Friday, August 25, 2023

Iceland to Greenland

 I was talking with my dad about my mom and other things during the long hours of the flight from Iceland to Greenland.  Both of us were well rested, and I was not anxious and imagining all sorts of worst-case scenarios as I was during the flight from Scotland to Iceland.  Even though the crossing was far more remote than that from Scotland and at 892 statute miles or 775 nautical miles it was a long haul over a very lonely, forbidding sea and even more remote and forbidding land. I was relaxed and just enjoyed driving the airplane. I was again
PIC, dad saying that he preferred me to fly as his reaction times were slower than they used to be and he'd rather just take it easy and let me do the flying while he handled the radios and navigation and kept the dead reckoning plot.  So he occupied the right seat and helped keep an eye on things.  I set the cruise at 186 knots with a 48gph burn -- 1925 rpm, manifold pressure 28.8 inches -- and, despite a little rough weather en route that required altitude changes, reduced speed and tightened safety harnesses, we were dropping into the pattern for Nuuk a little more than four-and-a-half hours after wheels up at Reykjavik, thanks to a brisk tail wind.  There was a lot of cloud cover over Greenland, so there wasn't much to see, but I was surprised to note how mountainous it was.  I had expected it to be a flat, icy plain.

The approach to Nuuk grabbed my attention as the terrain, rising rapidly to over 5,000 feet in less than a mile, allowed only a circling approach to the airfield from over the fjord.   As I made our descent, dropping through overcast on instruments, we encountered ice that built up rapidly.  Thank God we had the original de-icing equipment -- many 18 owners have removed it for various reasons, but dad has kept our Beech as it was originally, an all-weather airplane.  So we had de-icing for the propellers, pitot tubes, wings and horizontal stabilizer which I employed with alacrity and relief. Great chunks of ice flew off the wings and ice flung from the propellers rattled against the fuselage.  I was glad to see it go.  I hated to imagine how we would have faired without our de-icers.   I shut the de-icing boots down as I made short final to runway 23 -- 3,100 feet long -- since they mess with the shape of the air foil as they inflate and deflate.  It's not a problem at higher speeds but once you approach stall speed, you don't want that happening. But we were getting ice even as I turned on to final, so I kept cycling them on when the ice built up, then off when it broke off, then on ... as long as I dared. There was only 2 knots of wind dead ahead and I came in at 2,000 rpm and 20 inches, 45 degrees of flaps, crossing the fence at 75 knots, settled in like a butterfly and rolled out in less than 650 feet.  My dad said, "Now that's the way it should be done!"  Oh, man, I was so pleased with myself.  Take a bow, Wanda!

It was still before noon and we debated whether we should just have lunch, gas up and be on our way to Goose Bay -- I had decided we'd go to the Goose rather than the Gander as it was a lot shorter distance to travel -- but since I figured that I would never visit Greenland again, I should spend a little time here.  In any case, there was some snafu with the avgas bowser and we weren't able to gas up until around four.  That gave dad plenty of time to go over the airplane and make sure everything was all shipshape and Bristol fashion while I found us a hotel and did a little sight-seeing. I was glad I had bought a nice comfy sweater in the Shetlands because boy did I need it. It was mos' def' chilly, in the forties, the air damp with occasional fine rain spitting down.  

Alas, the only accommodations I  could find had only one room left -- there was not a lot of choice -- so dad and I had to bunk together.  I was not looking forward to the snoring.  Heh.   We had a rather too Nordic-style dinner (oh, for a real cheese burger and some curly fries!) at a local joint that offered a live band (energetic Europop), where I got asked to dance by every example of Nordic maleness in the vicinity  -- and gladly accepted. Then we plodded back to our hotel and after planning our route for the morrow and me giving dear old dad a neck and shoulder massage, we hit the hay and, both tireder than we realized, immediately fell soundly asleep, each snuggled deep into our feather down comforters.