USA 2000
The Lever Chronicles
This is the story of the USA 2000 trip as written by Phillip Lever at the end of each day and emailed to a long list of readers.
Phillip Lever was killed in a Gliding accident a few weeks after returning from this trip.
7 June
Keflavik
Left Old Sarum at 9.30 arrived at Wick at 12.30, the first time I had flown a long leg in the new plane. Also a chance to test out altitude work and autopilot etc. It all went very well. Spent an hour at Wick getting fuel, food and immersion suits ( our ordered ones had not arrived!) and then departed for Iceland at 1.30. 5 hours later we arrived at Keflavik, Iceland, - it's a hell of a long way over the water at 4500 feet. We flew through some fairly miserable weather, a little ice and cloud. not as bad as could be expected. We had a briefing by the USAF on SAR for the next leg, a met briefing and then dinner. Tomorrow we fly over the ice cap to Sondrestrom on the far side of Greenland and then perhaps on to Canada.
We met Bill Hall in his Robin in the middle of the North Atlantic and took pics of each other, quite odd when you're 300 miles from land........ Iceland is cold and wet, saw a couple of glaciers and not much else on the way in. It's 11 PM and broad daylight still!!!
My aeroplane is a genius, it doesn't make any strange noises, the GPS shows me the way to go and the extra fuel tank works like a dream, only another 12000 miles to go!
I managed to forget only one thing in the panic of departure.......the lead that plugs my camera into my computer so pictures will have to wait until America.
Stats:
Hours flown today 8.5
Miles flown today 1070
Panic attacks 0.5 - Autopilot and GPS struggle to communicate on ILS
Next stop "the arctic circle"
8 June
Sondrestrom fjord - Greenland
here we are at 70 deg North, we actually flew into the arctic circle.......... Left Keflavik this morning in the rain on a 720 mile epic to Greenland, we departed in pretty poor weather with the promise of improvement along the way. We climbed out in to the cloud and were diverted from our intended route to avoid a danger area, as we were reprogramming the GPS we started to ice up on the front of the wings, all a little hairy. Eventually we broke free of the cloud at 10,000 feet and cruised off in to the wild white yonder. With 5 planes in a longish convoy, one doesn't feel so alone despite the fact that they are not visible. After an hour or so we could see Greenland from about 150 miles away, as we approached the cloud layer below cleared and the stuff above thinned out, awe inspiring does not describe the sight of 50 miles of pack ice, a few lone icebergs the mountains and the icepack stretching out into infinity across the worlds biggest island. We reached the coast on the S East corner and overflew one of our diversion fields called Kulusuk, a cold war relic of an airstrip on a little island surrounded by ice. We then donned oxygen cannulas and climbed up to 12,000 feet for the cruise across the ice cap. The ice cap is literally as it says, a flat(ish) featureless expanse of ice that starts about 20 miles inland and stretches right across the country at heights of up to 9,300 feet, apparently it is all ice, down to near sea-level. We set off into the most amazing scene of bright blue skies and white ground and.....nothing else. It was breathtaking. Somewhere near the middle we saw an abandoned ice station that use to be a radar station and a few reindeer, visible on the white background from 60-70 miles! We had lunch along the way, consisting of sandwiches made up at breakfast time. Johnny Moss at this stage was wearing a cap, headset, spectacles, sunglasses and oxygen cannula on his head!!!!!! whilst eating a sandwich and also wearing an enormous orange immersion suit. About 100 miles out from our destination my HSI decided to die (yeah the brand new state of the art one) which left us not exactly stuck but slightly less comfortable about our arrival into Sondrestrom. It all worked out alright and we descended off the ice-pack into a fjord with a runway, a few huts, and Concord! No word of a lie, sitting on the apron was our very own British Airways Concorde here for a bit of a midnight sun trip. We parked up and tidied up and had beers whilst it departed back to UK. I managed to repair the HSI with the aid of Gilberts spares pack and then spent 4 hours getting refuelled and sorting out our entry into Canada tomorrow.
