The plan was to RTW last year in 2020, the logistics was probably less than one year back then?
I think flying more than 1h PIC in last 18 months is a big achievement in GA for many pilots…
RobertL18C wrote:
The legal fees to secure a NIE (National Interest Exemption USA Visa) for someone not eligible for a B1 flight crew visa would have been a fair budget item, let alone CanPass through Nunavit and the Russian legs.The fact that this pilot accomplished this is still a good achievement for GA.
Why would a crew visa be required for someone flying privately to the US?
If you enter the US flying your private plane you cannot make use of the Visa Waiver Programme and ESTA. You need an actual visa. The only exception is flying in commercial, then flying out by private plane to adjacent territories and back in – in that case you are allowed to reenter without visa.
Correct. The thing with the VWP is that you apply at the border, and if the friendly immigration officer refuses you, the airline, by contract, has to take you back. However on a private plane the government cannot force you to fly back. So private pilots are not eligible for the VWP.
Solutions are to get some sort of proper visa in advance. Doesn’t have to be a crew visa, it can also be a tourist visa – the same that’s issued to tourists from countries that are not eligible for the VWP.
But there’s also another solution that has been used, mostly for pilots going the other way: Enter North America via Iceland, Greenland and Canada, and stop at a Canadian airport that’s very close to the US border. Get a taxi or rental car, drive to the border, apply for the VWP at the border and if the officer grants you the VWP entry, do a 180, drive back to your plane and fly to the US. The VWP program is, after all, multiple entry for a certain period of time.
Indeed, I got a confirmation that one can fly in/out of US with GA without visa if you have I-94 stamp on your passport (entered commercially on VWP), funnily enough when asking how far & how long no one was able to answer? but we were told one week in Canada or Caribbean (Bahamas down to USVI) is ok
But it turns out both me & wife were not eligible to VWP, proper US visa is required if you ever go Iran for a wedding 
Ibra wrote:
funnily enough when asking how far & how long no one was able to answer?
Indeed, this is a weird grey area. I asked the same question for a European friend who was going to fly with me to Canada, and nobody could give me a real timescale. It seems like a week or thereabouts is fine, I wouldn’t want to push my luck too much by going over, say, two weeks.
Isn’t that about the Greenland route? Nobody dares to go on a straight line over the atlantic with a SEP, or am I wrong here?
Yes, but that isn’t “Europe to US”. That is “Europe to US with a few stops”
I also had to get a B1/B2 visa for the US due to the fact that I had been flying through Yemen and some other countries which were on that list. I just applied for the visa, was asked what I was doing in those countries, explained that and got the B1/B2 visa. With such a visa you can fly privately in and out of the US. In my case, I wanted to fly from Florida to the Bahamas and Cuba and back. That trip was planned for last year May and due to Covid-19 cancelled. Now the NIE exemption is another story, but for flight training etc. it is easily provided on request.
I still think this young guy did a great flight around the world. There is still the weather element, the ATC talks and differences in airspace and lots of other uncertainties. Just compare it to all those pilots that find it complicated or problematic to fly further away from home base than a day’s worth of flying.
AeroPlus wrote:
There is still the weather element, the ATC talks and differences in airspace and lots of other uncertainties. Just compare it to all those pilots that find it complicated or problematic to fly further away from home base than a day’s worth of flying.
I sneaked a quick look to weather TAF/METAR & en-route WX on lot of his flights, I have to say he did load of good calls and flew his aircraft to it’s WX edge and flight enveloppe corners, it was not a walk in the park (e.g. some go-around at M/DH, few diverts/cancels, flying max range, IMC & ice en-counters at +FL120, technical issues…), already flying C172 above FL100 in VMC for 7h is way above what the average GA pilot could do this year, or even handle in the last 20 years !
It’s always easy untill you have to do it 
BackPacker wrote:
The thing with the VWP is that you apply at the border, and if the friendly immigration officer refuses you, the airline, by contract, has to take you back. However on a private plane the government cannot force you to fly back. So private pilots are not eligible for the VWP.
It’s still a bit odd. A proper visa also doesn’t guarantee entry. The “friendly” immigration officer can still refuse you. And as you need an approved ESTA pre-registration I would expect it to be quite unusual that VWP entry is refused. But of course I don’t have any statistics.
