The sun was setting behind my left shoulder and the sea had taken on its characteristic gunmetal grey colour in the fading light as I looked out to my left. From 20000′ I could see the southwest coast of Iceland clearly, and between me and there the small island of Vestmannaeyjar. I was just within gliding range of the latter, and in the dusk I could see the lights of the small houses on the island, and the runway lights at the airport there. The single Teledyne-Continental engine hummed its comforting note, somewhat suppressed by my noise reducing David Clarks, but I knew very well that all was well with the engine. I could see Reykjavik on the horizon, and could well imagine the Saturday evening fun in that city which would be in full swing in a few hours time. I had to dig deep into my reserves of moral fibre to keep going. I had already been in the air since before dawn, some 7 hours ago, and my immersion suit and lifejacket are not the most comfortable things to wear for such a long time in cramped conditions, to say nothing of oxygen, but I wanted to continue because I wanted to show both the aviation community and Mooney just what a performer the Mooney Ovation 2 is.  I had picked up N1038V, a new (and unmodified) Ovation 2 from San Antonio two days before, having been contracted by its owner to fly it to Denmark for him. Mooney had kindly positioned the aeroplane to San Antonio for me, to avoid another journey up to Kerrville and I had left San Antonio on a Thursday morning in early April, heading for Burlington, Vermont. Fuel on board at start up was 103 US gallons and I emphasise that this is production standard aircraft – no ferry tank. At the time, the new Mooneys were not EASA certified (they are now) and Klaus therefore had to qualify for a US licence. He had already put about 35 hours on the engine (and therefore run it in) while so doing, so I climbed right on up to FL190 having established the oxygen system was working ok. The direct distance between SAT and BTV is 1500nm, and I was expecting a 10-15kt average tailwind component all the way at altitude. Another reason for climbing up there is of course to get the best true airspeed with the lowest fuel burn. In other words, tying all those things together, to try to get the best specific range from the aeroplane. Specific range is air nautical miles per gallon. I averaged a groundspeed of 168 knots all the way from SAT to BTV, for a TAS which averaged 158 knots and a fuel flow which averaged 10 USG per hour. The specific range on this trip was therefore an average (average GS/average fuel flow) = 168/10, =16.8 air nautical miles per gallon. Of course you are thinking that the aeroplane was turbocharged, but no! It has a normally aspirated engine, a Teledyne-Continental IO-550-G rated at 280 horsepower at sea level ISA, driving a three bladed constant speed prop. At 20,000′ the engine is developing about 130 hp, with a manifold pressure of 14.1 inches of Mercury and 2500 RPM. The flight from San Antonio to Burlington proved that the aeroplane can fly for 9 hours and still land with 1 hour of fuel, and in the process a TAS of 158 is to be expected on average. That information was vital for the transatlantic leg in two days time. After a well deserved overnight in Burlington (9 hours in the saddle in a Mooney is a very long time) we (N1038V and I) flew a routine trip up to Goose Bay the following day.

N1038V basking in the afternoon sunshine on the Woodward Aviation ramp in Goose Bay

Saturday morning was nice and clear and I was up about 3 hours before the dawn. It was early November, and of course the days are quite short in the northern latitudes, so I wanted to be 200 miles east of Goose Bay before dawn. (The first 130 miles from Goose Bay eastbound is overland, albeit not the most hospitable of terrain if the engine should fail). On arrival at the Woodward FBO in Goose I filed my flightplan, the route filed being:

YYR LOACH 58N50W 61N40W 62N30W 62N20W 62N10W MY.