Sondrestrom is an airfield and not much else, God knows why it's here the next village is 100 miles away (no road) supplies all come in by boat, the fjord freezes in the winter and about 500 people live and work here. there are 2 restaurants, 1 bar and a swimming pool. Ice Station Zebra was probably more accessible.
The time is 10.30 PM local and it's broad daylight, I am getting confused about times and places - this all feels like a bit of a dream at the moment, there are 8 of us in 5 aeroplanes and yesterday morning I was in Iwerne Minster having a cup of coffee.........life moves pretty fast
Tomorrow we set off for Frobisher bay in Northern Canada where we will probably have to spend a couple of days waiting for a weather system to pass and then off down to the USA where we have a few days spare until our grand entrance in Washington. We talked about going to Marthas Vineyard to eat lobster, we'll probably spend 4 days in Northern Canada in a hicksville mining town!!!
hours flown: today 5.1
Miles flown: today 740
Panic attacks: HSI fails, so does autopilot +compass unreliable due to solar or space storms
Things missed: 1 Northern lights (it's too light), 2 Midnight sun (I'm too tired)
9 June
Frobisher bay, North West Territories Canada
Well, we have done a transatlantic crossing in a single engined plane!!!!!! 3 days, 2340 miles and no huge panics. I am elated.
We departed Sondrestrom today in bright sunshine and had a spectacular flight 90 miles down the Fjord to the Davis strait, Glaciers and mountains on either side to 5000 feet, another unforgettable experience and then on westwards towards arctic Canada. The forecast was for clear skies on the way across with sea fog forming as the temperature fell to 0 deg C at sea-level. Lo and behold they were right as we trucked across the sea a layer formed below us, what they didn't say was that an upper layer would also form and lower the further west we went. We thought there might be cloud cover over the mountains on the way in to Frobisher and we had a plan to go south and fly up the fjord under the layer. This plan was looking the favorite until our forward Penguin (see penguin behavior in relation to Leopard Seals for explanation) reported cloud down to 2000 ft and freezing temps to the south. The Canadian Air force had very kindly put up an SAR C130 to provide us with top cover who told us that Frobisher was clear from 50 miles out, we then decided to go direct through the cloud and descend over the mountains in clear air. This provided a very interesting 45 mins or so as we discussed our tactics in freezing cloud over frozen pack ice a long way from anywhere! Yet again my state of the art Sandel HSI had given up ( H Lees, if I could have got my hands on you this morning................) anyway, we eventually broke cloud and had a great final hour or so in to Frobisher over the pack ice ( imagine a white tile mosaic spread across 10's of thousands of square miles) and then across the tundra (snow and glacier scarred mountains) into the capital of the Canadian Northwest territories (the size of Europe) pop 4000!
We landed at yet another cold war relic airfield, spent a couple of hours having various bits fixed and decided that freezing rain to the south would mean a stay here tonight. We are in a brand new hotel in the strangest town I have ever seen, part ramshackle houses home to the local innuit population, with a few Canadian government buildings, part historic outpost of the Arctic. Here lives the original Hudson Bay Trading Company, here the first contact between Frobisher and the Innuit in 1578 when he thought he had found the Northwest passage (wrongly)
It is 0 deg C at the moment, the Canadians have completely screwed up the time zone here, the sun sets at 9.30 PM and rises at 2.30am!!!! the fjord is still frozen ( due to defrost beginning of July, re freezes 01 November) the first ship is due in on 10 July. We walked out on the ice this afternoon after a lunch in an igloo shaped pub. The local museum was extremely interesting if a little depressing, the old ways of the local Innuits appear completely swamped by our supposed superior culture...........this is not good in my eyes.
Micmac had her wallet stolen in the local supermarket this afternoon.
Tomorrow we hopefully set off for Labrador City - Jelly I'll bring you a picture of one of your ancestors - another 1000 miles or so. I want to fly to the North pole not down to the USA. We are at the edge of the world up here and it is wonderful.........a little cold ( I have no sweaters or jackets) but wild and empty, and unlike anywhere else I have ever been.
