Great trip and writeup. The flights you took are indescribably beautiful/stunning/remarkable, and yet you did a wonderful job describing them.
Addictive reading. Makes me feel so humble. Congrats for the achievement.
A bit more.
As for weather and icing.
A friend of mine did the crossing with a regular Seneca III: powerful twin, IFR and deiced. But what he had not, and that you had, was range. He found himself landing in Groenland in “marginal” IFR conditions, because return was not an option.
Also I would have liked to ask you few questions.
How many days / weeks did you allow for the trip ? Did you plan for weather delay ? In the end, did you fly on schedule ?
During ocean crossing, what were you thinking about ?
At last: during your short backcountry Iceland stopover, what was your reading ?
Thanks all for the positive responses. I’m no writer but I’ve put some effort into trying to convey the experience as I felt it (without using AI I should add!!). Part 2 is due to be finished next week and I’m finding myself enjoying writing…
This is not meant to be a technical trip report. I’m intentionally glossing over many of the planning and technical details because one of the main purposes of this trip was to see and experience places which have not been ruined interfered with by people and their fabricated bureaucracy, systems, rules etc… So whilst it took considerable research and energy to sort out the admin for the trip, these details are not important, and I also want it to be readable for non-aviation people.
@PetitCessnaVoyageur I had allowed myself 2 months for the trip, in the end I was away for just shy of 7 weeks. My only firm goals were to get to Alaska, then to be at Oshkosh. I already set off a week late to allow for better weather on the outbound NAT crossing, then (as you’ll read in part 2) I made big routing changes later on. So I wasn’t ever really delayed because I never had a schedule in the first place.
I was quite comfortable on the ocean crossings. It helps that I was in my own plane which I know well, if I was ferrying someone else’s unknown machine it would be a different story. Actually I was more concerned with crossing through Canada, which I am detailing in part 2.
In Iceland I was reading Sigh For A Merlin by Alex Henshaw :)
Absolut brilliant writeup: Hats off to your great trip. I hope one day I will join the SEP atlantic crosser club.
