Page 29 - Volume 13 Number 8
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inbound to Hawaii – both places had very strong NDBs – as well as simple compass headings based on forecast wind conditions.
Here’s the way Nick really navigated: He followed the jet contrails. I had asked him how he found the way to Hawaii in the 172s he more commonly ferried and that was his answer: Follow the contrails. At night, follow the lights of the overhead jetliners. “But, Nick, what if its cloudy? Then you can’t see the lights or contrails. What then?” I asked. “Oh, it’s never cloudy for very long over the Pacific,” was his somewhat surprising answer. By the way, the 172s and similar airplanes that Nick ferried went VFR, usually in “packs” of three to six airplanes flying in very loose formation, in uncontrolled airspace below 5,000 feet. He told me that he actually preferred flying a 172 or Cherokee to a 310 or Aztec since fuel/ range was much more critical in the twins!
We received our IFR clearance, departed, climbed to 28,000 feet with no need for intermediate leveloffs, enjoyed having the rising sun at our back and tried not to be bothered too much by the groundspeed readout on the DME. It is depressingly slow. As we accelerated into cruise and switched from our standard fuel to using the ferry fuel, all goes well. Our True Airspeed at our heavy weight and conservative power setting is about 240, but we had not yet seen a ground speed over 200. Damn! This was not looking good!
A scale model of BB-294, the Super King Air 200 the author helped ferry to Malaysia.
To be frank, the smart thing to do would have been to tell ATC we needed to return, do a 180 and head back to Oakland. But we didn’t. We were so “chomping at the bit” to head west after our more than twoweek delay, we kept delaying that decision. With so much headwind our “pointofnoreturn” was way far out there. We could fly a long time westbound, fighting the headwind, since the return flight eastbound would be flown in a much shorter time due to the now tailwind providing a much higher groundspeed. At times, our GS dropped below 160 knots. Golly, an 80knot headwind! So much for our “less than 30” forecast.
AUGUST 2019
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 27