Hours flown 3.4
Miles flown 477
Panics: HSI again
Thank yous: Canadian Air Force, huge thanks for sheperding us across in difficult conditions. Geoff the A&P for sorting out my Sandel and Gilberts shimmy damper
11 June
Sept Isle Quebec Canada
Today was a good day
The weather forecast looked better today, we departed with a little apprehension from Frobisher, it was pretty windy up in the north with potential layers that would cover the ground on the way down. We left at 9.30 am and set off south with a 25 knot tailwind towards Sept Isle with the thought of stopping along the route if things looked miserable. suffice to say that the weather was perfect we did a little over 800 miles in one hit. we are now sitting just an hour from the US with a couple of days in hand. Today we travelled the equivalent of UK to mid-Spain and passed over 3 tiny settlements, complete and utter emptiness, tundra, trees and more trees. I never realized there was such an empty space in this world.
It feels like we have broken the back of the first part of this trip. I hear that the next group have made it to Goose Bay today, I would imagine via Narsarsauq (sorry about the spelling) We would hope to meet them in Pease/Marthas tomorrow - guys call or mail if you get this.
Tonight the sun set for the first time in 4 nights or so, I hope to sleep beyond 5 am tomorrow!
I feel like we have travelled through time, back to the 70's. rural Canada is a fairly strange place, compared to the far north it is at least like earth
The wonder of a strange world has been replaced by the reality of a satellite of the humdrum of "little America" I am spoilt by the wonder of what we have seen in the last 3 days, reality beckons......oh dear
It's like dreaming William Burroughs and waking up to Eastenders
Stats:
hours flown today 5.50
Miles flown today 843
Panic attacks nil
Things missed: multiple photo opportunities
Thanks owed: Bill hall for genius planning so far
12 June
Bar Harbour, Bangor Maine
Entry to the USA. We crossed the border today and landed at Bangor to clear customs. A mere 2 1/2 flight across an area that was populated, quite an unusual experience for us after the wastes of Northern Canada. Immigration was very straightforward and our bodies were pretty grateful to feel some warmth in the sunshine.
Our group of 5 met up with the "second wave", suddenly we are a real fleet of 8 aeroplanes. It was great to catch up with everyone and exchange the tallest of tales........Icebergs the size of continents, Polar bears in tutus, the more we talked the bigger grew the tales.
Group 2 have made a very speedy run across here. They departed 2 days after us and arrived an hour behind. The weather gods smiled upon them more so than they did us, with good tailwinds and clear skies the whole way. Not that we are complaining, I would not have swapped what we have seen and done over the last few days for anything in this world.
We are now all cosily tucked up in a seaside resort called Bar Harbor, about 50 miles east of Bangor. We all flew in to a very nice little airport and taxied down to the town. A dinner of Maine Lobster and wine put us all in great spirit and let us relax a bit. I now have to fly back to Bangor to deposit my aeroplane with the avionics shop.....a fluxgate detector failure this time (do I detect a pattern here?) Unfortunately the lead time for a new one is mid-August - I hope it is a connection rather than a physical fault.
The others are going to take a boat trip this afternoon, at the moment it's clothes washing and catching up with home/work etc.
Otherwise, all quiet on the western front, my next mail will be post Pease AFB on Thurs/Fri when we all meet up officially and begin the more formal bit of the trip.
