Sandia Snorkel and Scuba     http://www.SandiaSnorkel.com   2430 Alamo Ave. SE - Suite 101, Albuquerque, NM    87106 Monday - Friday 10 AM to 6:30 PM & Sat/Sun. Please call Ahead   Phone:  (505)  AIR-TODAY  or  247-8632 Find Your Way Through Our Easy To Navigate Menu CLASSES CALENDAR SERVICES PLACES LINKS INFO HOME >>> >> > Welcome F.A.Q. Phone # Where Altitude Check List Staff Air QC Signals >>> >> > Amanda Maria Bert Cal

FLYING THE ATLANTIC IN 1968,

IN A CESSNA 172

(Somewhat updated February 2008)

A few years ago, "Double Eagle I" ditched into the North Atlantic. From the very first minutes the tragedy was known, there were high hopes of finding the two pilots, and finding them alive. The chances of surviving a crash in the North Atlantic is so slim, that some of the few reasons for carrying out the search and rescue missions in the North Atlantic region is to satisfy the curiosity of the search parties, and make the insurance companies pay off. The Montgolfiers, Abruzzo and Anderson, that went down knew as much about the odds and the hazards as any and every pilot who has flown that part of the world. They knew that the water temperature is in the high 20 deg. F in many regions and at these temperatures a man can survive for about 20 minutes, or possibly longer, IF he can get out of the water and into a dinghy or raft and dry off. Not just is the water cold, but the winds and the weather is not exactly forgiving either. There are at least five major storm areas at any time out there, and with a balloon one can not very well stay clear of any of them, but rather drift with the winds all the time. Now, why will a man want to fly the Atlantic? There are I am sure, as many reasons as there are pilots. Some of them do it for fun, others for fame.

The first transatlantic flight was in 1919, when the Navy sent NC-4 across. http://www.aviation-history.com/navy/nc4.html This was a seaplane that made it in several jumps.

They were followed by the same year by Alcock & Brown in their Vickers Vimy bomber. http://www.aviation-history.com/airmen/alcock.htm

There was the delivery flight of the German LZ-126 Zeppelin in 1924. http://www.airships.net/zepplos.htm

Then there was the most famous of them all. Charles Lindbergh in 1927. http://www.charleslindbergh.com/history/paris.asp In a legendary 33 and one half hours, Charles A. Lindbergh in his Spirit of St. Louis set the pace for today's Atlantic flights. Although it was more than 80 years ago, today's flights are remarkably alike the one that brought Lindbergh his fame. One still needs extra fuel, one may or may not have more than one prop and even though most of today's light planes have windshields, there is very little need for one, as the weather hasn't changed one single bit during the last 80 years. By the time Charles Lindbergh flew across, there had already been some 70 persons flying the Atlantic. So he was by no means the first person to conquer the Atlantic, but he was certainly the first to make it solo. A feat that I still have the deepest respect for. Many people say that he is the luckiest man alive, but I maintain that with a lot of pre-flight planning, the proper equipment, a little bit of skill and some luck, the Atlantic is relatively, I say relatively safe.

Back in 1968, when I made my crossings, more than 25,000 persons were flying the Atlantic every day. Most of them though, eat their way across, comfortably reclined in the seats of Boeing 707's and Douglas DC-8's. High above most Atlantic weather at 30,000 feet or more, these travelers are pampered by good looking stewardesses.

But like the Double Eagle I, in 1977 and subsequent Double Eagle II, http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9801/9808/deIIoverview.htm down below them, there is a number of pilots, most of whom are professional pilots for hire, ferry pilots and so on, but some of them are just simply private-pilots who do fly the Atlantic, maybe not just for the fun of it, but probably because both the Atlantic and the great challenge is there. Gone are the $25,000.00 cash rewards and there will be very few names carved into the history books on the subject of flying the Atlantic. The latest one I saw was in 2003, when Maynard Hill flew his model airplane across the 1,900 miles in 39 hours. http://www.progressiveengineer.com/profiles/maynardHill.htm

I am one of these pilots, and some of my reasons for going were I am sure, a combination of all of the above. Whatever reason one might have, it is still very much an interesting trip, that requires an enormous amount of planning, but in return gives a lot of personal satisfaction.

