Oshkosh trip

Oshkosh (KOSH) trip.

Chaque année traditionellement depuis 1953 "The Airshow" of Steve Wittman airport, passionne les pilotes du Monde entier et même leur famille
et autres curieux.

Plus sur Oshkosh et son célèbre aéroport: @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ (FSX Flightsimulator too @ @ @ )

Cette année Jonathan a décidé de s'y rendre avec son Beech Baron.

"Dimanche matin :
Dear friends and family, today I leave on a ten thousand mile adventure to northern America. Along with my friend Henry and trusty 1977 beech baron aircraft we fly via Scotland, Iceland,Over the polar ice cap and Greenland then to the northern territories of Canada down the Easter seaboard of Newfoundland and then the united states toward the Caribbean. Then backup to Oshkosh Wisconsin and then home again! This is a massive undertaking and somthing I've been dreaming of for 10 years.
Only some one that has done something like this knows what it entails mountains of paper work, sign offs,certifications, approvals, visas, licencing etc. the flying shoud
actually be quite straight forward! I would like to thank all the people who have helped and supported me during the last 6months as this trip has steadily ramped up.
This includes my lovely family. I wish I was doing this trip for charity but there has been no time to organise that. And who knows we might not even get to Scotland.
I will let you all know how we get on and try and send some picture enroute,
Best Jonny

Départ depuis Lee on Solent EGHF (Portsmouth) ancien aérodrome militaire aujourd'hui devenu civil. @ @ @ @ @ (video) @

Première escale au Nord de l'Ecosse à Findhorm.
Dimanche soir :
Hey we arrived in inverness Scotland just in time for a lovely late lunch Out side at the Kimberly pub in the Beautiful town of Findhorn with great friends, then a walk on the beech sunny weather. Very different to the hairy arrival to inverness coming in over the mountains in IFR conditions we were picking up ice on the air frame in the decent
to shoot the ILS (instrument landing system, precision approach to land) all went ok jut before the heavens opened. Yippeeeee! Jonny

Lundi soir :
Hi there we left or friends in Findhorn and headed to Inverness airport the clouds were gathering as we expedited out to the north only a short flight to Wick but one which proved particularly difficult by the time we started the approach the cloud was scattered at 200ft! After a REALLY scary moment we touched down in the mist and drizzle to meet the other two aircraft transiting the Atlantic withus. One departed almost immediately. We got togged up in our ocean survival kit boarded the Baron for our ocean crossing to iceland.
We departed after a minor delay due to our GPS once again climbing up to the heavens in the murk, utilizing the deice kit and on Oxygen by flight level 100 then on up to the sunshine at 14,500ft 4hrs later and 90 nautical miles from Reykjavik my phone cam alive, so texted Gwenola just to reassure her I wasn't with my mistress! We cancelled the IFR flight plan an did a visual approach and landing into 20degs and bright sunshine. It is beautiful here and an absolute babe fest, not that it is of any interest to me.
Now relaxing in a hotel after dinner for an early start tomorrow for a BIG day. we fly across Greenland and hope to reach the northern territories of Canada by night fall lets see how we get on. I will try to post some pics for you all and keep you up to date!

Aujourd'hui c'est le grand jour : Reykjavik > Canada en passant au-dessus du Groenland et en frôlant la calotte polaire...

Courte (très) finale et posé à Kangerlussuaq...(Greenland ouest) Ancienne base américaine du temps de la guerre froide.

Dear Friends,
After two fantastic relaxing days in PEI nova scotia we are on our way once again, we've had such a brilliant time here, seeing Betty and chill axing. Yesterday Henry and I went walking again and I went for a swim but as Henry's immune system has taken a pounding culminating in a sore throat we though perhaps the best remedy for
him would be a little sleep under a tree in the sun.
It seems to have done the trick as he is now much better a combination of this and not flying the arse of our selves has helped enormously, imagine that!
Last night we took Betty and Richard out to our favorite resturant in Charlottetown, the brick house (hmmm reminds me of a song) we had a fantastic meal and a wonderful night, I even managed not to embarrass Betty, well not too much anyway.
Today we leave for the US we fly east to Maine to clear in for US customs and then on to Michigan where we stop for the night before flying on to Oshkosh however if
we get in early enough we may try to fly in to Osh direct.
This does however mean our great plans to head to the southern US and Florida will have to wait for another time, as Henry put it "we'll just have to do it when we've got
a King Air $$$$$ has anyone won the euromilllions yet?
Anyways I'm extremely sad about this but perhaps I was a little over optimistic on how much time we would have once we had got here. I'm really sorry to all my friends
and loved ones who I will not have the fortune of seeing this time, please forgive me I know how excited some of you have been but I promise to be back again in Clearwater sooooon X
The enroute weather has improved significantly and it looks like we wil have a great flight tomorrow in superb conditions, YIPPEEE!
We have to be extremely carefull however getting in to Osh as the high volume of traffic can be hazardous with often several aircraft landing at the same time on the runway on different touch down zones it looks pretty exciting but challenging to me! the briefing is about twenty pages long especially produced for the hard of hearing.

