A Swimmer in the Sky

N6111B

Cessna Caravan   C-208B   Moundridge, Kansas to Amman, Jordan
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
02 Nov	Warrensburg, Missouri	178	1+12
"	Zanesville, Ohio	643	2+53
"	Bangor, Maine	649	3+43
04 Nov	Saint John's, Newfoundland	690	3+27
05 Nov	Faro, Portugal	2141	10+34
Great winds!
06 Nov	Corfu, Greece	1403	9+07
07 Nov	Amman, Jordan	1058	7+01

N3110B

Piper Matrix   PA-46R-350T   Vero Beach, Florida to Genoa, Italy
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
21 Sep	Lakeland, Florida	93	0+37
The airplane was supposed to be ready mid-morning, but I didn't get away till 16:00 local time.  Good winds forecast across the Atlantic on Wednesday, and not so much on Thursday.  If I can get to Bangor today, and Goose tomorrow, I can make the crossing on Wednesday (weather permitting) and deliver on Friday.
"	Currituck, North Carolina	657	3+15
A cold front west of the route, but clear weather along the coast.  I did see some lightning in the dusk over the Outer Banks, but nothing to affect my flight.  I'd bought a submarine sandwich for supper, forgetting I'd be at FL250, sucking oxygen, and unable to eat it.  But at Currituck there was a guy watching Monday Night Football on the flat-screen TV they'd bought for ground-school classes, so I joined him, ate my supper, then went on.
"	Bangor, Maine	623	3+06
Smooth flight; late arrival; got to bed at 03:30, knackered.

N5248S

Cessna Skyhawk   C-172R   Lakeland, Florida to Cairo, Egypt
Another one, a flight of two this time.
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
03 Aug	Bartow, Florida	13	0+09
For cheap fuel, again.  James Creamer, in the other airplane, had a cylinder with low compression.  It's being fixed.  I came up alone today.
"	Westfield, Massachusetts	1000	8+16
Mostly smooth!  Hardly any build-ups to go around, and not enough IMC to bother logging.  Plus, a bit of a tailwind.
"	Bangor, Maine	236	2+02
"Severe clear", and a 17-knot average tailwind.  After takeoff, Bradley Approach Control kept asking, "Are you climbing?"  I had to tell him I had the hills in sight.  I had filed for 9,000 feet, just to see how the airplane would perform without a chance to burn off some weight.  Patience is the key.  The 172 is not a pleasant airplane to fly, but it's good at what it's for:  it's a safe airplane for an inexperienced pilot.  If you want to do something significant with it, you'll see it gets the job done in the end.  You just need patience.  I'll need lots of it between here and Cairo. Sometimes, when I"ve been flying a string of Meridians, I feel the need (not the desire, mind you!) to fly a 172 again, to get my patience back.

N52488

Cessna Skyhawk   C-172R   Lakeland, Florida to Cairo, Egypt
The 160hp model, with no autopilot, one of a flight of three, of an order of nine to the Egyptian Aviation Academy ("Since 1932").  A long ride to Egypt.  Am I still young enough for this?
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
24 Jul	Bartow, Florida	12	0+11
For cheap fuel.
"	Westfield, Massachusetts	1006	8+07
Comments here.
"	Bangor, Maine	236	2+13
25 Jul	Saint John's, Newfoundland	690	5+03
26 Jul	Santa Maria, Azores	1389	10+55
27 Jul	Portimao, Portugal	799	6+24
28 Jul	Son Bonet, Mallorca, Spain	608	4+13
29 Jul	Kythera, Greece	1077	8+49
Iraklion had no parking spaces, and refused to let us land.  We found an airport that would accept us for the night, and our misfortune had a very happy ending.  More later.
30 Jul	Iraklion, Crete	129	1+14
We landed to refuel and carry on to Cairo, but found the client hadn't arranged diplomatic clearances for entering Egyptian airspace.  We're working on the problem. We've got parking for the night, but we have to be gone by 09:00 tomorrow morning.
31 Jul	Cairo, Egypt	470	4+10

N6080G

Piper Matrix   PA-46R-350T   Vero Beach, Florida to Antwerp, Belgium
With the owner, who'll be doing the flying.
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
11 Jul 09	Elizabethtown, North Carolina	472	2+45
I met Marc Friday night, and took him to a very good little Cuban restaurant in Vero Beach I learned about on TripAdvisor.com, where we talked about the proposed flight.  As he will tell you, his English is far from perfect (though it's much better than my French).  But between the two languages we managed to communicate satisfactorily. He finished his flight training Saturday afternoon, and we took off at 16:00 local time for E-town.  Though the airplane is certified to FL250, we stopped the climb at 11,000 feet.  We need to save every molecule of oxygen for the crossing between Goose Bay and Reykjavik:  below FL250 we'd be required to have an HF, and the Matrix (like its siblings the Meridian and the Mirage, with which it shares an airframe) lacks a pilot's vent window out of which I could run an HF antenna.  The skies were about as clear as they ever get in Florida, but we did run afoul of a mature thunderstorm over Titusville.  We could have gone way to the west to get around it, or a little bit to the east, which would take us over Cape Canaveral.  A Space Shuttle launch had been scheduled for today, but it had been postponed until Sunday, and the restricted areas at our altitude were inactive.  So I was able to point out the launching and landing facilities to Marc as we flew over.  After landing, we tied the airplane down, jumped in the courtesy car, and headed for the only motel in town, then immediately for the Front Porch Restaurant.  Marc had trained through lunchtime, so he was ready to appreciate their Southern buffet, with its turnip greens, lima beans, hushpuppies, and peach cobbler, as well as the appreciably different cultural ambience.