To give you an idea of, and a background to my short flying career and my reasons for flying the Atlantic, I will have to start on October the 2nd 1966, when I, in an Aircoupe got my first flying lesson in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In half a year I had my private licence. I started to look around for an airplane in my price range, and found a 1958 Cessna 172 in pretty good condition. Just about overnight I was an airplane owner. U.S. regulations prohibit aliens to register airplanes in this country, and I was more or less forced to seek registry in Sweden, my native country. Most all foreign aircraft owners have their U.S. banks or some U.S. citizen friend or relative as the legal owner. I, for some reason or other preferred to be the registered and legal owner of the plane. After a lot of paper work, Civilair, the Swedish counterpart to FAA, agreed to take on the registry of the plane provided I had an FAA inspector give it an Export Airworthiness certificate. Secondly that I agreed to have the plane back in Sweden for an inspection before December 1968. This gave me a good reason for bringing the plane across the Atlantic, and together with the challenge of the flight across, I made up my mind. It was about mid October 1967 that I started to look into the different possibilities of crossing the Atlantic. And at the same time I started to look around for a fellow pilot, crazy enough to go with me. I ran into Dennis Valliant, who was, if not overly enthusiastic about flying across, at least interested in helping me with the pre-flight planning of the trip. I also ran into quite a few people telling me it couldn't be done. The more I heard their stories about the impossibilities about a flight in a Cessna 172 across the Atlantic, the more I worked at getting started. I found about 7 - 8 different routes across, all, more or less feasible with my plane. There are the long, southern routes over fairly comfortable waters. Then the northern routes, over cold arctic waters. As the southern routes proved to be much too long for any reasonable fuel system set-up in a Cessna 172 with 2 pilots on board, we started to investigate the northern routes. Specially the routes around middle and southern Greenland. We considered the extreme northern routes to be way too long.

For a few months we were busy writing letter. Ordering maps, asking for information about routes, airports, weather, regulations and all kind of special problems that we could dream up. There were FAA and FCC for special fuel and radio installations. There were the Canadian, Danish and other authorities who needed to give their blessings and permissions to perform a flight like this, land at their airports and so on. Then there was the Swedish Civilair, who seemed to be against all kind of flying activities, and still I have my doubts about their position.

It took us until April to decide about the final route and timing. We were to leave Albuquerque, New Mexico in early June, fly to the east coast, pick up survival gear and get a radio for High Frequency communications and also a fuel system installed. We were then to fly up to Moncton, New Brunswick to get the Canadian Department of Transports approval for the flight. Then on to Goose Bay, Labrador - Narssarssuaq, Greenland - Reykjavik, Iceland - Vagar, Færø islands and then down to Malmö, Sweden. For this route we needed 35 gallons extra fuel, so that together with the standard 40 gallon we would have 75 gallon, good for about 10 hours at normal cruise. We figured that the easiest way to handle the fuel would be in a 35 gallon drum, strapped in the back seat, connected to the regular fuel system via flexible hoses and an electric fuel pump. As a backup, we could gravity feed directly into the carburetor, or even pressurize the drum. For the radio antenna we needed a trailing wire that could be reeled in and out. Several different ideas popped up. We settled for a manual reel, with the antenna originating from under the belly of the plane, back through the modified tail tie-down ring and out to a funnel which served as a drag cup. Neither mechanics nor FAA had any better ideas or objections to the setup, on a ferry-flight basis. We had found a used HF-radio rig in Beverly, Massachusetts. We had also found that we were better off to fly down to Miami, Florida to purchase the survival equipment. Anyway, during the spring, we were collecting any and all information we could round up about our proposed flight. We were boning up on long distance navigation, Pressure pattern navigation, Astro-compass usage, Instrument flying and all these things. Dennis decided to go with me and by June 15th we were ready. We had said goodby to most everybody, and all of our friends wished us a lucky flight. I think it was only Mr. Al C. Reed, the Supervising Inspector at Albuquerque General Aviation District Office. He was still trying to convince us that the arctic waters were really cold. About 28 degrees cold, and the best survival gear we could have, would be a bottle of good Cognac.