Stats:
hours flown today 3
Miles flown today 430
Panic attacks 0 - this won't last
things missed 0 -see above
Thanks owed Bruno S for the Canada supplement and other bits of very useful paper they arrived yesterday)
15 June
Pease tradeport, Portsmouth New Hampshire
The day that Phil joined the grown up flying world
Enough of Lobster and relaxing, back to the business at hand, namely flying. We left our retreat in Bar Harbour today by taxi for for the local airport. My plane was over at Bangor awaiting spares, with the idea that some of the others would shuffle us over there before heading down to Pease. This idea quickly sank with the realisiation that weight limits meant that it was our luggage or us. Plan 2 was hatched as a taxi ride to Bangor and direct flights for the others. The weather had also taken a turn for the worse, yesterdays blue skies had been replaced by a thick overcast layer at 900 feet and IFR conditions all the way down. Johnny and I departed in a taxi as the others were filing flight plans and drifting off for a 12-1 PM arrival at Pease to meet the National Guard. 40 minutes in a taxi later we rolled in to the Hangar to discover that my new giro hadn't arrived (I am cursed, I'm now convinced of it) but might be due in by UPS at lunchtime. It arrived for lunch (my cynicism was misplaced) and we departed (late) for Pease under a grey and miserable sky. The excitement begins at this point, we filed IFR and duly took off into the gloom. Climbing out to 6000 feet we were still in cloud which meant that I really had to concentrate. My experience of such conditions is pretty limited although I am qualified to fly in instrument conditions in UK. I concentrated hard on the climb out and then let the auto pilot fly us down the route to Pease we then did an instrument approach to Pease runway 160 deg. For all of the non fliers out there, this is equivalent to being directed around a dangerous factory floor by a complete stranger whilst wearing a blindfold........turn left 60 degrees and take 2 paces, take 3 steps down the ladder in front of you, walk straight ahead, you will reach the end of the platform.........now jump into the abyss, the stranger promises that there will be a crashmat at the bottom. We landed on that crashmat!!!!!!! my heart rate must have peaked at 250 beats/min, I did all this with an instructor during my flying training, today was the first time that I played the game for real. All of the grown up pilots (i.e. the rest of the pilots on this trip) probably thought of this as another day at the office, to me , it was a moment that will define my flying career so far. Real pressure, no alternatives and a successful conclusion. My heartfelt thanks to Johnny Moss for having the confidence in me to do such a thing without resorting to any interference or taking over when the s**t had a near miss with the fan.
The National Guard and Pan Am ( yes, you know the name) were extremely helpful when we arrived, our unneeded kit is now winging its way to Alaska and the food was great. Tomorrow we all depart for Andrews Air Force Base for our formal bit of the trip, Bill has organized our arrival schedule at Andrews so that we look professional and organised. I hope that the weather and Air Traffic Control all work in our favour.
Tomorrow, 13 aeroplanes will convoy into Washington, The Air Squadron Tour will truly be underway in its full glory - UNA
What a wonderful experience, I cannot begin to describe what we have seen and done in last few days
Stats:
hours flown today 1.30
Miles flown today 150
Panic attacks real IFR
things missed The scenery (the whole journey was in cloud!)
Thanks owed George Little USAF for all of his help today
16 June
Andrews Air Force Base, Washington DC
The Big arrival
Today we departed Pease for Andrews AFB in convoy, under a grey threatening sky. We had all filed IFR (thank heavens for the 1-800 WX BRIEF telephone number) Bill Hall was the first to leave at about 8.20 am- slowest aeroplane first - a new penguin for the day! followed by James GF/ C Sharples, ourselves, Gilbert/Micmac and then the twins/jets. The idea being that we would all arrive at Andrews at 2 minute intervals, starting a 12.08. An IMC departure followed by multiple reroutes by the ATC guys and we were on our way Our route took us down the coast over The Hamptons and on straight over the top of JFK Airport in New York, in better weather the views would have been fantastic. The controllers were obviously curious as to the stream of "British Blips" on their screens, every time we were handed off, someone was asked what all of these Limeys were doing! As we approached the Washington area, the group became more tightly packed as the quicker planes caught up to the snails and the fun began. The Washington Approach controllers obviously knew the plan and the last 45 minutes was a very busy period as were were vectored for sequencing and sent in all directions across the sky to put us in order, the controllers did a fantastic job of organising our gaggle and the "big arrival" worked like a dream. The whole UK fleet of 13 aeroplanes all landed in about 30 minutes at Andrews where we were very efficiently lined up on the ramp and re-fuelled. Lots of relatives and friends were there to greet us - see attached pictures. The USAF then bussed us all over to the arrivals hall where they had laid out a wonderful salad lunch and 3 very smart aeroplanes used for VIP transport to have a look over and talk to the crews.
After lunch we were taken for a very interesting briefing about Andrews and its various roles followed by drinks in the mess with some of the base personnel. We were finally delivered to our Hotel in Georgetown at about 5 PM for a welcome shower and a chance to organise ourselves.