The flight plan time showed 9 hours, but I was not entirely sure that I would make it to Vagar as the winds across the Davis Straight had dropped somewhat since I first planned this route a day before, but I had good weather forecasts for Narsarsuaq and Reykjavik so if necessary I could drop in to either of those places if my fuel prognosis did not look good. I filed for a 1000z departure, and was airborne at 0959. The first disappointment was a restriction to FL180 for the initial part of the Atlantic clearance. This was more an annoyance than a serious problem, but with an ultra long haul flight of this nature it is necessary to get every last bit of performance from the aeroplane so I went to FL190 until the oceanic entry point at LOACH and then dropped down to FL180 to comply with the oceanic clearance. I had to stay down there for the next 3 hours before I got a clearance to climb to FL190, and eventually FL200 6 hours into the flight. Across the Davis Straight my progress dropped steadily behind my flightplan until, before the time I passed 40 West I was convinced I would not safely make Vagar, although I knew that Reykjavik was comfortably in my range. One of the advantages of flying over this part of the Atlantic is the good VHF communications due to the repeater stations in Greenland, so I called Gander Radio on 127.9 to request a reroute to Reykjavik, with the request route being from 61N40W to 63N30W then to waypoint EMBLA west of Iceland. After the usual delay (because the radio stations are air to ground radio, with no direct communication to the oceanic ATCOs possible, so the A/G operator send the messages from the aeroplane to the oceanic centre, and waits for the reply which he then transmits to the aeroplane) I received the reclearance. At this point I felt that my desire to get to Vagar, although not a requirement for anyone, least of all me, was dashed. I was a little disappointed at that, but living and breathing is more important than a challenge, unless it can be managed safely. As the afternoon wore on and by 35 west, the tailwinds which were forecast gradually picked up and I began to think that it might be possible to make it to Vagar directly again. The winds increased to 90 knots on the tail, and provided they stayed that way it should be possible to make Vagar and land with an adequate reserve of fuel. In order to decide whether that was likely to be a safe option I needed the answers to three questions: 1) Would the winds stay with me as forecast? 2) A confirmation of what time Vagar would close and would I have an adequate margin between my predicted ETA and their closing time? 3) What was the current and forecast weather at Vagar and at Reykjavik and the east coast fields in Iceland? In order to get the answer to those questions, I got on my trusty satellite telephone to Iceland Radio, as by then I was out of VHF range between Greenland and Iceland. I asked if they had traffic at FL200 around 20 west who could be asked for a wind readout; that would answer question 1, and then asked them questions 2 and 3. Within 10 minutes I had my answer: the wind at FL200 at 20 west was 270/90, Vagar closed 90 minutes after my ETA and the weather there was wide open, and forecast to remain so. Given all of that I estimated I would arrive at Vagar after 8 hours and 55 minutes of flying, and that the weather conditions and closing time allowed a safe continuation of the flight, so I asked Iceland radio for a reroute; from 63N30W to 63N20W to 62N10W MY. This was granted just before I arrived at 30 west, so I turned slightly south of the route I would have followed had I been heading to Reykjavik and settled down for another 2 ½ hour’s flying. Not long after crossing 30 west I was told to call Reykjavik Control on 119.7 who gave me a squawk and soon had me radar identified. It’s always nice to get back in a radar environment after a long ocean crossing, you don’t feel quite so alone knowing that there is at least one additional pair of eyes looking at your progress, it’s just a psychological barrier. It’s the same principle as having a ship answer your call on Marine VHF – there is something very comforting in knowing that someone is not too far from you over the ocean. I always plot ship’s positions on my plotting chart with their track and the time of call. At the very least it might show where to turn back to in the event… And so, between 30 and 20 degrees west I passed south of the Icelandic coast as the sun started to set behind me. Reykjavik had by now cleared me direct to the MY NDB, and apart from monitoring the weather reports from Vagar to make sure there was no unforecast deterioration in the weather there was not too much more to do. I kept up my engine monitoring and performance log as much to give keep myself active as anything else. It showed that the engine was running rock steadily, with no variations in any of its parameters, and that the TAS was gradually increasing as the weight reduced. About 10 minutes before top of descent in to Vagar I passed my point of no alternate for east Iceland and was then committed to Vagar. (Well, I might have made Stornoway, which was by then closed, and would have made it on dry tanks, so realistically I had no alternate from 10 minutes before top of descent). This is a normal procedure in long haul flying: continue and delay decision making to as late as possible in case the wind or weather (or serviceability status of aeroplane or destination field) changes. In this case I was content that the weather in Vagar was wide open, there was no other traffic reported, and even if there had been and it had somehow blocked the runway I could have landed on the taxiway, so the “continue” decision was a perfectly proper one. The rest of the flight was a non event. I started downhill under radar control from Reykjavik, but was handed over to Vagar Information about 40 miles out and advised them I would be flying the localizer approach to 13 from the MY NDB. The autopilot handled the localizer capture admirably, and we broke cloud shortly after crossing the MY. N1038V touched down in Vagar 8 hours and 56 minutes after leaving Goose Bay, having made the crossing better than any other production single engine piston aircraft on the market might reasonably have done, and still with 66 minutes of fuel in the tanks, a very creditable achievement. 

N1038V sitting on an icy ramp in Vagar a day after leaving Goose Bay

I did not need to fly the aeroplane to the limits of its performance as I had done; I could have stopped at Reykjavik and continued from Reykjavik to Aarhus the next day (the aeroplane easily had the range to do that in one sector). Fuel and hotels in Vagar are rather more expensive and less convenient than in Reykjavik, but I wanted to show that it was possible to do a trip of this kind in a normal production aeroplane, with no ferry tank of any kind being necessary. The Ovation 2/3 is a tremendously capable and economic aeroplane, as I believe this trip has shown.

© Brian Thompson