On June 15th we left Albuquerque for Miami. It was a comfortable flight. We spent a few days on the road and didn't even see a cloud on the sky. At least not until Daytona Beach, where we at 04:00 went on instruments and made our first actual instrument approach of our lives. It was an ADF approach, and at the time we considered it a masterpiece. We still consider it a masterpiece that we made it. In Miami we picked up our gear. Rubber raft, Emergency beacon, Rations, Survival kit, Flare gun and so on. Anything from Fishing kit to Solar still for water, and many other things that would make any standard survival kit-. look like a toy. We even had neoprene foam rubber divers suits for some protection if we were to go down in the arctic waters.

From Miami we went up to Beverly, Massachusetts to get the HF radio and the fuel system installed. We had to stay in Beverly for a few days, and we found people from that place extremely friendly and helpful. And a lot of fun too. In Norwood, Massachusetts we finally got the FAA ferry permit and their approval of the ferry installations. A few moments later, we were on our way up to Moncton, New Brunswick. The Canadians, like most others, have some things against single engine birds flying across the Atlantic. You have to prove to them that you and your equipment are capable of making it across, and also survive in case of trouble.

Unfortunately we got to Moncton on Dominion Day, a national holiday, so we had a 24 hour unscheduled stop there. The inspection turned out to be a very thorough one. I say one thing for the Canadians, it was the most thorough pre-flight briefing and de-briefing and checkout that I have ever been through. Luckily, Dennis was quite proficient in reading Morse code, and was able to identify some sample stations on the air in split seconds. After we had displayed all our gear and knowledge we were once again on our way. This time to Goose Bay via Seven Islands on the Saint Lawrence River.

By now Instrument flying was second nature. After all, the instrument flying we had done in the New York - Boston area with a Cessna 172 with basic instrument panel, a Narco Mark 2 and an ADF had given us some seasoning, and several times we had some good use out of our transistor radio Nova Tech Pilot 2.

The approach at Seven Islands was another one of these memorable moments in my flying career. Dennis, using the Pilot 2 and the Mark 2 for communications with some French approach controller, while I flew down the localizer path to absolute minimums proved to be quite an exciting approach. After refueling, we were on the way again, and a few hours later Goose Bay and Happy Valley was right in front of us. As fast as we were on the ground, we arranged for a met-briefing in the morning, refueled and changed oil. You want the best of meterologists, and trust when they pick out and tell you to fly. If they put you in the wrong weather system you're not going to get there. The weatherman promised terrible weather at Goose but clearing over the coast, so we would get a good check on the heading against the shoreline features. The enroute weather was to be fair, intermittent layers throughout the route. The fjord at Narssarssuaq would be open with 1,200 feet overcast, rising inland.

