Hello from California and N-reg maintenance in Toulouse

Thanks Boscomantico!

Well, I started by making a stop in Montana to the shop where I’ve been doing the maintenance on the plane since I got it. They are very knowledgeable, they only work on PA-23 and they let me participate which is a great way to build confidence in the systems. I actually spent a whole month there. We went through the electrical system, the fuel system and the hydraulic system with a toothpick (all new electric system, all new o-rings everywhere), then we moved to the engines, added tip tanks, replaced some bearings here and there, etc etc. I also got a new transponder & a 406mhz ELT, and a few additional goodies.

Then a friend joined me to Montana and we uneventfully flew to Winnipeg last Monday.

On Tuesday we went to Chibougamau, which was our first encounter with “uncontrolled IFR” in the Canadian airspace. Fun story: the controller (Montreal Center) was switching back between french & english all the time and approaching Chibougamau, we heard him telling other planes in french that a N-reg plane was about to enter uncontrolled airspace and that it probably had no idea of how to self-announce itself. We replied in french that indeed we had no idea, but that we would gladly take some advice. Everybody laughed and we got a “flying in Canada 101” lesson from a PC-12 on the frequency (we actually had some clues, learnt during the planning phase). We refueled in Chibougamau and head to Goose Bay. That’s this approach:

So far, a very calm flight, we were alternating between economy settings and intermediate cruise settings (160 KTAS & 185 KTAS), and we were flying either at 11000 or FL019 depending on the O2 status. Nobody said that one would look good with a O2 mask on.

On Wednesday morning 6am we picked up the raft and the immersion suits and we took off for Iqaluit – we had to take the northern route because we are not HF equipped and albeit there are maybe a few tricks to fly through the Gander airspace without (given that our service ceiling is supposed to be FL300) we thought that it would be better to play by the rules. We had a bit of weather approaching Iqaluit but it was warm enough to not pose any trouble. That’s this approach:

We refueled from 100ll drums (which was a bit scary because we had to park the plane in a gravel area and the last thing we needed was a prop strike). Here are the drums:

We took off shortly after refueling, with the immersion suits on, heading to Kangerlussuaq in Greenland (I’ll spare you a picture of the immersion suits). I had the stupid idea of swapping the G430 db during taxi (because we had to move to the transatlantic db) but after 10m we ended up with the proper update. (my laptop was very cold and almost ran out of battery). By the time we took off the weather had deteriorated but we knew that our destination was clear. We tried to get reports of the tops but couldn’t get anything so we climbed to FL110 as usual. The tops were higher and we started picking up icing about 50 miles from Iqaluit, right when entering the ocean. We didn’t liked the look of it (nor the sound of the ice leaving the props and hitting the nose, nor the fact that we had to be on alternate air) so we turned around just in case and went much lower. We starting loosing ice around 4000ft. Once the wing was clear we turned back one more time & headed to BGSF at 6000ft, moving up and down to stay below the freezing level until back in VMC. The approach in BGSF was visual as expected, and apparently ATC is used to that type of roller coaster ride.

The only curved ball we got was the position reports; we were ready to make position reports per the AIM but they asked for estimates to weird points (like, 45nm from SF, the local NDB I think). That took some button punching at the last minute to provide a plausible value.

That’s some icebergs seen from above:

And that’s the approach in Greenland:

On Tuesday morning we picked up the weather from the very friendly local weather briefing station and headed to Reykjavik. Weather was ok-ish on departure and clear above the icecap, then a bit cloudy at the very end above Iceland. We were expecting a very high icecap but it actually looked pretty low (maybe 3000ft?). We had tons of terrain alerts from the G430 but we were clearly very high above anything. I think we had an undisputable proof of global warming.

Here are what we were seeing and what the old G430 terrain db was warning us about.

Flying eastbound helps with the winds but the timezones were working against us. After being hit by a crazy handling fee in Iceland and some delays with refueling it was clear that we wouldn’t make it to Scotland before our planned destination closure time. So we stayed in Iceland.

On Tuesday, we departed Iceland for Wick, Scotland. Weather was good, except for a little layer above Wick that called for an approach. We dropped the survival gear in Wick and took off for Le Touquet, France. That was perhaps the most challenging leg, pretty much IMC all the way and some weird ATC stuff. We were actually told to squawk 7000 while in IMC at FL090 and approaching London. By the time we got to talk to someone else (after trying all the frequencies we could find) we got yelled at for approaching “controlled airspace”. I replied that we were on an IFR flight plan and that the previous controller left us alone in the clouds, and apparently it helped. Not sure what happened, and I’m planning to take some lessons next week with a local instructor to go through the procedures in Europe and the “best practices”. (tips welcome, btw!)

Le Touquet was a bit on the gusty side of things but people there were really friendly. Here is the approach in Le Touquet:

We refueled in Le Touquet and we took off for Toussus le Noble, where I dropped my friend & copilot. ATC vectored us above Paris and we punched through the clouds right in front of the Eiffel Tower. We couldn’t have dreamt a better arrival. You can see the Eiffel tower near the wingtip on the following picture:

The following day (Saturday) I took off from Toussus and landed at Muret. Fun trip!