The USAF did a fantastic job today, my thanks to all of them and to the Air Squadron members who arranged all this. A seamless show from all concerned. Now we have a couple of days to regroup and prepare for the next leg across to San Diego via Vegas/Nellis. A mere 2200 more miles!
Stats
hours flown today 4.1
Miles flown today 435
Panic attacks 0 (amazing - probably because Johnny was flying!)
things missed the view of New York was a little hazy
Thanks owed:
Gen Hawkins USAF for so kindly hosting us.
Major Moran USAF for all of his organisation at Andrews
The Washington Approach controllers and the Andrews tower for immaculate arrival sequencing for 13 aeroplanes in a very crowded bit of airspace
19 June
National Air and Space Museum
We visited the NASM and the storage and restoration center.
19 June
The Dinner
The Air Squadron gave a dinner in honour of the United States Armed Forces. A sword was donated to be presented to a Cadet each year. The first selected cadet was Second Lieutenant Olivia Mitchell, her ambition is to be the first person to walk on Mars.
20 June
Tulsa, Oklahoma
We left Andrews AFB yesterday with the intention of breaking the 1000 mile barrier for the day. The forecast for the trip west was for a band of very large thunderstorms across ther mid-west, so our thoughts were to get to Mt Vernon, Missourri (I think I'm in the right state)to refuel and reassess the situation. We were supposed to be out of Andrews before 9.30 because Air Force 2 was leaving (the vice - president) and things would be held up for his departure. It appears that the whole of the Washington area aeroplane fleet had the same idea and the IFR clearance system began to creak a little. We turned on our engine at 8.20 am and waited for our clearance to come through, at 9.30 we switched it off again. About 3 of our group had manged to beat the deadline, the rest of us waited until 9.50 before trying again. Everything was much less congested by this stage and we were soon on our way to the holding point for departure...........except, dring our idling time we had managed to foul up one of the spark plugs and no matter how hard we leaned it, it wouldn't clear. So we rolled back to the stand and went in search of an engineer with the right tools to help us changeit. About an hour later, we had the plug out to find a tiny bit of carbon that had spoiled our morning. In went a new sparkplug and at 12.30 we departed. A word of sympathy for Dr Michael Fopp who was stil sitting on the stand when we left with alternator problems.
So, off we trotted in to the wild blue west, to try and catch up with the others. The forecast had said that the storms would develop during the day with tops to 60,000 feet which made us a little nervous, nevertheless, with the aid of ATC and a good pair of eyes we trucked west. After a couple of hundred miles, CB's could be seen forming in the distance, which with small changes of course we could route around. After 5 hours we made a civilised arrival in Mt Vernon and filled up, watered and planned the next leg to Hutchinson in Kansas. We knew that we would arrive late and that CB activity west was increasing, although we had easily routed around them so far. As we pottered down the track we kept being routed further south to avoid lines of CB cells, although things were reported clear at our destination. Time was against us the airport shut at 0400 GMT and our arrival was forecast at 0344 by the GPS, not much margin for error, but we had alternatives. About 1 1/2 hours out from Hutchinson, Flightwatch informed us that actually the airport shut at 0300 and other alternates were right on the edge of a huge line of storms to the North of us which were very visible in the dark. A hundred miles of sky lighting up like a scene from Dantes Inferno told the tale in very plain language. We didn't have enough fuel to press on further south and west so we turned back for 40 miles to Tulsa. The airport is in the city itself and being vectored in to the runway we couldn't clearly make it out, the ATC guys dipped and brightened the runway lightds which lit it up like the proverbial xmas tree. A very welcome sight indeed. We landed at 2200 local time after 9 hours in the air feeling pretty frazzled and extremely glad to be back on the ground. We found a hotel had a bite to eat and went to bed...........a very stressful day
Today, I learned about thunderstorms....enough said
hours flown today 9
Miles flown today 1050
Panic attacks mutiple
things missed having a storm scope
Thanks owed Ralph Jones - for transatlantic advice on engines Andrews AFB staff for al lof their help and assistance