The weatherman and the others at Goose Bay, Newfoundland said: "Go.-'It ain't gonna get no better, It's nasty now, and goin' down". We didn't want to sit in Goose for a week or so waiting for the weather and another chance, so we left. Our flight plan called for 9 hours en route with 11 hours of fuel and as alternate we listed Sondrestrom, 6 - 7 hours up the Groenlandia coast. The authorities need an alternate on a flight plan and on Greenland the only realistic alternate is either the icecap or the water. It was 05:00 local time and we were on our way. 30 minutes later, departure control said good day and God Bless. Have a good trip. The Goose VOR faded out and a few minutes later the LP beacon got unreliable. Just about as we broke out of the clouds we passed over the coastline and we were able to identify Mount Benedict and Cape Harrison. Right on course with a ground speed of 90 knots. which included the climb up to our altitude. FL 090 or 9,000 feet. It was a beautiful sight. We could make out Cape Harrison airport along the shore. By now we were feeling quite good about the flight, we had started to pump up some fuel into the mains and rearranged most of the loose bits, and pieces of equipment for easy access. Icebergs of various sizes were floating around in the water below. Some were really big and looked like permanent islands, and others were very small. At one time we saw pack-ice that looked more like a microscopic photograph of a metallurgic sample. We were trying to hold a heading of +-, 1 degree on the directional gyro and +- 20 feet of altitude with an EGT-leaned mixture. Only one thing worried us, we did not experience any of the much discussed "automatic engine roughness over water". We recalled the Canadian who asked us how we dared trust the engine over water. Our answer had been: "The engine doesn't know it is over water", upon he had replied: "That's just the point, if you could just tell the engine were it was, there wouldn't be a problem. Regulations calls for position reports every 5 degrees of longitude change, or at least every hour, so we tried the HF-rig, but most of the 5 channels we had seemed to be busy. Anyway we didn't raise anybody, so we tried 121.5, the primary VHF channel. This frequency is used extensively over the ocean, and every craft monitors it. We got a hold of Clipper 236 at 32,000 feet, who happily relayed our position to the center. This way of communicating was to become the prime way of reporting our positions. It worked out beautifully throughout the trip, and we received many a comment from the crews of these 4 engine jobs. Two and one half-hour out from the coast, about midway between Canada and Greenland, we tried to communicate with Ocean Station Bravo, who we had requested to keep a lookout for us. We were now getting a signal and an indication on the ADF and soon the crew of the ship verified our position. We had the vessel 75 miles right off our right wingtip. This was an encouraging position report. On our maps we had measured 80 miles from the ships position to our planned track. So we gave them an ETA for Simiutak on Greenland and asked them to relay the position to the center. Simiutak is a radio beacon at the mouth of the fjord leading in to Narssarssuaq. Too soon we lost contact with the ship, after all it had been comfortable to have somebody down there to talk to. We were now on instruments most of the time. The magnetic compass gave us a lot of headaches. With 30 - 40 degrees variation it was hard to keep the wings level and steady enough for a good reading. But we had a darn good directional gyro and frequently found ourselves arguing about 1 degree correction changes.

About an hour out from Simiutak we got a good signal on the ADF. Simiutak straight ahead. A minute later we lost our vacuum to the directional gyro and the artificial horizon. We had been waiting for this to happen, after all, we had venturi suction on the Cessna. Ice started to form on the wings and the windshield. Dennis got out his camera to capture this moment, but as the ice built up he got more interested in helping me with the flying part. Throughout the flight we had shared all the flying, but on occasions like this one, we were both working. I don't mind saying it, we had some anxious moments and around that time our EGT started to get erratic and we were having trouble with the altitude hold. The ice dissipated and Lufthansa 119 flying overhead advised us that Sondrestrom control asked them to relay a new clearance for us. We were cleared to 11,000 over Simiutak for an approach to Narssarssuaq. This is the approach procedure and we accepted the clearance. Station passage at Simiutak 45 miles to Narssarssuaq. Back towards SI while descending to 7,000', and then a decent down to 1,000', we broke out of the clouds, not a foot above 1,000. Now, at Simiutak there are a few fjords to choose from. It was literally impossible to stabilize the compass enough for a good heading, and the directional gyro had again gone out during the decent through the icing levels. All the area looked the same, and we picked the one fjord that looked like the right one.

About 25 miles up the fjord, we had still not found the greatest aid to navigation on Greenland, one sunken ship and we were beginning to make out enough ground features to put us in the southern fjord. The weather was steadily going up and with 2,000' overcast we continued. The map showed that it would be possible to cross over into the proper fjord if the weather was fair. The fjord made a bend to the left and we crossed over a saddle into the proper fjord. We could just about make out the airport from this point. We were getting optimistic about making it to the runway, but we wanted to save the congratulations until we had the plane tied down at the airport. The winds in the fjord were about 30 - 40 knots; which apparently is par for the fjord. It is a cool breeze blowing down from the ice cap. Narssarssuaq is probably the best known and most feared airport of the north Atlantic. To the wartime pilots who were ferrying Flying Fortresses over to Europe, this God forgotten place was "Blue West One". Everything I have ever heard about the place seemed true, including the outer and middle markers, consisting of floating icebergs. After a fair landing, we had to use just about full power to taxi uphill the runway to the parking area. Narssarssuaq is a fairly large village by Greenland standards. The settlement holds about 115 Danes and some Eskimos. It seemed to be a happy little place, and later on I found out that they only have two problems there, as every where else in settlements in the North Atlantic. Syphilis and Alcoholism. We got the plane tied down, and believe it or not, the station manager managed to tie down the whole plane with one long rope. Both wings, nose, tail and wheels. One long rope. It looked like an airplane caught in a spiders cobweb.