Vers Port Clinton
Dear friends.
It's been another busy 24 hrs and as one might already assume it was a little slow to get going yesterday after a late night out, we got up late and made our way to port Clinton airfield we only had a few more hours of flying to reach our final destination, but as you can imagine I was beginning to get tense at the prospect of SO many aircraft arriving and turning up at the same destination at the same time all trying to land on the same runways. (Normally Two in operation symiltaniously.)
I suggest we planned the trip and then went for a full on breakfast American style, we borrowed the FBO's pool car and sniffed out a great breakfast joint.
After good food and LOTS of coffee we where ready and I felt relaxed again, we returned to the FBO on the airfield and I filed an IFR flight plan to KUNU an air field 50 miles south of Oshkosh, so as to be able to cancel the IFR flight plan and make a VFR approach and filter in with the rest of the traffic to land. We readied the Baron and ran up
the engines taxiing out into the morning heat to depart at eleven climbing out to 8000ft the temperature cooled and we settled down into our now familiar routine. We transited the last part of Lake Eriee and the lake Michigan and after an hour and a half we were in the decent to KUNU.
So as you may understand the situation a little better some of the aircraft are only capable of about 70 miles an hour and some are coming in at 180 miles an hour, we had
to fly in at 2300 ft at or below 135 knots So as we approached we slowed right down deployed the undercarriage and the flaps one stage. One is not allowed to respond to ATC but only to follow instructions in the meantime slower aircraft are made to fly in at a lower altitude and form a circuit underneath ours at 1800ft so as we joined the
procession toward Oshkosh we got the call "Baron 58 waggle your wings!, Good job!, as I vigorously waggled (This was to identify us from the other aircraft). Then,
"Baron 58 follow the red Lancair up the railroad tracks!"." Position to land 27!" then over to tower on 118.7". Tower calls, "Baron 58 land on the green spot!". We are now on short finals, the green spot is halfway down the runway we have aircraft landing in front on the yellow spot and behind on the orange spot. I pull the throttles back, flare and touch down just before the green spot.
WOW we have finally arrived at Oshkosh air venture 2012! YIPPEEE.
We Taxi off the runway and head for the parking we tie down and clean and tidy up the aircraft. Put the covers on and then, Justin and john arrive in the TB20. Half an hour later than us after so many miles.
Henry and I then have a little toast to our acheivement with a very fine malt whiskey that was waiting on board for just such an occasion. We call a friend and meet a friendly face at the FBO. Barrie Elliot is here to meet us. We then spend the next few hours organizing our accomadation and passes for the event the back to the house we are
billeted to for a cool swim in the evening light. Really hope this is not getting too monotonous, I will take a few days of before we start the Long journey back to the UK to
give you all a rest and I'll relax and see the show and what it has to offer may add some more photos tomorrow.

The last day. The hotel the handler had organised for us was about 5 miles outside town when we arrived we were hungry and tired there was a problem with our reservation, no room at the inn! The manager told us to go and eat and she would sort it out.
We had a great meal and a couple of much needed beers in the "Viking hotel" restaurant. After dinner we were driven to there guest house and given rooms there.
It was only when I had a shower that I realized the piping hot water was coming straight out of the ground, geothermally heated as it smelt of sulphur we slept well and
were excited about the prospect of breakfast as it would be the first in four days!
We woke up the next day to low cloud and drizzle, not really a good harbinger for the rest of the day. Henry was looking concerned as we still had to cross the mountains
and volcanoes of Iceland on route to Scotland. We had GREAT Icelandic breakfast and taxied to the airport listening to van Morrison in the cab. When we arrived at the FBO
we checked the weather again it was not looking good! Scotland was sitting under a big low pressure system and from the radar images it was very active! The centre of
the low was right over our chosen destination of Wick and I had talked to Andrew at wick the day before as he had phoned Greenland to check on our progress.
Other pilots from other aircraft started to arrive too and all had the same destination in mind.
We all studied the weather system intently and and made ou decisions, Henry was getting really concerned about the situation and told me just because I wanted to get
here I couldn't go charging through the weather system. I told him this was not my intention and I went through the alternatives with him. He relaxed a little but the situation was still extremely tense and uncomfortable for both.
Throughout the whole trip Henry has often questioned my decision making and thought processing this has been of great benefit to me and has made the experience one of greater value as I have often had to question myself again and again on the safety aspects as far as weather conditions, time fuel burn, alternates safety drills etc.
I am really gratful for all of Henry's imput into this trip not only has he literally done all of the navigation but helped almost tirelessly with the preparation with the aircraft before the trip and maintenance during and since.
I doubt very much that I could have done this without my friends constant help and friendship it certainly would not have been so much of a fulfilling, fun and amazing experience.
I've now known Henry for about 10 years and watched him grow into the fantastic competent pilot and engineer he is, he is also a thoughtful, sensitive, caring and kind man,
i thought long and hard about taking someone on this trip and I had to turn down a few.
I am really pleased that I made the right choice and it is now a proven fact, we are not exactly the same but we make a great team and I look forward to a solid friendship
and and many more flying and other adventures in the future.
Anyways, finally the decision was made we once again donned our safety gear and taxied out to take our IFR clearance to wick our alternate being Stornaway. We did the
run up checks and and we're cleared for takeoff. I turned on the taps and shot off down the runway, rotated and we climbed up into the gloomy Icelandic morning we picked up light icing in the climb and I was glad I filled up the deice reservoir with isopropanol. We then requested a lower level and punched out of the cloud above the beautiful icelandic tundra with its mountains and volcanoes.
As we neared the Atlantic low pressure system over Scotland the conditions started to worsen there was more cloud and you could see the tops of the CB,s from 60 miles away we discussed our options and alternatives my idea was to head east to avoid the worst of the weather then carefully pick our way throu the rest to land at Wick and if the conditions were too bad, run off to Stornaway.
My plan seemed to work out as we descended toward wick Scottish information was relayed to us from another aircraft we also heard someone leaving Wick and they
gave us a PIREP about the conditions at Wick it all seemed ok.
Henry took the controls of the aircraft and brought us in around the stunning showery coastline of northern Scotland,we made blind calls to Wick as no one was manning ATC on Sunday morning we prepared the Baron for landing and Henry positioned for runway 13 he touched down and made a perfect landing, we were just one leg away from home!

