Earhart Flts 5 and 6

Ok, so yesterday I made the 902-mile crossing from Florida to Puerto Rico. Leaving the rainy - and a bit bumpy - FL behind for sunnier weather, or so I thought. I set my VOR for the closest VOR on the island (Cabo Rojo I believe). I could have easily followed a number of VOR's, and likely even flown VFR, literally island-hopping the entire way to my destination. Anyway, both those things seemed too tedious and I had some other 'busy work' to occupy me on the flight deck yesterday morning. Anyway, I picked up the first VOR signal around the time expected and the VOR at TJIG a short time later. By this time I had the island in sight, following the shoreline to the airport and landing in partly overcast and somewhat hazy conditions. Fortunately, it was still VFR because TJIG has only RNAV approach, and that wouldn't help much for my old Electra's navigation equipment.

Today I'm off to Venezuela - a somewhat closer destination than yesterday's. I haven't looked at my charts or weather yet today, so I haven't made any plans on how to make the flight yet. I'll update this thread later on when I'm safely in Venezuela.

John

Sounds like fun John. I'm almost tempted to shelve my A318 project and download the Electra. Unfortunately, I don't think I've currently got the time for such long flights.

Some years ago we had a special ops challenge involving ferrying WWII aircraft from Newfoundland over to the southern tip of Greenland, to an originally secret USAAF Base code-named Bluie West One, at the current site of Narsarsuag Air Base. Located on Glacial Moraine at the head of a Fjord, the construction of the airstrip was an epic adventure. Since there were no available radio navaids in those days, we SPA pilots were reduced to dead reckoning across more than 1000 SM of open water, usually under a low, grey ceiling until reaching the coast of Greenland. Then one had to search for the right Fjord and make a dead end landing on the first pass. It was quite an exciting challenge in a C-47. I remember a trick for crossing a strait that I learned in a sea Kayaking course some years back: intentionally set your dead reckoning course to one side or the other of your intended landfall. That way you'll know which way to turn when you get there.<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: Westcoast, Nov 05, 2019 - 01:28 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Hah, great story Mike...and perhaps another flight worth resurrecting. I'm guessing that's what my dive boat captain did in the early days of shipwreck diving in Lake Superior's Isle Royale. I was barely 18 my first trip with him and a rag-tag group of divers I had yet to get to know. My first wakeup call was when I set foot on the dive boat and thought it was perhaps the shuttle to our "dive boat". I was expecting something more like a cruise ship I guess...boy, did I have a lot of learning to do.

Anyway...by the time we got up to Grand Portage it was getting dark, and by the time we hit the isle Royale, it was pitch dark...and I mean dark!! There are no lights out there to provide a spark of ambient light. When the boat finally arrived at Isle Royale...the first indication was on our most highly technical equipment, an old depth finder. This was a device that made lots of noise with a spinning ring inside an amber lit background. The current depth was identified by a bright amber patch somewhere on the ring that had a depth measurement round the ring. As we got closer to land, the patch of amber would appear on the ring and would quickly get shallower.

When the boat got close to the island, there were big rocks near the island. While the captain shined his spotlight on the pine trees on what looked like a cold, dark and inhospitable island, he sent his mate out on the bow of our little dive boat with a dive light (a waterproof flashlight that we take deep down during our dives. The mate, laying on his stomach at the very bow of the boat with his light pointing straight down, would point frantically port or starboard if a large shallow rock suddenly appeared ahead. The captain then turned the boat to the right direction to find the safety of Washington Harbor. What an adventure!

Sorry, if this story strayed from our aviation-related subject, but it was my first experience of dead-reckoning navigation - and I scared to death. I eventually ended up doing many years of 2-trips per year on that boat and making many friends there. I have many wreck diving pictures of those wonderful trips - mostly of the wrecks up to 140 feet deep.

I guess the takeaway from this is that we get out of these flights what we want to. Personally, I really enjoy working the radios and navigating from place to place without GPS. Needless to say, I really enjoyed your earlier push to fly VFR following visual cues on Alaskan Bush Flights. That's also something we should bring back.

Of course, to each his own, but it seems like it could get boringly repetitive just letting the GPS take you to your destination and logging hour upon hour. That's why we offer some diversions here - like the latest MN sightseeing tour and this latest Earhart tour. Of course you can choose to do any number of our selections using different navigational equipment and/or weather settings to make your flights more exciting.

As always, no matter what your selection,

Happy Flying,

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Nov 05, 2019 - 07:27 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Flt#6

So, after spending an extra day in Puerto Rico due to real-world affairs I needed to take care of, I hopped into my Electra yesterday morning to make this flight. Leaving sunny Puerto Rico, I set a direct heading for Maturin Airport with my nav-1 radio set to Maturin Airport VOR. I really have to get better maps for these places. I arrived along the northern tip of Colombia flying eastward toward Venezuela, following the direct heading. This put me over some moderate hills that were difficult to see in the rainy weather in the area. Fortunately I was able to work my way north to the northern coast of Venezuela and follow that to the airport - using the VOR to help direct me to the correct harbor to turn inland for the approach to Rwy06.