable...
 
Trip

Tracking shows he arrived CXI at 1:56 EST this morning, then another trip off CXI @ 5:10 with a distance of 152.3 miles??? Has he departed for Hilo??? with such a short stop??
What an amazing trip, can't imagine it, God's speed John.
 
Latest tracking looks like he's walking around the grounds at the Captain Cook hotel!!! Amazing.
 
I hope you are right, my tracking ap is still BLANK.

The only way I can get the track to appear is to repeatedly refresh and eventually the track shows up.

This seems to be a problem with the Garmin InReach webpage rather than his unit not updating.
 
The only way I can get the track to appear is to repeatedly refresh and eventually the track shows up.

This seems to be a problem with the Garmin InReach webpage rather than his unit not updating.

Thank you. That's not working for me (thank you garmin) so would you mind telling me where you show him now, or post a screen shot?

Thanks again.
 
Thank you. That's not working for me (thank you garmin) so would you mind telling me where you show him now, or post a screen shot?

Thanks again.

This is the the most recent position shown. 7/28/18 9:25am west coast time. The last ping is the Captain Cook Hotel on Kiritimati Island.

memory-flight-web.jpg
 
Last edited:
Thank you Michael! I looked up the Captain Cook hotel online and it looks tropical, but hardly paradise... I hope John's ok and he can continue his adventure soon.
 
I made contact with John via text. He is at CXI as previously reported. His enroute calculation had him arriving in PHTO Hilo short of fuel, so he coordinated a divert to CXI enroute (not an easy task given international formalities), shot the RNAV approach and landed safely. As it turns out, he will be able to get 100LL there.

The adventure continues...
 
Long Flight

Yep--looks like he is in "max endurance" mode or is encountering strong headwinds. The track details say he is currently going only 115 knots--if that continues it will take around 9 hours to get to Hilo. Hope he picks up some favorable winds!

Hoping for tailwinds John!

Cheers,

db
 
Todays Flight

Todays flight is 1068 NM. Hilo to Bay Area is 2014 nm.
What is a reasonable long range cruise true airspeed for the 9A and what would the fuel consumption be??
 
Correct. Looking at weather and winds, they do not look good for the next several days from Hilo to Concord unless he is above 15k. I imagine he needs good winds to make it from Hilo home.
 
Earthrounder

Adrian Eichhorn's Earthrounder P35 Bonanza was parked in front of Vintage Hdq at OSH. It won a major trophy and is an absolute work of art.
The P35 holds 280 gallons total which is 26 hours. Hawaii to the mainland was the longest leg and took 17 hours. Those are the kind of numbers I would want to see to fly that leg.
 
Interesting

Have been watching this from the beginning since I once had an RV-9A.


If he was trying to go from Pago Pago (NSTU) direct to Hilo (PHTO) a distance of 2235 miles and had to divert to Christmas Island (CXI) because of fuel. He will have his hands full going from Hilo to Concord (KCCR) which is 2037 miles. He is going to need some good tail winds with only a total of 124 or so gallons total. His decision/ turn around point will be around 30 to 40% of the initial distance I would guess.
 
I'd think he's in the 5 gph range of fuel burn for max distance, perhaps a bit less. He's got 25 hours endurance to empty at that rate. I'd guess he'll land in CA with 4 or 5 hours' fuel remaining.

John - curious minds here, fuel burn details please!
 
Hmmm

If he had that endurance, why did he divert the Christmas Island because of fuel? Must have been really windy
 
I thought from looking at the planned route he had a fuel stop at Christmas Island CXI? No?
 
Route

I saw that also, but if you look at his flight track it looks like he turned to Christmas Island after his initial routed looked direct to Hilo...still a long way to swim no matter how you look at it.
 
Long Distance Flights

Prior to Voyager, I consider the all time greatest flight in a small airplane to be Max Conrad's Capetown to St Petersburg flight in the Twin Commanche. Approximately 7000 miles for the record but the actual mileage was significantly greater. Approximately 8 gallons per hour average for both engines. IO 320's with Hartzell props. Near the end he was likely below six gallons hr total. A carburated 320 will burn considerably more, close to 1 gallon per hr more at 75%, depending on the individual engine.
So 5 gallons hr should be very doable in the 9A.
One of the posts mentions max endurance. Max endurance is irrelavent to long distance flight. Max long range cruise is the important factor, and this is virtually always well above max endurance speed.
 
Prior to Voyager, I consider the all time greatest flight in a small airplane to be Max Conrad's Capetown to St Petersburg flight in the Twin Commanche.

That's an amazing distance to cover non stop. Lots of alternates along the route.
 
Progress update

I just posted a progress update for N944JK in the General discussion section. One leg to go, but looking at a delay. He needs to find shelter from the storm for his airplane.
 
Last edited:
Is it possible to get an update on the progress and we hope his hold up at Hilo is a minor one.
 
Thanks to all of those who reached out to John and helped him get "May" in a hangar until he can start his final leg of the journey. What a great community we have! He's very appreciative of all the support he has gotten from VAF and the GA population.

John will be working on the aircraft and awaiting favorable conditions and hopefully will be under way again soon.
 
Back
Top