Records Are Made To Be Broken

I had stowed some cans of oil on board because oil was very difficult to obtain enroute. A visit to the tower for flight planning and to pick up the weather forecast revealed IMC conditions for much of the journey to Bangor but by the time night fell it would clear, with temperatures plummeting and light snow flurries for the latter part of the estimated eight and a half hours flight.

Distance from Lakeland to Bangor calculated to be 1237 nautical miles. As clouds would be mostly stratiform, flight conditions would be smooth. Departure was set for 1615 Zulu or 10:15 a.m. eastern standard time...I think! Fortunately Zulu time, which is basically GMT time, is used universally and local time is not a consideration in international flight planning. If it were there would no doubt be massive confusion! So it didn't really matter whether it was night or day except for servicing arrangements and stopovers.

It came time to go and I bid farewell to Phil, crawled into confines of my cockpit and surveyed my surroundings checking the security of all stowed items.

Time to fire up.

Wind the starter over and the 285 horses sprung into life.

"Lakeland tower, this is N1843A, request taxi for flight plan to Bangor."

"Roger 43A, taxi for runway 06 and hold"

"N1843A, clearance."

"Go ahead, 43A."

"N1843A, you are cleared as filed, after takeoff fly runway heading, call Orlando on 122.69, squawk 3475, line up 06".

"Roger, 43A".

"N1843A, wind 070 at 8 knots, you are cleared for takeoff."

"43A rolling."

This was going to be interesting I thought to myself. Although it was not necessary to have a full load of fuel for this leg, I wanted to check the temporary system out for leaks and reliability before heading out across the Atlantic pond. Also I wasn't sure how the aircraft would cope with the extra weight.

Well. I needn't have worried. The system worked and the aircraft seemed to hardly be aware of its unusual load as after gathering speed down the runway it unstuck and rose into the air to be enveloped in cloud at 400 feet. Droplets of rain ran in rivulets over the windshield.

"N1843A", called Lakeland. "Confirm you are squawking 3475?"

"Affirmative!"

"Recycle and ident."

"Roger."

I did as requested. But the transponder had failed and this was tricky because there was no way I could return for a landing in my overweight condition so I elected to continue without it, intending to have it serviced at Bangor. In the USA, IFR flight and flights in controlled areas require an operable transponder so where possible, radar was to vector me clear of heavy traffic areas.

Handed over to Orlando I set course for Ormond Beach VOR at 5000 feet and crossed it 45 minutes after leaving Lakeland.

Heading now set for Charleston and up the eastern seaboard. Passing to the east of New York and out to sea on route V139 the weather had cleared but no sign of New York. It was too far away.

Night fell as I approached Boston after overheading Providence. It was then that my flight planning went "out the window" so to speak. Boston issued a string of VOR's and altitude changes to vector me through their FIR. Conditions had returned to IMC. My outside air temperature gauge was registering -18 degrees, very cold and very dark.

Crossed Pease then Augusta and accomplished a landing on Bangor's snow covered airfield at 0054Z. Directed to a parking area, I shut down and secured the aircraft before looking for somewhere to stay. The transponder had started to function again just prior to Bangor so that was a relief but number two VHF had failed.

At a motel close by I discovered several other pilots who were engaged in delivering aircraft from the USA. These include two Ag-waggons, and a Turbo Thrush bound for Egypt plus a Turbo charged Saratoga, which was heading for Europe. I introduced myself hoping to pick up any information that might be helpful but this group were fairly close knit and as I was somewhat of an outsider from the other end of the world it was clear that I should keep my distance. They did say they were going to launch from Gander.

Next morning, I taxied the aircraft to a service facility. They could not fault the transponder and could not fix the VHF believing it to be an installation problem that would take some time to find. Time which I could ill afford. The weather although cold was brilliantly sunny so after clearing customs, I buttoned everything up and took off for Gander, following the other pilots who had already left.

During the relatively short flight, the number two ADF quit and worse still, the autopilot went crazy placing the aircraft into oscillations and finally into a dive.

Damn! That really upset me.

I tried various things but all ended with the same result. So what! It was back to total hand flying.

As Gander approached, outside temperatures at 7000 feet plunged to twenty-five degrees below freezing. Inside, it was quite comfortable. Ground temperatures were minus twelve and after landing I taxied to a runway intersection that was marked out with compass headings.

It seems that the magnetic compass does not figure very highly with American pilots who had come to rely almost entirely on the VOR for primary navigation so chores like swinging the compass tend to be disregarded. (These days the GPS reigns supreme but they were before my time).

To cater for those pilots, who still had faith in the magnetic compass, a position on the runway that was free from extraneous magnetic influences was marked out in 45-degree increments. The astute pilot could drive his aircraft along these lines and adjust the compass to read the correct headings before launching into space. For the next hour I drove around in circles adjusting the compass until satisfied it was pointing in the right direction.

Then I was off to the Meteorology office for an Atlantic forecast. The met man was exceptionally pessimistic. Oilrigs were reporting snow flurries, rough seas, clouds to 11000 feet, generally of stratiform and possibility of light ice. Winds would be 45 knots on the tail initially but swinging around to 70 knots on the beam after a couple of hundred miles, becoming 15 knot headwinds about 2/3 the way across.

Well, I had a bit of time up my sleeve so a day or two on the ground would not hurt me, except freeze me to death.

TO BE CONTINUED...