The final part of the journey, I have now tried twice to post this last episode and both times it has disappeared into cyberspace so let us hope I manage to achieve it today! Sitting on the train on the way to work in London it almost seems unbelievable the journey we've made it does feel a little odd to be back at work after such an experience.
We still had a good three hour to run to iceland and the situation was getting really tense in the cockpit, we were carrying quite a lot of ryme ice which forms from super cooled droplets of water and can seriously upset the airflow over the wings and empanage ie the lifting surfaces.our air speed had slowed as a result and the wind shear
we had encountered at 17000 feet was so strong our speed over the ground had deteriorated to just 112 knots this had put our ETA forward along way and it seemed we would not make Iceland with adequate fuel reserves.
At least the Oxygen was working so we could think straight we both rapidly started making calculations, time, distance, fuel burn, speed etc we knew the conditions were set to improve further down the track but could we rely on this especially after the iceing level forecast was so wrong?
The situation was looking really dire we had three options we could turnaround head back to kangerlussac risking more icing ove the polar cap, we could stop at kulusuk
on the east coast of Greenland, To refuel again reset the heater or we could keep going.
I dropped the nose of the baron and we headed down to a lower flight level immediately the airspeed increased as we descended 4000ft we were now just a 1500ft above
the ice cap which is two miles thick in places and rises up to 12000 ft.
Now sharing the FL 130 with the other aircraft the speed over the ground was now stabilized at 150 knots things were beginning to improve!
We were still were carrying a lot of ice and and I could seem more building up I reported this to ATC and the aircraft in front came back to me sayin they were now in the clear and I only had another 5 minutes in icing conditions.
After 10 minutes we started to pop out of the cloud and could see our alternate Kullisac we now only had transient ice and slowly as we flew into the sunshine the ice.
Began to melt and the performance improved again.
We now had good airspeed and speed over the ground was up to 165 knots we recalculated again and our ETA had dropped to just over two hour we both felt a lot more comfortable with this even though we were still FREEEZZING!! I looked back to the cloudy coastline of Greenland with its harsh rocky islands and beautiful glaciers, pack ice
and icebergs scattering the ocean so much natural beauty but so treacherous for those under prepared.
We shivered along in our survival suits warming our hands in the sunlight on the glare shield (dashboard) within an hour we were talking to ATC Iceland radio and we
started our decent toward reykjavik, we arrived with a visual approach and taxied off to the FBO.
The handler was waiting to greet us with a smile " good flight guys?" Henry and I looked at each other. More to folloe

Atterrissage retour à Lee on Solent (Portsmouth sud de l'Angleterre). Fin du voyage.

Lee on Solent EFGH sur FSX. (ps: les nouveaux bâtiments au bord de la piste Sud orientée Est/Ouest désacfectée) ne sont pas réprésentés)

J'ai vu Jonny faire allonger sur ma table de jardin en granit (!), une jeune personne souffrante et la rétablir en quelques minutes.
Gageons que le Baron est piloté de mains de Maïtre. @

ps : Français attention aux traducteurs automatiques qui s'ils sont activés pour lire en automatique modifient des mots français..en mauvais français.
Il est préférable de lire la page en mode "original"...