Greenland to Labrador and Vermont

We left Nuuk before dawn heading south by southwest for Goose Bay, Labrador, about 707 nautical miles away.  I'd never imagined a time when I would head south and travel hundreds of miles in that direction to get to Canada.  We encountered ice on the climb out, including on the windshield, but broke out of it as we passed through 6,000 feet on our way upstairs.  I wanted to get across the Labrador Sea as soon as possible -- I was sick of these long ocean crossings, deep down they made me anxious -- so I again set our cruise at 186 knots.  That would get us to Goose Bay with plenty of reserve and still provide a quick crossing.  There's no radar coverage between Nuuk and Goose Bay: the controllers rely on radioed position reports from the pilot and then keep track of the aircraft by hand-moving markers across a map. That must have been the way they did it back during World War II, when Goose Bay was a refueling stop on the North Atlantic ferry route to Britain.  Flying a World War II-era airplane over this sort of Oregon Trail of the air did encourage my mind to muse over that long-gone era.  I'd read that the loss rate of aircraft on this route was 10 percent, mostly due to weather-related accidents, which was not encouraging.  But then I recalled reading somewhere that the average new pilot assigned to a squadron back then had between 300 and 400 hours total flight time in his log, and it is well known that the danger range for pilot-error accidents is between 300 and 1,000 hours, apparently because pilots gain too much confidence after getting comfortable flying and get too cocky, thinking they are experienced and can handle whatever happens.  But after they've gotten a thousand hours under their belt and encountered a few moments of the legendary sheer terror, they become humble and cautious.  Me?  I was always figuring I'd lose the critical engine just as I was in a steep turn into it and planning what I'd do.  I also imagined what I'd do should both engines quit.
Looking down at that windswept sea, I could see white caps and patches of sea fog and now and then an ice berg, some with breakers tumbling against them sending spumes of foam and spray into the air.  It was kind of a relief when we flew over an undercast that blocked the view of the ocean below, and when it rose to near our height and we began flying in and out of clouds with the sunlight causing sparkling shadows (I know, a contradiction, but true) among the towering pillars and bulging battlements, I forgot all about the menacing deep below us.

Once we were well on our way, I noticed dad beginning to doze so I suggested he go lie down and have a snooze in the cabin. He patted me on the shoulder as he climbed out of his seat and stepped back into the cabin to settle in on the couch and wrap himself up in the wool blanket I'd bought in Iceland.  I turned on the cabin heat to get a little warmth back there for him and adjusted the trim a bit to account for the weight shift.  And then, once again, I was alone in the cockpit with the drone of the engines, my eyes in a routine scan of the instruments, listening to the radios for whatever traffic there was, watching our progress on the GPS,  keeping up the dead reckoning chart and comparing it with that, radioing position reports on the HF from time to time.  The minutes ticked away and my mind began to free wheel.

Gramps in England.

I wondered if my New England grandfather had flown this route on his way to Britain back in 1944 or had taken a troop ship.  He had been on a ship heading for the Philippines with his fighter squadron, which had trained on P-35s, when the Japanese attacked Pearl  Harbor and the convoy of the ship he was aboard was diverted to Australia.  He had been looking forward to meeting up with his brother, whom I've written about, who was already stationed in the P.I., also flying P-35s, but with a different pursuit group.  In Australia, the squadron was equipped with P-40s and sent to defend the Northern Territories against the Japanese bombing campaign, then sent up to New Guinea to fight the Japs there.  In late 1942, he was sent home and worked at a training command until, in 1944, being assigned to a fighter group flying P-51s out of England.  He participated in the first fighter-escorted daylight bombing raid against Berlin in March of that year.  I've written about the rest of his career in earlier posts.  My other grandfather, about whom I've also written, was also at sea when war broke out, aboard the Lexington (CV-2), and, flying an F4F, participated in raids against the Japanese in New Guinea early in 1942 and later flew during the Guadalcanal campaign, so my two grandpas at one point in the war almost had their paths intersect.  They also both fought against the Japanese Navy's Tainan Kokutai, probably encountering the same pilots, guys like Hiroshi Nishizawa, Toshio Ohta, and, famous thanks to Martin Caidin, Saburo Sakai. Of course, they didn't know each other at the time, or know that their children would meet and marry.  My New England grandfather, flying his P-40E  battling Betty bombers flying out of Timor to batter Australia, never got shot down but, as I've written about before, my other grandfather, his F4F torn apart by 20mm cannon fire from Zeros, was shot down at sea and not rescued for 37 days.  But not before he had put some hurt on Mr. Moto.  Well, that's what my men do -- fight. 