When checking the oil, I got a shock. The oil level was about 6 quarts above the 8 quart full mark. After a lot of worrying we found that we were standing on a steep up-slope and the plane was very tail heavy on top of it. When one of us was holding down the nose, the reading got normal and after turning the plane around 90 degrees the following morning, we had just about the predicted 6 quarts. The fuel master used up 55 gallons for fueling the plane, and figuring the 5 gallons he spilled on the ground we must have had at least 30 gallons left.

After being accused of not filing a flight plan and some discussions about the trip, we were taken to Hotel Arctic for the night, by a maniac Volkswagen bus driver. On trails that were made for Jeeps at low speeds he held at least 45 mph. The next day we saw the same guy in the same bus, but now one door had fallen off. Hotel Arctic turned out to be some old Air Force quarters, quite comfortable and warm. We had some sandwiches and as usual we ordered a weather briefing for breakfast. It was the 4th of July and we went to sleep.

Early next morning we met with the weatherman. He appeared thoroughly confused, but had some terrific looking cross-sections of the weather along our proposed route. The Cross section looked more like a painting, he must have spent hours drawing all the clouds, lightening, sun-rays, rain and snow crystals and so on. All in different colors. Before we saw him, we had received inside information from some ice patrol pilots, about the metrologist. The Ice-patrol normally listens to the poor man and as fast as they leave his office they throw all the information in the first garbage can they can find. Sure enough, his high pressures rotated counterclockwise and low pressures clockwise. He might have been all wrong, but he was thorough. We listened and made up our minds. Instead of going direct to Reykjavik on Iceland, we planned the trip around Cape Farewell up to Kulusuk on the east coast of Greenland., and then over to Iceland. The whole southern part of Greenland was socked in 3,000 feet and above promised light to moderate icing, and after yesterdays experience we didn't want to stray into the icing. Ceilings of 1,000 feet and lower meant that we couldn't go over the icecap, so around Cape Farewell and up the east coast to Kulusuk. On this leg of the trip, we didn't have to worry about flying up the wrong creek at the destination. Kulusuk forecasted CAVOK, Ceiling and Visibility OK, a term that frequently is used in Europe. when things are looking bright. The only worry was going around the cape under instrument conditions, more or less dead reckoning. There are two radio beacons one on either side of the Cape, but none on the tip. Below 3,000 feet and the coastline consisting of 4,000 to 5,000 feet rough mountainous terrain was one of the factors that made us check and double check our calculations. Flight plan to Angmalslik with Sondestrom again as an alternate. This time we made sure that we departed thru the primary fjord, so that we would catch a glimpse of that famous ship that was laying there as a navigational aid. We found the ship and headed southwest. We caught a glimpse of the southernmost tip, Cape Farewell. The weather stayed about the same for about halfway up the coast. The weatherman might have been wrong about many a thing but when it came to forecasting where the weather was to quit, he was right on the money. We again asked airliners overhead to relay position reports for us and they were very happy to do so. The airspace seemed filled with airliners. But if they are to transport some 25,000 people across in one day, they better be busy. Some 100 miles out from Kulusuk, Big Gun Radar advised us about our position. We couldn't reach them with our VHF, but their transmissions were crystal clear and they claimed that they had been tracking us for quite some time, wondering and speculating about what kind of plane had a ground speed of 80 knots. Big Gun Radar is part of the DEW system, and is located on the island of Kulusuk. There are 8 Yankees up at the radar site and 13 Danes in the village. The Eskimos live in the settlement of Angmalslik close by. The costal range looked marvelous from our position and soon we came in over land. Station passage at Kulusuk and no airport in sight. We looked around for awhile and circled the island as casually as possible, after all it was wonderful sight and we did not want to raise any eyebrows by asking where the airport was. We found the strip. I think we had expected a slightly larger place, after all it was on the map. 3 or 4 houses, a crooked road and a straight road. The straight road was the runway. We were again on the ground after a 6 - 7 hour flight from Narssarssuaq. A leg that we both were to rate as the hardest of the whole trip. One of the surprising things had been the radio beacon at Keflavik, Iceland.. We had been able to monitor it throughout the day. It must