Newquay, England to Caernarfon, Wales The previous evening, the very friendly B&B owner had given us a long rundown of all the things we should do and see while in Cornwall; far too much to do in the one day we had, but perfect for selecting some highlights from! We drove south to start with through Cornwall’s tiny narrow lanes, hitting the coast much sooner than I had expected. I was used to driving the vast distances of the US,…
Laddingford, England to Newquay, England After a couple of days off from flying in the UK, it was time to get on the move again. The next flights would be much more gentle and relaxed than the Atlantic crossing, however! My new copilot, Elsa, joined me from the USA and together we set off on a 6 day flight around the UK, exploring some areas that I had never flown to before. We took off from Laddingford mid-morning, seen off…
Carlisle, England to Laddingford, England Our taxi driver that morning turned out to have a son who was keenly interested in aviation, so we swapped airplane stories on the ride back to the airport. The days plan was fairly leisurely, so we spent a while wandering around the outside exhibits at the air museum on the field, including a Vulcan; my second of the trip after Goose Bay! The museum itself did not open until late morning, so we headed…
Aberdeen, Scotland to Carlisle, England Aberdeen city center was shut down for a cycle race that morning, but luckily the buses were still running. We took the aptly numbered 727 bus out to the airport, hopping off one stop early and being collected by Signature who shuttled us round to their location. They were all smartly dressed and very busy this morning as a certain 757 with “Trump” painted on the side in large letters was in town for golf!…
Vagar, Faeroe Islands to Aberdeen, Scotland Breakfast in the hotel, in Nordic style again, featured a lot of cheese and cured meats. A mountain of Parma-style ham is a great way to start the day! After leading me round almost every level of the hotel trying to find the door to the car park (“It’s OK, it’s definitely on this floor”) Mike drove us back to the airport, taking the low road this time for a change of scenery. The…
Keflavik, Iceland to Vagar, Faeroe Islands The Faeroe Islands are renowned for bad weather, but today they were making an exception. Conditions along the route were ideal for flying. After yet another hotel breakfast, our taxi driver from the previous day turned up right on time and delivered us straight back to the airplane. Our top-notch handler was there again, and after very trustingly signing on the yet-to-be-finalised blank invoice, I taxied the aircraft over to meet him at the…
Kulusuk, Greenland to Keflavik, Iceland The group of heli-skiers were due to fly out today, so the previous night had been fairly “celebratory” for them! We therefore didn’t get quite as much sleep as hoped, but were up bright and early anyway and breakfasted with the Austrians, who were planning a couple of hours scenic flight followed by a return to Iceland a little behind us. The hotel owner ran us all back to the airport in the van, and…
Narsarsuaq, Greenland to Kulusuk, Greenland You know the drill by now; wake up, check weather. Things were looking rather less positive than forecast the night before. There was a localised bubble of high ceilings (6,000ft) around Narsarsuaq. The ice cap to the east rose to much higher elevations than this, and to the west the cloud dropped down to sea level just a few miles away. With wires crossing the fiords at various heights downstream, punching along fiords low level…
Goose Bay, NL, Canada to Narsarsuaq, Greenland As with every day, the first action on waking up was to check out the latest weather information. Things were looking so-so, with acceptable but not great weather at the other end, and overcast layers over Goose Bay. Overall, it looked like if we could get out of Goose Bay and through the clouds without icing, we’d have a good chance of getting into Narsarsuaq. Even if conditions at Narsarsuaq deteriorated, we had…
Chibougamau, ON, Canada to Goose Bay, NL, Canada The day in Chibougamau (pronounced “shee-boo-ga-moo” by the French Canadians, and “Chi-boogs” by my esteemed copilot) dawned much as expected; decent weather in the local area, with low cloud, showers and icing over the high ground to the east of us (and all kinds of horrible conditions north between us and the original planned destination of Iqaluit. We therefore selected plan B, a flight to the southeast followed by tracking the coast…