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Capt Stathis Tsagaratos ASe402 USA-Greece trip in a Piper Archer II
( For the hellenic language version of this document click here.)
The trip of America
My story of transatlantic voyage with a light
sigle engined aircraft started around one decade ago !
Year 1993 finds me young pilot in New York
USA. More specifically an Instructor at “West Hampton
The Gabreski” airport with no more than 1000 flight hours in my
logbook. All of them in light single engined aircraft with the exception of
some in light two-engined planes. Time was running fast and my flight
hours were building up really fast since the school I was instructing, had
always lots of students. New York winters are famous… temperatures between
–20 and –10 Celsius were something quite usual…. Long island summers were
quite similar to the greek ones. Of course due to the general area position
CAVOK visibility conditions were transforming to 30-40 meters in a matter of 30
minutes. Perfect weather for REAL IFR training ! Early morning wake-up, briefings, ice
removal from the aircrafts, pre-flight inspetions, flights. Most of them
training. Voyages, voyages, voyages everywhere. In six years time I flew to more
than 19 states and landed in hundreds American airports. In J.F. Kennedy but
also in the small and uncontrolled “Spadaro” airfield. Today even though I
stand one decade away everyone of these flights parade in my memory’s monitor
in a very sweet nostalgic way. I can write pages and why not even books for
these aviational years of mine in US. I do not recall any flight that was 100%
incident free. While I turning the pages of my logbooks from this period, every recorded flight
reminds me of something different…..
School’s base was on Long Island's east side. 10
nautical miles in the North the Atlantic… 4 nm South the Atlantic, east the
Atlantic. The only side that someone was able to fly over land was west. Of
course east of Long island was positioned quite a number of islands. I remember
that I was feeling very good flying to these islands just because as a greek I
thought that “flying over Aegean, over Greece, over my country, would be quite
the same”. Needless to say that in order to make reality such a flight to the
Atlantic islands special preparations and caution
were on the agenda. Not only from the student's, but from the instructor's
side as well. Secure altitudes, headings, times etc Everything demanded to be
treated with special care. Flight over the Atlantic was both an invitation and a
challenge for all of us. Just think that these distances were leading to an
overwater flight of more than 2
hours with single engine at 7000-8000 feet and you will have a good
picture of how we felt !
One day School’s Management “dropped the
bomb”. “ We need to flight-transfer a PIPER ARCHER II in Greece for a client
who has just bought it.” Everyone’s eyes flashed. Strong and indefinite
sentiments. Fear, terror, surprise, passion… Management asked for a
“volunteer pilot” from school staff. Three of us appeared quite crazy to
accept this transfer flight to Greece. Finally luck proved to be on my side and
the trip started to be planned. For a whole month all of us were planning…
Supplies… special flight suit (we calculated that the cabin temperature would
be some 3-4 degrees above Zero Celsius). The possibility of heating the cabin
was early ruled out due to potential poisoning and death from possible carbon
monoxide leak. Light food, not on the nutritional side but on the weight one.
The thought of a co-pilot did not even cross our minds, due to endurance and
performance limitations. ;) Charts… Charts…. Charts…. Properly placed and
easily accessible. Back seats would be taken out so that an extra 25 gals fuel
tank would earn its place inside the cabin to give little Archer the chance to
fly from Greenland to Iceland…. We calculated that I would need some 10
refuelling stops to make it to Athens. First leg was from “Gabreski” (KFOK)
to Portland International in Main (KPWM). In KPWM a small transformation would
be performed in the fuel system and parallely I would pass a two days special
school for the single engine flight over the Atlantic. This way I would earn the
FAA certificate to qualify for this flight. Everything was planned with care as
there was absolutely no margin for error. Tolerating an error in our planning
was a luxury. The airplane passed the 100 hours inspection and engine was
overhauled. Everything was set for our little crazy dream to become true.
Everything except for the aircraft’s owner who finally did not manage to
convince the insurance company that the flight transfer of his aircraft to
Greece was a secure one. So our dream popped and transformed into small pieces.
The plane was dismantled and was transferred to Greece via sea in a not exactly
glorious way, according to my humble opinion.
Flying my flight simulator in VATSIM’s virtual
skies some years later, my old dream seemed to be alive again. The aformh was
serious. Dreamfleet released a very accurate model of ARCHER II. Enough
thinking… Since the chance was not given then, now is the time, I thought. I
dag out“X-ATLANTIC with ARCHER” project files from my library and
preparations started right away.
I decided against using navigation software such as
FS navigator, or even the GPS. I also decided against using utilities such as
Servinfo, Whazzup et. I wanted to make it “AS REAL AS IT GETS”, so I used
only real life aviational sites in order to update my weather data, FSMETEO in
order to fly in real time weather conditions and nothing more.
On February 22nd I filed my plane with 100LL of
fuel and taxied to runway 24…
It took me 43:03 hours in a 4 months time interval
in front of two monitors in order to make it. All legs were flown in x1
acceleration rate in Filght Simulator, as mentioned in ACARS reports and all
chosen altitudes were the ones securing flight autonomy and zero icing. (my poor
Archer II had no anti-icing devices available except for a PITOT HEAT….)
