Katamarino's Round the World flight

Katamarino

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Katamarino
Finally, the big day arrived. Today I set off from KPJC (Zelienople PA), via CYTZ (Toronto, Canada), and have made it as far as CYMT (Chibougamau, Canada).

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Doors open, this is it:
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All the gear:
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A good send-off!
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First stop Toronto, to collect my friend Mike.
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Goodbye, Toronto.
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Within an hour, the terrain had changed unrecognisably:
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Fueling up at the end of day one in Chibougamau
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Tomorrow's weather does not look promising.
 
got a link so we can follow along?
 
I flew 160 miles today and I didn't need no fuel bladder neither...; )

Have a great and safe trip !
 
Awesome! Great pics! Be safe and have fun!

But for some reason, the biggest question in my mind is... How on earth do I know how to pronounce Chibougamau? Are they famous for something? I feel like it's related to @Ted DuPuis but I dunno.

Chibougamau, Chibougamau, Chibougamau...
 
Awesome! Great pics! Be safe and have fun!

But for some reason, the biggest question in my mind is... How on earth do I know how to pronounce Chibougamau? Are they famous for something? I feel like it's related to @Ted DuPuis but I dunno.

Chibougamau, Chibougamau, Chibougamau...
toot toot!
 
Awesome! Great pics! Be safe and have fun!

But for some reason, the biggest question in my mind is... How on earth do I know how to pronounce Chibougamau? Are they famous for something? I feel like it's related to @Ted DuPuis but I dunno.

Chibougamau, Chibougamau, Chibougamau...

Yep I’ve been there many times.

Chih-boo-gah-moo
 
Safe trip, thank you for sharing with us. I'm excited to follow your progress.
 
Now getting to read up quickly - looks like a fun first day! Back in the early days of Cloud Nine CYMT was a regular fuel stop up towards points north. It really is a good facility, although any of the places up there the hotels are essentially Motel 6 equivalents.

Be careful up there with respect to weather, especially this time of year. There's not much radar and there can be some crazy storms, and you have no diversion options. I know you know this, but it was about this time in 2011 when I ended up with a visual approach in 100 ft overcast up in Chisasibi. Not one of the highlights of my career.

Keep us posted and I'll be watching!
 
Day 2 dawned, and the weather was looking non-promising. Areas of low ceilings, with freezing precipitation, covered the higher ground between us and our desired destination of Iqaluit. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and it was looking like this old idiom was especially true for trying to fly across the Atlantic. Plan B was brought into effect; flying southeast towards the coast along the low ground, and then towards Goose Bay, would set us up for a potential crossing to Narsarsuaq, a different route to that originally planned.

Day 2's flight. Ignore the "total distance" and "average speed" - the tracker glitched.
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Morning in Chibugamau:
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Good morning bear:
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Mike on his 3rd cup of coffee, before a 5 hour flight. An interesting decision.
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Climbing out from Chibugamau
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Still pretty wintery up here
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Ceilings were low in places
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The snow was clearly starting to melt
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The lakes still had some melting to do
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For a while, glorious sunshine
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Time for some VFR on top
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Direct to Goose Bay
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Goose Bay arrival, just after a German Air Force A400M
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Fueling in Goose Bay
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Tomorrow, we plan to head for Narsarsuaq. There'll be headwinds, so we'll stay low (but not low enough to hit any hills), also need to stay below freezing level for the first couple of hundred miles. This will be the longest ocean crossing of the Atlantic section...
 
Didn't go anywhere today. The weather was crummy (<1mile vis, <300ft ceilings) this morning through our planned takeoff time, and the TAF was horrible. About 30 minutes after we wanted to depart, it suddenly turned CAVOK for the rest of the day; but by then it was too late to get to Greenland before their airports close (5pm, ridiculous).

Tomorrow is looking...so-so...
 
