Simon's account of the incredible journey

There’s always a bit of trepidation when embarking on something that one has never done before and is certainly not the run-of-the-mill kind of job – ferrying an airplane across endless hours of water. So it was with an added bit of “what have I signed up to” when Dylan wrote and said he couldn’t make the initial date. But as there were so many things lined up with this date MAF did a risk assessment and opted to fly the first two Caravans with the help, knowledge and support network of Dylan.

So after the usual 24 hours of travel to get to the other side of the world I was happy to crash into bed in Newton – a small town just south of Moundridge where the 3 airplanes were parked.

The next few days were spent trying to convince and dupe my body clock into thinking that everything was business as usual. The 5 days available prior to launching were busy enough. I spent some hours emptying the two planes and taking stock of everything in the pods and reloading them with a better weight distribution. Also a good number of shipping boxes were waiting to be opened that contained most of our emergency equipment. And then the next 3 big boxes arrived with all our navigational paperwork. I ended up waiting at the airport a day early to pick up Christiaan the second pilot because I was off on my dates – having crossed the international date line. I got a bit of a quizzical look when I asked the lady what the date was. But by Saturday afternoon everything was ready to go after the G1000’s finally received their up-to-date databases for the trip.

We had also spent some time getting a number of last-minute items to supplement and complement the emergency equipment that had been purchased. Even though we’d been watching the weather patterns all along we were now closely looking at what was happening along our ca 7500 nm route.

Monday morning we got up early and drove up to Moundridge where we loaded our own gear on board and said our good-byes to the great folks at Southwind Global who had shown us great kindness and where nothing was a problem. Thanks guys! With the break of dawn we fired up the PT6’s and with a bit of trepidation and lots of excitement the throttle was pushed forward, and we took to the skies for our first – wait for it – 10 minute flight to Wichita! Yeah, we first needed to load up a whole bunch of Jet fuel and of course have a quick look at the Constellation parked at Wichita. Our turn-around there was quick and efficient with FastAir having organized fuel releases for us. Within the hour we had picked up our first IFR clearance and were in a slow climb up to 11000 feet that would only vary as we had to climb to 13000 to climb over some higher enroute terrain.

We enjoyed the simplicity of the FAA system as we joined that group of people that spends hours on end looking down from the sky onto the rest of humanity. The flight took us from Kansas through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and finally into California. As you can imagine the landscape was forever changing and just as one “wow” was just fading the next seemed to form on my lips. This leg of 1200 nm was also the chance for Christiaan and me to engage with our cockpit and work the fuel system. We had three extra fuel tanks on-board holding between them an extra 445 gallons (2980 lbs. or 1680 liters) giving us a total flight time of just over 17 hours when including the fuel in our wings. Just as the sun was starting to set, we were giving radar vectors that brought us both down for a visual landing into Santa Maria. We finished our post-flight in the dark and abandoned our planes in search of dinner and a bed.

The next day we re-fueled the planes and then went in search of a shop that could fill our hand-held emergency breathing tanks. We also got some final purchases that we had forgotten and then filed our flight plans for the next leg to Hilo, Hawaii.

It was still dark when we got to the planes. We finished our pre-flight and then jumped into our dry suits for the first leg of our journey over open water. We again picked up our IFR clearance and with just a glimmer of the impending day appearing on the horizon launched northwards into the still dark night sky. Once clear of a prohibited area we were given left turns and before long, we were glancing back at the receding coast line with the sun just coming up over the horizon. From here on it was blue on blue – blue skies, blue water and blue GPS screens (with a lot of white clouds all over the place). We had a steep initial learning curve as we figured out the procedures and made sure we had the correct clearances and radio channels. From there on it was hourly calls on top of the mandatory reporting points as the propeller turned its way through the 2200 nm towards the next speck of dry land called Hawaii. The synthetic vision on the GPS was the by far the first to “see” that there was land coming up. As we received decent clearances into Hilo we soon descended into lower cloud and ended up on the ILS approach over the ocean into Hilo. I landed just at dusk and Christiaan touched down just after night finally enveloped Hilo.

We parked the planes and followed the same procedure of two days previous with dinner and bed on our minds. We got picked up the next day and returned to the airport to refuel the planes for the next leg. We also did a detailed post and pre-flight knowing the next time we’d see the planes would again be in the dark. And after all the jokes of spending extra days on Hawaii after watching and tracking the weather we decided to delay the flight by one day to hopefully see some big storms on the way start diminishing rather than continue to grow.