Although FS is not influenced by such phenomenon, I was very much interested to
simulate reality the maximum possible degree.
In the Tirana Albania to Kerkira (Corfu) leg I had the pleasure to be escorted my friend Antonis Kantas (TRA26A)
and after an “enlightened Vectoring” between North Corfu mountains that brought my adrenaline to the red…. KERKIRA APPROACH controller (Who in order to honour my
tour was Aegean Seagull “Boss” Mr Fotis Dimitropoulos) brought me safely down to runway
17 in greek soil.
(Note: The only time that I turned GPS on, because my
adrenaline was a …bit increased and I wanted to have a snapshot of the
“vectoring” !!
I feel very glad that I have brought a small
aviational dream into reality even though a virtual reality.
(Why the sentence above leads me to the well known
ad of a Scottish whiskey ;) )…
I feel more glad though because I flew from America
to Greece with Aegean Seagull colours. I could select the national registration
of Greece (SX) but I have chosen
the callsign of ASE, a virtual airline company which was created with high
spirit from a friend and was manned with serious friends virtual pilots.
With respect to Ase pilots seriousness I dedicate
this voyage to all of them and I suggest them to fly this trip and enjoy the
magic of flying over the Atlantic with small plane without FMS and LNAV.
Just ”heading” hope and love for virtual flying
From : New York The West Hampton
Beach - The Gabreski Airport KFOK
To : Portland International (Mane) KPWM
Block Time : 1:39'
Flight Time : 1:27'
Final Fuel : 86 kg
Spent Fuel : 44 kg
Length : 153 NM
Cumulative Hours: 1:39'
Cumulative N. Miles: 153 NM
From : Portland International (Mane) KPWM
To : Gaspe CYGP
Block Time : 3:02'
Flight Time : 2:53'
Final Fuel : 63 kg
Spent Fuel : 66 kg
Length : 261 NM
Cumulative Hours: 4:41'
Cumulative N. Miles: 414 NM
From : Gaspe - CYGP
To : Goose Bay Canada - CYYR
Block Time : 3:31'
Flight Time : 3:20'
Final Fuel : 40 kg
Spent Fuel : 90 kg
Length : 427 NM
Cumulative Hours: 8:12'
Cumulative N. Miles: 841 NM
From : Goose Bay, Canada - CYYR
To : Narsarsuaq Greenland - BGBW
Block Time : 6:16'
Flight Time : 5:59'
Final Fuel : 59 kg
Spent Fuel : 125 kg
Length : 503 NM
Cumulative Hours: 14:29'
Cumulative N. Miles: 1.344 NM
From : Narsarsuaq, Greenland - BGBW
To : Keflavik, Iceland - BIKF
Block Time : 5:57'
Flight Time : 5:43'
Final Fuel : 00 kg !!!
Spent Fuel : 130 kg
Length : 614 NM
Cumulative Hours: 20:25'
Cumulative N. Miles: 1.958 NM
From : Keflavik, Iceland - BIKF
To : Endinburgh, Scotland - EGPH
Block Time : 5:35'
Flight Time : 5:26'
Final Fuel : 03 kg
Spent Fuel : 127 kg
Length : 612 NM
Cumulative Hours: 26:00'
Cumulative N. Miles: 2.570 NM
From : Endinburgh, Scotland - EGPH
To : Biggin Hill, London UK - EGKB
Block Time : 3:47'
Flight Time : 3:23'
Final Fuel : 46 kg
Spent Fuel : 84 kg
Length : 279 NM
Cumulative Hours: 29:47'
Cumulative N. Miles: 2.849 NM
From : Biggin Hill, London UK - EGKB
To : Schwechat Vienna, Austria - LOWW
Block Time : 5:16'
Flight Time : 5:11'
Final Fuel : 13 kg
Spent Fuel : 117 kg
Length : 572 NM
Cumulative Hours: 35:03'
Cumulative N. Miles: 3.421 NM
From : Schwechat Vienna, Austria - LOWW
To : Rinas Tiranna, Albania - LATI
Block Time : 4:34'
Flight Time : 4:25'
Final Fuel : 25 kg
Spent Fuel : 102 kg
Length : 458 NM
Cumulative Hours: 39:37'
Cumulative N. Miles: 3.879 NM
From : Rinas Tiranna, Albania - LATI
To : Kapodistrias Kerkyra, Hellas, LGKR
Block Time : 1:12'
Flight Time : 1:08'
Final Fuel : 28 kg
Spent Fuel : 23 kg
Length : 85 NM
Cumulative Hours: 40:49'
Cumulative N. Miles: 3.964 NM
From : Kapodistrias Kerkyra, Hellas, LGKR
To : E. Venizelos, Athens, Hellas, LGAV
Block Time : 1:12'
Flight Time : 1:08'
Final Fuel : 28 kg
Spent Fuel : 23 kg
Length : 85 NM
Cumulative Hours: 40:49'
Cumulative N. Miles: 3.964 NM
With honour
Captain Stathis Tsagkaratos
Aegean Airlines RJ100 Fleet
Proud member of Aegean Seagull.
ASE402
For the hellenic language version of this document click here.
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