RV-10 around the world

Pilawt

Final Approach
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Pilawt
As I posted in an earlier "Sedona" thread, we happened to park our 172 at SEZ on August 17 next to a gorgeous RV-10 with South African registration. I googled the registration when we got home, and learned it's owned by a retired couple who took off from their South Africa home on May 27 for a westbound trip around the world.

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Update:

Due to visa issues, they were unable to depart and re-enter the USA, so they had to skip the Caribbean and South America.

They are now in Auckland NZ. Here’s their most recent post, from just a couple of hours ago:

Now we are safely far away from Christmas Island [Kiribati], the story of how an overnight stay on an idyllic island turned into a rather unpleasant week.

We arrived at Cassidy airport mid afternoon on Wednesday and airport staff asked for our landing permit, which we did not have. It is common practice to fly without a permit. You apply to Tarawa the capital, who do not answer emails or telephones. The permit comes through at any time weeks in the future. As long as you show that you have applied when you land that is usually good enough. NOT this time, no paper permit no access to fuel, and for a while no leaving the airport..several hours and phone calls later we were allowed to go to the motel. We were then told we had to pay a fine before we could leave the island. It took 2 days to find out how much and who to pay. The 10,000 AUS dollars per plane was paid direct into CAA bank. 4 days later we received confirmation that Civil aviation Kiribati had received our generous donation and we were allowed to leave. We thought all was well and the fuelers promised to pick us up at 3pm that day. Instead around lunch time 4 police officers came to arrest us for not having a landing permit. Thankfully we had an email confirming the planes had been released by the authorities for fueling and departure so they went away.

At 4.30 the fuelers picked us up and took us to the airport, fueling was finally completed in the dark at around 7.30 pm.

We returned to the airport at 5.30 am the next day and found that fire engines had been parked in front of the planes to prevent us from leaving. We asked for them to be moved but were told we had to clear customs first. Customs then asked for a 40 Dollar "facility fee" (cash with no receipt needless to say.). We paid and the fire trucks were moved, we wasted no time in taking off and will not be returning.

(They mention “planes” in the plural. It appears they are flying together with a US-registered C-206 on at least part of their trip.)

Wow.
 
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They're now in the Seychelles, only (!!) 2,400 nm from home. From their Facebook post today:
A couple of not so nice surprises at the airport. Having thought we had covered all our fees the day before, we were stung for a further 675 USD bringing handling, landing and 2 days parking to 1,090 USD, no wonder Mattala Rajapaksa is quietest international airport in the world! Then we got to see our plane!!!

 
And this is why I would be very careful flying GA to banana republics. It seems to turn into a hostage situation way too often.
 
I guess you have to stay flexible on a trip like this:

Our 2 night stop in Seychelles has now become at least 4 . We delayed one day because of weather, thank goodness we did as late last night we heard that there is no Avgas in Mozambique. We are now back to plan A, refueling and overnight stop in Antananarivo, Madagascar. So here we sit in the Eden Bleu hotel waiting for new permits.

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This is why many attempting this type of trip use an international trip planning service that knows all about the "gotchas", such as Jepp and others. it's not just the charts, it's permits, fuel, local customs, the vig, etc.
 
Does anybody know how the heck they were able to make the 2,000 mile trip from Cali to Hawaii? Wouldn't you need about a 100 gallon aux tank to pull that off?
 
Does anybody know how the heck they were able to make the 2,000 mile trip from Cali to Hawaii? Wouldn't you need about a 100 gallon aux tank to pull that off?

I’m still wondering this myself....
 
Does anybody know how the heck they were able to make the 2,000 mile trip from Cali to Hawaii? Wouldn't you need about a 100 gallon aux tank to pull that off?
They did have a ferry tank fitted in before they left home, not sure the capacity. But it was 14 hours nonstop from Merced CA to Honolulu.
 
Does anybody know how the heck they were able to make the 2,000 mile trip from Cali to Hawaii? Wouldn't you need about a 100 gallon aux tank to pull that off?
What’s the problem? The aircraft has plenty of useful load to accommodate the tank.
 
Didn't say there was a problem. Just curious how they went about it is all.
Ferry tank with 337 aboard at least for certified aircraft. Dunno what exp needs for paperwork. Usually a temp 10% gross weight increase is easy to get. Sometimes the weight increase is larger.
 
They did have a ferry tank fitted in before they left home, not sure the capacity. But it was 14 hours nonstop from Merced CA to Honolulu.
I also note from one of Brian's "Captain's Log" entries that they took off from Merced at 120% gross weight.