They are warriors.  Isaac Coates, General Winfield S. Hancock's surgeon, met one of my northern Cheyenne ancestors in the 1860s and wrote of him, "He is one of the finest specimens, physically, of his race. He is quite six feet in height, finely formed with a large body and muscular limbs. His appearance was decidedly military. A seven-shot Spencer carbine hung at the side of his saddle, four large Navy revolvers were stuck in his belt, and a bow, already strung with an arrow, was grasped in his left hand. Thus armed and mounted on a fine horse, he was a good representative of the God of War, and his manner showed plainly that he did not care whether we talked or fought." My boys are hellions, too, and will doubtless grow up to be just like all the other men in the family. 

From these thoughts, my mind drifted to Vikings and their voyages in open boats over these waters more than a thousand years ago, comparing their difficulty to that of the South Seas cruises of the Polynesians to discover lush, tropical paradises. They're often admired while the Viking explorations across a cruel sea to make landfall on forbidding shores girded with ice and backboned by active volcanoes tend to be taken for granted. I also thought about how the characters of nationalities change.  Scandinavians once were the terrors of Europe, looting and pillaging across the continent.  But today they are total patsies, victimized by so-called refugees, lesser breeds without the law, as Kipling would have called them, that their ancestors would have cleaved in half with broadswords.  And pretty much the same is true of Germans; only a few generations ago the saying in Europe was, I've been told, that one German was a tourist, two a factory and three an army.  No more. At least not the third part. 

 The weather cleared as we neared Goose Bay.  We dropped in on Runway 08 well before noon, wind 8 knots at 60 degrees, gusting to 15.  All routine. The airport is much smaller and much less used than that at Gander, with, concomitantly, fewer amenities.  But it did have customs, which we cleared quickly.  We had lunch at Le Airport Cafe.  I was surprised to see tonkatsu on the menu so ordered that. It was okay.  Dad ordered stirred-fried chicken and said it was good.  I was going to spear a piece to try but he smacked my hand away and told me if I wanted some to order my own.  Meanie! Then he relented and let me try a piece and I let him try my pork. We both said at the same time that we should have ordered what the other had and laughed.  The counterman smiled at us. After lunch, we took a walk to stretch our legs, and, having seen the vicinity from the air and feeling no desire to linger, we decided to take off for Burlington, Vermont, once the Beech was gassed up and the oil topped off.  So I took care of the planning and paperwork for that while dad went off to supervise the refueling, which took longer than expected because the service guys brought the wrong grade of oil and had to go back and find what we needed...always something.  While he waited, dad took the opportunity to give the plane a thorough once over.  When I had finished filing our flight plan and getting the latest weather, I went out to the flight line to see how things were going.  Dad didn't need my help for anything so I just paced around, expecting soon to be on our way.  It was in the 50s and the uninterrupted breeze on the ramp was cutting right through me. I finally decided to go back to the cafe and get a cup of coffee and wait there, telling dad to come and get me when everything was done.  I was glad I did, because I waited there for well over an hour. For much of that, I was the only customer. The counterman was French-Canadian and friendly, probably a little bored.  We chatted in a mixture of English and French, then switched entirely to French.  I thought it interesting that in Europe I'd had no opportunity to speak French, but in Canada, I did.  We talked about the current world situation and he said that in recent years Montreal had gone to hell and he had left to get away from...well, you know....  I told him that when I was in England I had been told that there was a game the natives played in London called "Spot the White Man."  He laughed, then shook his head and sighed.  About that time my dad came in and, chilled to the bone from being outside in a light windbreaker for so long, ordered a coffee.  It was getting late in the day, the weatherman said scattered thunderstorms in the Burlington area, with high winds and hail possible, and we had 730 nautical miles to fly, making it a very long day in the air, so dad gulped down his coffee and, leaving a generous tip in American dollars, we trotted over to our mechanical Pegasus, fired that mother up and launched into the wild blue yonder heading southwest at our usual 186 knots, so with climb and descent, figure total flying time around five hours plus and it was already past five p.m.  So we'd be coming into BTV after dark and I'd have my first night landing on this trip.  I knew it would be okay, but I still wasn't looking forward to it.

In the cockpit, we were much more comfortable because -- finally! -- we didn't have to wear those clunky immersion suits.  Aside from crossing the St. Lawrence River estuary, we'd be over dry land from now on.  I felt a great relief.  I hadn't realized just how anxious I was about crossing all that ocean, but now I felt a kind of elation.  The worst was over.  This night I would sleep in a bed in the good old Estados Unidos.  We were practically home! 