be an enormous transmitter. It didn't do us any good, but at least we got something on the ADF. At Kulusuk we were treated very well and for $2.00 we got a fantastic meal. By the time we had finished our meal the fuel master was ready to attend to our plane. The ice patrols DC-6 had arrived a few hours ahead of us and the refueling at Kulusuk is a tedious thing. Fuel comes in 55 gal. barrels at about $45.00 a barrel and had to be pumped manually into the tanks. They had help from some old gasoline engine that was supposed to pump, but not very efficiently. We didn't need more than 40 gallons, but we still had to pay for the whole barrel. For some reason or other we were ready to go again. Nobody asked us if we planned on staying overnight and we never even thought of it. The sun was still shining, it was 22:00 and we got under way after some planning. Already from the start we monitored Keflavik beacon, but with the sun halfway through the horizon we were not about to home in on the station. The radio magnetic fields were quite distorted at times. After a few radar positions from Big Gun Radar we were again on-our own. The midnight sun was a beautiful sight and we enjoyed every bit of it. The weather was perfect, except from a slight quartering headwind on our left. We could see the surface wind making fog streaks off the icebergs floating in the water. Three hours went by and Iceland appeared on the horizon. We had noticed that it was really night in that part of the country. There had been very few airliners overhead and the fellow at Reykjavik Center was eager to talk to us about most everything from weather to local flying conditions in the States. The airport was literally closed down. It took a while to round up a gas boy. By now it was 3 - 4 in the morning and we were not the least bit tired. Vagar airport on the Færø Islands opened at 09:00 so if we continued we would just about make it for breakfast. When we told the controllers where we had started out from that day, he thought we were crazy, and when we handed him a flight plan for Færø he was ready to flip. The weather was all right all the way except for Vagar itself which forecasted standard low ceilings but Sumburgh on the Shetland Islands down the road was a perfect alternate. We were on our way. It was quite an interesting flight over Iceland. Very little vegetation, and with all the volcanic lava, sharp mountain terrain and the 04:00 sun, it looked like somewhat like what one could imagine the moon. Dennis went to sleep and I was trying to understand some of what they were talking about on the radio. Most of the radio stations were playing U.S. pop records but the language the disc-jockey used, was out of this world. Icelandic is a Nordic language and as such I should understand it, but no chance. As soon as we left the coastline of Iceland we were told by the ATC clearance to descend to below 3,000 feet for VFR to Vagar. I tried to make them repeat the clearance, they did not answer, so I didn't acknowledge. This was the first time we experienced some of the, as far as I am concerned, ridiculous European flight rules. The reason for the new clearance I found out later, had been due to the fact that single engine IFR is nonexisting on Iceland and no IFR approach for Vagar exists. They could not let us fly the IFR airway like other airway traffic. . With an ocean below us, we wanted at least a few minutes, not seconds to get out the cognac and gear in case of need. As we never acknowledged, we continued at 9,000 feet. The airways from Iceland to Færøe, are reserved solely for IFR. VFR Traffic at 3,000 feet and below. The Færøe islands is a strange island group in the Atlantic that rises straight out of the water. A constant cloud bank lies above the islands and the people who live there are of Nordic descent ‘ ruled by' .Denmark, it has its own language and monetary system. The airport has no IFR approach and the VFR minimum is 1,000 feet. The local control advised us that the overcast was down to 800 feet and we would have to continue to Sumburgh on the Shetland Islands. We accepted but started to tell the tower operator that we had a special delivery mail in a bottle from Greenland. There are very strict rationing rules of liquors on Færø and the weather changed to 1,200 feet in a matter of seconds. After a very interesting approach we landed and were greeted by a bunch of happy Færø islanders. Even the custom officer was interested in checking the content of the mail. We tried to telex home to Malmö but the power supply at the telex transmission station was apparently out. This we found out once we had left, and had paid $3.00 for the telex. From the Færø island, the trip was more or less routine over the Shetland Islands, to Stavanger, Norway, south over Denmark towards Malmö. About an hour out, we ran into instrument weather and we got out first try at IFR in Europe. With our limited radio equipment we had a very hard time.