Some of his observations about flying in the USA are interesting:

Can anyone tell me why the North Americans have to do everything differently to the rest of us. We know they drive on the wrong side of the road, use miles, feet and inches, write the date the wrong way round and use their forks in a very strange way but why why why do they use local pressure settings for the altimeter on any IF flight up to 18k? I only found out when ATC kept telling me to check my altitude. Having retorted that I had everything right, flight level 100 on 29.92 (at least I had the inches bit) I was told very politely that I should be at 10000 feet on the local pressure. Oh well!

We had a flight a flight today from Nankucket to Manassas which must have gone through 20 different controllers and the first thing is a new pressure setting so the plane is wandering up and down like a yoyo. I also understand their flight plan forms are totally different to ICAO. Perhaps the first letter is confusing. It stands for “International”.

[...]

ATC, as you would expect is very efficient. No one got stressed about an elderly Brit flying a South African RV10 in their space. Just take the new “altimeter pressure” and get on to the next point. I also learnt today (very quickly) how to put airways into the flight plan on the GTN750. Never having really studied them I thought they just went in a straight line from A to B….oh no…they get there via several other letters. Again, the professionals amongst you will know all about these but I’ve never had to worry about them until now. At least I had it cracked before I got to JFK otherwise we might have been shot down.

[...]

The time to leave the USA mainland is now fast approaching. Despite some early questions about why things are done differently here the time here has, without doubt, left me knowing that the Americans don’t need to change. Everything works, the country has all that it’s population needs so they don’t have to travel overseas to find new experiences and if the rest of us want to come here either conform or bugger off.

The following day we flew to Lexington, Kentucky, the capital of the horse world. Once again we had the new flight plan before departure, expert ATC, and another FBO at Lexington for whom nothing was too much trouble. I’m getting used to the “system” now and you know what…the USA can do what it wants. Why should they give up their ways when it all operates so well!!!

I’ve flown IFR wherever we’ve gone, mainly because of conditions but also I haven’t figured out the vfr rules. From what I can see there aren’t any as long as you stay out of controlled air space. As with the UK, no one talks to each other so you don’t know if anyone is creeping up on you….I’ll stick with IFR.

Apart from the country, the locals, without exception have greeted us wherever we have gone and shown a very genuine interest in these strange people and their flying machine. Take the recent stay in the Jamestown Hotel. We happened to let it slip that we were flying the world in our own plane and without much delay the whole hotel and all its guests knew. We were even introduced to the crowd at the evening band performance.
 
Useful load on a -10 is usually between 1,000 and 1200 pounds. A 14 hour flight plus reserves (2 hours?) would require 160 gallons at a pretty low power setting (10 gph). That's 960 pounds of fuel. So they probably had at least a hundred gallon aux tank and launched with a few hundred pound overload.
 
Useful load on a -10 is usually between 1,000 and 1200 pounds. A 14 hour flight plus reserves (2 hours?) would require 160 gallons at a pretty low power setting (10 gph). That's 960 pounds of fuel. So they probably had at least a hundred gallon aux tank and launched with a few hundred pound overload.

Precisely the figures I had in mind. 60 gal in the wings, 100 in aux tank. If you figure a 170 lb guy, a 120 lb gal, and absolutely nothing else, you're looking at 1250 and likely 100 lbs or more over gross. For 14 hours of flight over nothing but big blue, I assume you need life vests, a raft, flares, and some emergency supplies of some sort. Getting heavy now. I would have to assume that they shipped their luggage to NZ or something since they had a couple more 1000+ NM over water legs ahead.

Can't overlook the immense weight of the big brass testis on board also. Impressive adventure, to say the least.
 
Can't overlook the immense weight of the big brass testis on board also. Impressive adventure, to say the least.
Roger that. Brian wrote this from Merced, California, on September 4:

Tomorrow we start the final preparations for the ocean crossing … about 15 hours over nothing but water followed by 8 hours over nothing but water, followed by 10 hours over nothing but water, followed by 10 hours over nothing but water.

Gotta allow for the weight of the epaulets, too. They wore them when they were flying places where such things are not only respected, but mandatory to prove one's authenticity as a pilot. Here's a photo of them in Malta, in June:

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Today Brian signed off his final "Captain's Log" entry this way:


Countries 23
Airports 43
Flights 52
Days 160
Miles 32428
Times ZU-IHF examined by customs 2

We had a great time if you forget the stress every day, the heartache and frustration. We’ve seen some amazing places and some that need obliterating. More than anything, we met some amazing people on our travels, too many to mention by name but to you all ..... thanks for your friendship, help and hospitality.