That trip can be a hard one. Some of my wife’s former coworkers were trying to ferry an S-92 over the pond in the winter. After a few weeks they had to change out crews to wait for better weather. For them winds were the issue mostly as the thing didn’t have great range.
 
Didn't go anywhere today. The weather was crummy (<1mile vis, <300ft ceilings) this morning through our planned takeoff time, and the TAF was horrible. About 30 minutes after we wanted to depart, it suddenly turned CAVOK for the rest of the day; but by then it was too late to get to Greenland before their airports close (5pm, ridiculous).

Tomorrow is looking...so-so...

What happens if you land there after they close?
 
So what is there to do in Goose Bay? Much of anything?
 
A Danish friend purchased in the US and ferried his 150 hp Grumman Traveler to Europe about 20 years ago using a retired SAS pilot for PIC - in September. He had pictures of everything except the hairy approach into Narsarsuaq which were so dark they were unrecognizable. He said reverently "Some things God does not mean to have photographed".

God speed!
 
So what is there to do in Goose Bay? Much of anything?

Not a huge amount! There's a military museum in the CanEx, and a nice drive out to North West River, where there's a native interpretation center. That's about all we found so far. Looking like we're going to try for Narsarsuaq today. Forecast BKN015 at their end, but Nuuk looks like a decent alternate with SCT004, and nothing above. I also have the fuel to get back to Goose if needed, where it's meant to be SCT later, and nice high ceilings before that.

It all rides on getting on top of the overcast out of Goose!
 
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Following along on the Garmin tracker....who/what is Ross Edmundson?
 

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Looks like he's on the ground in Narsarsuaq. :)

Now I'm wondering how you pronounce THAT. Nar-Sar-Sawk?
 
When we set out on our third day of flying, after a day in Goose Bay, I wasn't 100% sure we'd be able to get through. My main concern was whether we'd be able to get on top of the overcast layer out of Goose Bay without icing. If not, then at least the choice was easy; just land again. We'd taken some fuel in the ferry tank, and with 12 hours endurance could actually have flown all the way to Narsarsuaq and back to Goose Bay. With conditions at Goose Bay and Kulusuk forecast to be excellent later in the day, we had two solid options for diversion, so off we went.

The day's flight. Ignore the distance and avg speed numbers, they glitched again.
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Ready to depart from Goose Bay


We lumbered down runway 26 fairly slowly, and climbed out at a steady 500 feet per minute, eventually reaching 9,000ft for the cruise. Every now and then we caught a glimpse of the ground; snow covered mountains, giving way to fractured sea ice. A couple of hours in to the flight we were well out into the Labrador channel, and had descended to 5,000ft to pick up another 20 kts ground speed. Winds up high were not helpful.

Over a thin overcast, heading for the coast


The only real break in the undercast on the entire crossing!


Narsarsuaq here we come.


The ETA settled at around 4:15pm, comfortably before closing time, and we received regular updates on METAR and TAF at Narsarsuaq via the Garmin InReach. Things were only looking better. We climbed to 10,000ft for the final section, approaching the coast, before dropping down through multiple layers on possibly the most impressive GPS approach I've even had the pleasure of flying!

Just past the IAF on the RNAV GPS Y approach to Narsarsuaq


View north from the GPS approach


Even on the GPS approach, the ground comes uncomfortably near!


First glimpse of Narsarsuaq in the distance


Looking south at the FAF


Looking north from the FAF


Right downwind for 24
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Turning on to final for 24. The glacier has apparently receded a lot in recent years.


Refueling at Narsarsuaq


Ensconced in the Narsarsuaq hotel.


Safely on the ground, fuel was immediately provided, and we walked the few minutes to the strangely enormous Narsarsuaq hotel. That evening we had dinner with 2 Brits and a Luxemburger who were about to set out to kite-ski 2,400km north across Greenland! It made our adventure seem tame by comparison.
 
Absolutely. Amazing! Will be following along. Thanks so much for the pictures and Godspeed!
 
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