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KHEF - CYYT
Friday night we had received
our first preliminary flight plan fax from our handling service,
Universal Aviation and Weather, based in Houston, and were
elated to see that the forecast was for strong tailwinds as
our flight path paralleled a cold front that was moving into
the area. We also discovered that their computerized flight
planning model for the BE-200 was a little optimistic and
asked them to recompute the speeds and fuel consumptions based
on our more-conservative, longer-range cruise power settings.
This was done and the final fax
package we received when we awoke Saturday was nicely done.
I could get to like this: Having someone else file your flight
plans and get the weather!
We eat breakfast in the hotel,
pack, check out, put gas in the rental…all the usual leaving
chores. We arrive at the airport at about 9:30, to find that
the police security isn't there. I guess terrorists won't
strike Manassas on a Saturday! Whew! It is a blustery day,
with northerly surface winds and light rain sprinkling off
and on. The sky is overcast but we see airliners going into
Dulles and estimate the bases to be above 4,000 feet. There
is a line of clear sky, low on the northeast horizon, boding
well for our direction of flight.
We load up, preflight, get our
IFR clearance from Manassas clearance delivery, and proceed
to program the Garmin 530s with it. It is, of course, considerably
different than what Universal had filed, until we reach Nantucket.
Here it is: "ATC clears N982GA to the CYYT airport via direct
Cassanova (CSN) VOR, radar vectors to Wooly intersection,
V44 Sea Isle (SIE), V139 Hampton (HTO), V46 Nantucket (ACK),
as filed. Maintain 3,000 feet. Expect 17,000 feet 10 minutes
after departure. Departure control frequency will be 125.8.
Squawk 2126."
The direct CSN routing takes
us immediately to the southwest, away from Washington. As
expected, we actually fly little of the new routing, but instead
receive many vectors until finally being cleared direct to
BRIGS intersection, that is a fix on the leg between Sea Isle
and The Hamptons.
Pam is flying, and we lift off
from Runway 34R at 1540Z (11:40 a.m. local). Dulles departure
works us up to 9,000 feet, then we are handed off to Baltimore
Departure who gets us to 15,000. There, at 1556Z, we are handed
to Washington Center and receive the shortcut to BRIGS. I
had questioned clearance delivery about the 17,000 foot expectation,
since we had been filed for FL290, and was told to "work it
out with Center." So, I now told Washington Center of our
request, and they immediately started working us up.
The winds were great! It seems
that 982GA has not had much luck in her last few eastbound
flights across the nation, rarely getting a push of more than
15 knots. But today? Wow! Level at 29,000 feet, we trued out
at 223 knots but our groundspeed was 305!
At 1630Z, less than an hour after
takeoff, Boston Center cleared us direct to Torbay (YYT),
the VOR at St. Johns, a little over 1,000 miles away. Love
that GPS! It makes long range navigation so easy!
Our low TAS of 223 knots was
due to the high altitude and our heavy weight, but mostly
it was because we had the ice vanes extended since we had
been in cloud nearly continuously from 10,000 feet on up.
Finally, at 1745Z, we exited the high clouds, got the ice
vanes retracted, and saw ground speeds as high as 316 knots.
Pam first, then myself second, ate some noodle soup. We have
packed quite a bit of food on board, non-perishable items,
and the soup came to life quite nicely when mixed with hot
water from our Mapco unit.
"Mapco?" For you non-pilots
or those pilots who haven't yet had the luxury of flying with
a "galley," no matter how minimal, Mapco refers to the electrically-heated
urn that usually holds a gallon or so of coffee. Since Pat
and Ashley aren't big coffee drinkers, we keep water in ours,
and hence can make soup, tea, or whatever once the water heats
up. It usually is nearly scalding after an hour. By the way,
I found, after years of wondering, that Mapco stands for "Mansfield
Aircraft Products Company," the original manufacturer of these
style units. Like Kleenex, it has become a universally-accepted
word for these heated pots.
We fly along the southeastern
edge of Nova Scotia and then across the sea to Newfoundland,
not seeing much of the land and sea below due to a lower cloud
layer. We pick up the Automatic Terminal Information Service
(ATIS) for St. John's: "Information Lima. 1900Z. Wind 195
degrees at 7 knots. Visibility 8. 500 scattered, 1,400 broken.
Temperature 14 degrees Celsius, dewpoint 11. Altimeter 29.99.
ILS Runway 16 approach in use. Caution: Birds in the vicinity."
Pam noses over to begin the descent at 1937Z. We get as high
as 338 knots groundspeed while coming downhill.
Newfoundland is one of the rare
places in the world that is not on an "even" time zone. They
are 2.5 hours behind UTC. Since the east coast time zone,
considering Daylight Savings Time, was "Z - 4," and now we
were at "Z - 2.5," we had lost an hour and a half on this
leg. In other words, departing at 11:40 a.m. was equivalent
to departing at 1:10 p.m. in Newfoundland.
We landed ay 2002Z and had a
short taxi to the FBO where we shut down at 2004Z, or 5:34
p.m. local time. 4.4 hours of flight time; 4.5 hours block.
Mike and Caroline were the helpful, friendly, and courteous
employees of AeroCentre, the Shell dealer here. They soon
had Pat and Ashley's rental car loaded, and then Mike drove
Pam and me to the Fairmont Hotel in their company van.
Mike told the amazing story of
what they experienced on September 11. When the order came
down to "clear the skies," the airliners and corporate planes
over the Atlantic inbound to America, were required to land
at the nearest acceptable location. Goose Bay, Gander, St.
John's, Stevensville…they all had unexpected visitors drop
in from the sky. Within the space of an hour or so, St. John's
was inundated with 27 767s and 777s and one Gulfstream II.
Can you imagine?!
Parking was accomplished wherever
the planes would fit, and the three portable stairway ramps
had to be moved to unload one plane after another. Some folks
were on board for nearly 14 hours after landing. A special
customs clearance facility was set up in an arena downtown.
Most passengers had no access to their checked baggage. The
citizens of St. John's opened their homes and their hearts
to the stranded travelers and gave them places to stay. The
fuel storage tanks at St. John's happened to be full and all
the planes were able to be fueled as desired before they departed
in a few days. What a wide-ranging impact the events of 9/11
had!
The hotel here is right downtown
near the harbor. We are on the fifth floor with a nice view.
We meet Ashley and Pat at about 7:30 for dinner at "The Cabot
Club," a wonderful restaurant here in the hotel, probably
the nicest one in this city of a little over 100,000 people.
Salmon, Cod, Halibut, and Steak…all four of our entrees were
superb! We found that the "English" explorer John , who founded
St. John's, was actually an Italian, Giovanni Caboto, hired
by the English king for exploration. It finally feels that
the trip has really begun with out first stop on foreign soil.
Leaving the States! |
Enroute to St. Johns |
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