There are also the people, many of whom we have not met but wanted to join our travels on Facebook. Your comments, likes and emojis were greatly appreciated.

Two of you have asked us to do it again as life is going to be empty without our tracker to follow every day. If enough of you feel way you can club together to buy us a jet.

:D
 
Where in an RV do you fit a 100 gallon tank? And with two people and full fuel and baggage you are at gross. So that is more like 600lbs over gross. The weight might be doable, but TWO 55 gallon drums of fuel equivalent? Im not saying it cant be done, just saying I dont see how.
 
Where in an RV do you fit a 100 gallon tank? And with two people and full fuel and baggage you are at gross. So that is more like 600lbs over gross. The weight might be doable, but TWO 55 gallon drums of fuel equivalent? Im not saying it cant be done, just saying I dont see how.

Said Brian of the takeoff from Merced:

Sitting at the end of the runway was not a happy spot. There aren’t any performance figures for an RV10 with our configuration other than those we had done ourselves and certainly none at 120% gross weight. The power to weight ratio suggested all would be well, so here goes I thought. Full power, wait until the nose started to feel light and rotate. Off we sailed into the early morning light with runway to spare.
 
Gotta allow for the weight of the epaulets, too. They wore them when they were flying places where such things are not only respected, but mandatory to prove one's authenticity as a pilot.

Wow, I have never heard of that before. I have never seen any pilot wear them except for airline pilots and CFIs at some 141 schools. Seems a bit ridiculous to me. Far more ridiculous than some of the things he ranted about in the US.
 
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Where in an RV do you fit a 100 gallon tank? And with two people and full fuel and baggage you are at gross. So that is more like 600lbs over gross. The weight might be doable, but TWO 55 gallon drums of fuel equivalent? Im not saying it cant be done, just saying I dont see how.
100 gallons equals 13.3 cubic feet which is just abot the baggage area volume on an RV-10. Easy-peasey lemon squeezey.
 
Wow, I have never heard of that before. I have never seen any pilot wear them except for airline pilots and CFIs at some 141 schools. Seems a bit ridiculous to me. Far more ridiculous than some of the things he ranted about in the US.


Uhhhhhhhhhhh... me too... (hides shoulders)
 
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100 gallons equals 13.3 cubic feet which is just abot the baggage area volume on an RV-10. Easy-peasey lemon squeezey.

You couldn't put it back there. You'd be way out of CG. The two work-arounds are to add non-standard wing tanks or to put the extra fuel (or at least some of it) in the rear seat area - preferably the footwell (remember, the -10 is a 4 seater).

Loaded 400 pounds over gross, the RV-10's power to weight ratio is just slightly worse than a Comanche at gross, so acceleration and climb shouldn't be an insurmountable problem.
 
You couldn't put it back there. You'd be way out of CG. The two work-arounds are to add non-standard wing tanks or to put the extra fuel (or at least some of it) in the rear seat area - preferably the footwell (remember, the -10 is a 4 seater).

Loaded 400 pounds over gross, the RV-10's power to weight ratio is just slightly worse than a Comanche at gross, so acceleration and climb shouldn't be an insurmountable problem.
I was just pointing out that the volume was not a problem. Of course the back seats can be removed and the tank centered on the spar. As I said, easey-peasey
 
... As I said, easey-peasey

It is doable, but unless you put some of the extra fuel in the wings, CG would be a real issue.

Sez the guy who has an RV-10 in his basement and has run CG numbers on the bird.
 
I was just pointing out that the volume was not a problem. Of course the back seats can be removed and the tank centered on the spar. As I said, easey-peasey

Yeah, surely the aux tank was put in place of the rear seats.

Nothing says adventure like taking off for some tiny island in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world, in a single engine plane, 20% over gross, surrounded by gasoline, and you're not sure there's enough runway when you hit the throttle. That gets a Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor grunt.
 
Yeah, surely the aux tank was put in place of the rear seats.

Nothing says adventure like taking off for some tiny island in the middle of the biggest ocean in the world, in a single engine plane, 20% over gross, surrounded by gasoline, and you're not sure there's enough runway when you hit the throttle. That gets a Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor grunt.
Pick a runway that terminates in the ocean. Reduced fire hazard on departure...
 
Does anybody know how the heck they were able to make the 2,000 mile trip from Cali to Hawaii? Wouldn't you need about a 100 gallon aux tank to pull that off?
ferry tank in the cabin. A friend of mine did it in his sr20 from Australia.
 
CG isnt the problem... with his iron clad Bal** of steel, there is ample forward CG to put the aux takes wherever the hell he wanted
 
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