On the third day at 4.30 in the morning we again checked weather and talked each other into believing that the storms we were looking at were actually slowly dissipating. One of the challenges and areas of growth was looking at weather that was some hours old and try to predict what the weather would probably end up being 8 – 12 hours in the future. Having had a chat with Dylan the day previous about the weather we were pretty sure that this flight should now be doable. So we again found ourselves picking up our IFR clearances in the dark of night and taking off with a fuel heavy airplane out of the ocean straight into rain and low clouds. ATC was very helpful and gave us radar vectors to the best of their ability. As we climbed through 8000 feet ATC was able to give us unlimited radar vectors to get us on course as quick as possible and out of the weather. And just as that happened, I broke out of the clouds and was able to see the dawn break with the volcano of Hilo standing out against the brightening sky. With the other Hawaiian Islands to our right it didn’t take too long before we again only had water all around us until 13 hours and 2200 nm later with the sun low on the horizon, I spotted the first chain of outlying islands leading me towards Majuro, Marshall Island. The RNAV approach brought us down to the runway where I safely landed though my flight tracker decided to indicate that I had landed in the bay. This was clarified about two hours later when we finally ended up in the Hotel and again had wireless access and were able to confirm numerous queries that all was fine. We were warned that fuel was not available for 5 days due to a Jet fuel shipment arriving by boat but because FastAir had procured fuel releases these were honored and as soon as we shut down the planes, we were able to re-fuel the planes for the final leg to Cairns.

The next day we spent the morning walking around for several hours but were glad to step back from the heat and humidity back into the hotels air-conditioning. The rest of the day we spent watching the weather and filing flight plans for the last leg.

We again departed early morning and arrived after a long (slow) drive in the dark at the airport. We finally found an access gate manned by a security guard who waved us through without getting up out of his seat. We went through the usual checks and preparations and with some difficulty were able to pick up our IFR clearance via HF from San Francisco Center. We were looking forward to this flight that would take us over the Solomon Islands for which we had overflight clearances and kept us out of PNG airspace for which we did not have any clearances. At various times during the 2200 nm the weather was looking a bit dubious but as we got nearer to these darker areas, we were able to navigate these storm systems without much problems, sometimes in the clear, sometimes in cloud. We knew that when we reached the Solomon Islands which was about half way the weather onwards ought to be pretty clear which it was. Due to the continuous headwinds this was our longest leg and as we approached the 15-hour mark I was able to witness a spectacular and beautiful sunset over the clouds looking eastwards towards Australia. We were handed over from Brisbane Center to Cairns approach and with the expected clearances we gradually worked our way down into the clouds and the spreading darkness back towards firm ground and a runway somewhere out there in the dark. However with broken clouds and decently high bases I was soon flying down the ILS towards the now lit up runway. On landing and parking at the international terminal it was fantastic to be met by Peter (MAF Tree Tops Manager) who has all necessary clearances and training to receive foreign aircraft. Immigration and Customs was a quick process and was all done and completed right next to the airplanes. From there we taxied over to general aviation and parked the airplanes for the duration of the night.

In the morning Peter brought us back to the planes where we met Border Control agents who after a quick glance over the planes signed them off for entry into Australia. From there it was only a quick 10 minutes flight up to Mareeba where the planes were greeted by MAF staff who were happy to see the hard facts of what had been talked about for quite some time. The planes are now in the hands of our engineers and avionics staff who will finalize them before they are flown up to PNG where they will commence service with MAF.

My personal thanks to the many who made this trip go well. Dylan from FastAir who gave us great briefings and insight and passed on a huge amount of knowledge and access to flight planning software that made filing easy. The folks at Southwind global who were so helpful and kind and where nothing was a problem. People like Michael who worked on paperwork. To initially Stu and then Hansjoerg who pushed a huge amount of email out to make it all happen. And also William and Marcus who passed on updated weather via our trackers that allowed us to compare expected weather with what was actually happening. To William and his confidence to allow us unexperienced ferry flight pilots gain a huge amount of new knowledge and experience. And above all my amazing wife Pam and kids Joshua and Zara who gave their permission for me to embark on this epic journey despite the many unknowns and the lurking question in the background “what could possibly go wrong?”