N52399

Cessna Skyhawk SP   C-172S   Lakeland, Florida to Neubrandenburg, Germany
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
I reached Lakeland Thursday afternoon, the 18th, and I thought I'd head north a bit, but when I pulled up the current radar depiction I saw a line of angry red thunderstorms charging down the width of the Florida peninsula like Indians attacking a wagon train, and I left the airplane where it was:  tied down and under cover.
19 Jun	Hazelhurst, Georgia	237	2+21
It was hot.  Already in the morning it was hot, and I needed to stay low to get plenty of manifold pressure to help seat the piston rings early, so I could fly at long-range cruise over the ocean—and I just knew I was going to get pounded.  But, to my surprise and delight, at 4,000 feet I was just above the haze layer, skimming the tops of the fair-weather cumulus clouds in smooth air.  I set the throttle and the mixture control for maximum cruise power, and gently climbed and descended a hundred feet to vary the engine RPM slightly (the 172 has a fixed-pitch prop), hoping to vary the pressure of the rings against the cylinder walls.  I'm not sure that works, but it doesn't hurt:  I can seat the rings on a new engine—as evidenced by the reduction and stabilization of oil consumption—in two or three hours.  Over the Florida Panhandle I climbed to 6,000 feet and did the whole routine again at a higher RPM. Landing at Hazlehurst brought back memories of growing up 250 miles west in Escambia County, Florida:  the pine trees with needles so long it looks like the branches are holding pom-poms; the Bahaya grass with its Y-shaped seed heads beside the runway; the orange clay soil; and the baking heat.  It's a quiet airport.  There was somebody working in a hangar in the distance, but no-one in the terminal building.  Nobody needed, really:  self-service fuel pump, computers available for weather briefing, soft drinks and crackers for 50 cents on the honor system, and a phone number on the door in case you needed help after all.

N2234Y

Cessna Caravan Amphibian   C-208   Saint Paul, Minnesota to Istanbul, Turkey
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
When I first got the call for this trip, the airplane was having its amphibious floats installed at Wipaire, with an expected completion date of Friday the 22nd.  I was to pick it up on Tuesday, after the three-day Memorial Day week-end, and fly it to Weaver Aero in Kansas to have the ferry tank installed on Wednesday, continuing towards Turkey on Thursday. Then I got a panicky call from my contact at Wipaire, begging me to consider collecting the airplane on Friday and taking it un-tanked, to save time.  It turns out someone had promised "one of the richest businessmen in Turkey" that the airplane would arrive in Istanbul by the end of the month—never thinking, of course, to consult the pilot who would have to fulfill that promise.  I checked the long-range weather forecasts on Wetterzentrale, and saw I'd have strong headwinds between Greenland and Iceland, and could easily be stuck on Greenland for days; so I called back and turned them down.  The next day they called again to tell me they'd got Carl Weaver to agree that if I'd have the airplane in Kansas first thing Tuesday morning, he'd do his best to have it tanked and the paperwork approved by the end of the day.  I told them that was fine, that all I needed was the key to the airplane; but they promised they'd have someone meet my flight and give me a ride to South Saint Paul airport, where Wipaire is located.  I let a day go by, and when there were no more changes of plan, I booked a dawn flight out of Bangor to Minneapolis, by way of New York and Cleveland, that was scheduled to arrive at 13:40 Central Time.
25 May	Moundridge, Kansas	446	3+11
The airline flight went as advertised, but when I arrived at Wipaire I found a huge pile of boxes next to the airplane:  some 300 pounds of spare parts to be carried to Turkey, about which—again—no one had thought to warn the ferry pilot.  Normally when we tank an airplane, we fold the seats and stow them in the baggage compartment, but the seats in this airplane were rigid.  I told my Wipaire contact I'd carry the freight to Kansas, but I couldn't guarantee it'd all go back on board once the ferry tank was installed.  It struck me as ironic that all these parts had been shipped to Minnesota—at considerable cost, I'm sure—from Wichita, Kansas, 45 miles south of Moundridge. It's about six feet from the ground to the floor of a Caravan Amphibian's cabin, but with the help of a pilot and a mechanic from the Turkish company that's buying the airplane, I got the boxes loaded and strapped down in time to arrive at Moundridge before dark.  I'd expected to lock the plane and leave the key in a secret spot, but there was a Weaver Aero employee there to greet me, having been alerted to my ETA by FlightAware.  He told me the airplane looked very impressive on its approach to the little landing strip.  Maybe so, but I was sorry he'd witnessed that landing:  my preparation to flare had been interrupted by impact with the ground.  Those wheels are a long way down there. I left the key with him, jumped in Carl's pickup, and headed south to the first little town with a motel.

N6075D

Piper Malibu Mirage   PA-46-350P   Vero Beach, Florida to Konstancin, Poland
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
17 Apr	Lakeland, Florida	96	0+42
(I thought I'd continue to Elizabethtown, but the one motel was booked up, so I stayed at the airport hotel in Lakeland and will make an early start Saturday.)

N2217M

Cessna Grand Caravan.   C-208B   Wichita, Kansas to Warsaw, Poland
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
07 Apr	Pontiac, Michigan	710	4+28
(Following some really bad weather.)
08 Apr	Bangor, Maine	647	3+56
09 Apr	Goose Bay, Labrador	608	3+21

N6084G

Piper Seminole   PA-44-180   Lakeland, Florida to Antwerp, Belgium
Date	Destination	Distance (nm)	Flight time (hh+mm)
11 Mar	Currituck, North Carolina	617	3+56
"	Bangor, Maine	634	3+31
(I dragged my feet so as not to catch up with wide-spread quarter-mile visibility and freezing drizzle, and arrived Bangor near midnight.  The weather was improving rapidly:  I had the airport in sight fifty miles out.)