The flight was uneventful but interesting, seeing all that green for a change, forest and forest and forest. There's a lot of miles and miles of miles and miles in that part of Canada.  As we got farther south we began to encounter thunderstorms. We were able to steer  around the worst of them, but we did hit some turbulence. Pop stayed in the right seat and did good co-pilot work.  I was grateful that he did, especially once the sun set.  I think I was getting fatigued at a deep level, all the flying of the last days finally catching up with me.  I knew dad must be more bone-weary than me, having flown over to Europe as well as back.  With darkness came lights winking on below us as isolated farms, towns and crossroad stores lit up.  As we neared the international border a solid overcast slid over the sky above us and scattered clouds appeared at our altitude.  Without the instruments to guide me, it would have been easy to get vertigo because the lights below seemed like stars while the blackness above seemed like the earth. I had the weird sensation that I was flying upside down.  I banished it by keeping my eyes on the instruments and checking our progress on the GPS.  Once, when I stepped back into the cabin to make us coffee while dad took the wheel I peered out the window and saw St. Elmo's fire glowing blue along the leading edge of the wing and on the propeller making it look like a blue disc.  As I watched, it faded away.  When I got back to my seat, I mentioned it to dad and he said there had been some electrical discharges flickering across the windscreen while I was in the cabin.  Just as he said that, a brilliant flash of lightning lit up the cockpit like a strobe light.  There went our night vision.  After that we saw more lightning flashes, but they were always inside clouds and sometimes their light appeared to be green with tinges of red.  The old Beech got tossed around quite a bit but shortly we swept out of the storm into smooth air, leaving the lightning and St. Elmo's fire behind us.  Suddenly, I felt hungry.

As we approached BTV we dropped through a solid overcast at 6,000 feet, then scattered clouds at 4,000 but otherwise it was clear, visibility 10 miles, wind out of the south-southwest, 220 degrees at 11 knots, gusting to 21.  I set down on Runway 19, dad singing out the numbers and handling the landing gear and flaps as I call for them, drifting down gently into the pattern, turning on to base at 800 feet with 15 degrees of flaps and 100 knots on the dial, then 45 degrees of flaps as I turn on to final.  I pull the throttles back a tad, push the prop levers all the way forward, nudge the nose down slightly and we're crossing the threshold, dad calling 80 knots. I pull the throttles all the way back and we settle to earth, the  mains touching the runway with the tail slightly down. I push the yoke forward a tad and hold it till at 50 knots the tail begins to settle, then pull the yoke back all the way into my lap, adding a little power on the left engine to keep her straight. I unlock the tail wheel, turn off the runway and taxi to the ramp, the Wasps rumbling at 800 rpm, brake to a halt, pull the fuel mixture levers from full rich to idle cut-off.  The engines stutter, the spinning propellers slow to a stop, then silence. "Nice," my dad says.  We look at each other and smile.

We cleared customs and immigration briskly, then arranged to have the plane serviced, gassed up and ready to go first thing in the morning. We'd reserved a suite at the Hilton and thought we'd get something to eat at the airport restaurant before calling for their shuttle -- I was famished and dad said he wouldn't mind a bite -- but the restaurant was closed.  On the ride to the hotel, we asked the driver if there was any place to eat because the hotel only served breakfast. He said the good restaurants in the area closed by 10.  But he did know a "greasy spoon" along the way that closed officially at 11 but actually stayed open as long as there were customers.  It was a family-owned joint that had been in business forever and catered mostly to locals.  We offered to buy him a burger if he'd drive us there so we could order take-out. He said our wish was his command and off we went.

I ordered two pints of fries (they came in not small and large but pint and quart sizes), a milk shake and a cheese burger.  Dad ordered a pepper steak and fries.  I wanted a small salad as well, but they said they were about out of the fixings and were saving them for burger orders.  While we waited for dad's pepper steak I munched on my fries and drank my shake.  I was so hungry I couldn't wait to get to the hotel before eating.  But I was saving the other pint of fries for a snack if I got hungry during the night.  The driver and I chatted desultorily, he, hunched forward, one arm protectively around his meal, polishing off his root beer float, cheeseburger, quart of fries and pint of onion rings in double-quick time, as if he were afraid we'd change our minds and seize his grub for ourselves.  He asked where we had flown in from and I thought about saying Scotland, but instead said Canada.  He nodded, inquiring no further. He mentioned that the tourists were coming back now that the Covid scare was over and most of the hotels were booked through Labor Day and we were lucky to have gotten a room. I asked how the weather had been.  He said hot as usual, it being summer after all. It was a little more humid than a typical summer, he did believe. Then the conversation petered out. Dad was talking with the counterman and laughed at something he said.  I looked out the window.

The hotel was a pleasant change from the dumps we had been staying at, the suite like a two bedroom apartment. Dad's bedroom had a king-size bed and mine had two queen-size beds. There was a kitchenette and fully-stocked minibar, a honking big flat screen TV and some really comfy chairs.  The air conditioning was on and it was needed as it was around 80 degrees, quite a contrast with the weather we had been used to.  Dad and I sat down at the kitchenette table and chowed-down, microwaving our sandwiches and fries a few seconds to warm them up.  We talked about laying over a day to rest up and take a look around the town but we were so tired we couldn't decide.  So, after finishing up our meal, we said good-night.  I took a long hot shower and crawled in the sack. Oh, so comfy.  I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew, it was morning.