N490NW - C172 - California to Hawaii

Dana said:
If it was handled by an outfit specializing in long ferry flights, the bladders and other required equipment would be shipped back to be used again for the next job.

Shipping a 20' container from CA to Hawaii costs around $10K not counting assembly and disassembly.
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Well there ya go then, they had the bladders.
 
Katamarino said:
It's not actually as bad as I thought it would be! Stretching one's legs out into the copilot footwell from time to time really helps, as well as just wriggling around in the seat.
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I had not thought of that on my Alaska trip legs, but you had a little more time on your hands to ponder that on those overwater legs.
However, all those movements, isometrics, exercises, stretching could be extremely important to preventing stagnant blood flow around your body to prevent thrombosis formation and embolization. I also purchased gell seat inserts to lesson the trauma to the derrière.

Also, very important to start out in good physical condition and maintain that when traveling to rest stops on the ground when recovering.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
I think you may be overlooking the obvious. Climbing slowly at or near cruising speed increases overall miles per gallon. I do it often, and I'm not trying to make 2000 miles, just squeezing every drop of fuel for all I can get.
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That is an interesting take on things if actually true. Of course, keeping speed up to altitude is what I’d be doing anyway when over gross for longitudinal control and keeping those CHTs below 380-400. It is a hard concept to accept, barring the exceptional situation, or preferential winds down low, that getting to your cruise altitude the quickest would not be best at getting you to start the most economical fully leaned optimal cruise configuration to extend range, but I’m open to your suggestion.
 
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Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I'm calling BS on this whole thread. First of all, if you look at his so called track on flight aware, most of it is somehow missing? Are we saying he tried to pull a Martha Lunkin? Or, did something else happen? Also, if you look at the takeoff / arrival times, the difference is 14 hours, not the supposed 18 hours. Obviously some kind of conspiracy going on here - most likely involving the "round earthers".
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Are you joking? If so, a smiley would help.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I had not thought of that on my Alaska trip legs, but you had a little more time on your hands to ponder that on those overwater legs.
However, all those movements, isometrics, exercises, stretching could be extremely important to preventing stagnant blood flow around your body to prevent thrombosis formation and embolization. I also purchased gell seat inserts to lesson the trauma to the derrière.

Also, very important to start out in good physical condition and maintain that when traveling to rest stops on the ground when recovering.
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How is flying a light plane that much different than a coach seat?

Oh, the light plane has more room. :D

The longest commercial flight I have taken was 17.5 hours. Non-stop EWR to HLG or the reverse.
 
Pinecone said:
How is flying a light plane that much different than a coach seat?

Oh, the light plane has more room. :D

The longest commercial flight I have taken was 17.5 hours. Non-stop EWR to HLG or the reverse.
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Ha ha, it isn’t. We have all probably heard about folks who have flown commercially in their cramped seat and developed deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. But having the extra empty seat to stretch in sure could help if the stewardess would allow you to. No fear in my GA aircraft to contort and gyrate any way I want:D.
These days however, I actually may be able to stretch farther in my GA single seat than on some of these airliners.YMMV
 
Pinecone said:
How is flying a light plane that much different than a coach seat?

Oh, the light plane has more room. :D
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Well, you can get up and walk the aisle from a coach seat. Or sleep. And however cramped the lav on the plane might be, it offers some advantages over an empty gatorade bottle.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
It is amazing to me that your 182 with its large useful load could actually push you to the (ahem) aft limit. How much extra fuel tank capacity did you carry?
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I have an extra 23 gallons in the wings, and a 160 gallon bladder tank in place of the rear seats - as far forward as it's possible to place it.

20% over gross if all is filled, still well within the 30% allowed by Cessna's type certificate for ferry ops.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
Thanks for participating in the conversation. While I actively followed your flight around the world, I apologize for losing track of you after your engine work and the following Covid madness that altered your flight plans. Obviously, you made it safely back to North America.

Regarding the oil depletion issue, I actually queried you about that when you were in preflight planning. I am glad it was not an issue, but what was your longest non-stop flight segment again?
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The aircraft is actually still in Australia, waiting on Kiribati to decide to re-join the world so I can finally cross the Pacific.

My longest leg so far was 16.5 hours, during testing of the ferry system before departure (Daytona Beach FL to Santa Maria CA). I landed with about 30 gallons remaining; winds were not as favourable as I'd plan on for the real thing, but I did have a lot more diversion options!
 
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Katamarino said:
The aircraft is actually still in Australia, waiting on Kiribati to decide to re-join the world so I can finally cross the Atlantic.

My longest leg so far was 16.5 hours, during testing of the ferry system before departure (Daytona Beach FL to Santa Maria CA). I landed with about 30 gallons remaining; winds were not as favourable as I'd plan on for the real thing, but I did have a lot more diversion options!
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Unfortunately That explains why I wasn’t aware of your journey’s completion.

Did not mean to further open up a festering sore c/o Kiribati ( although this conversation is effectively doing that). I recall that the most challenging overwater legs were yet to come departing Australia. With about 19-20 hrs of fuel, and with so few and far in between suitable stable island airports with 100LL, I would guess alternative routing is critically limited. Too bad shipping a container of fuel to a suitable intermediate island airport out of Kiribati’s jurisdiction was not a practical solution. You no doubt already reviewed the possibilities with a complete change in strategy (just spitballing via New Guinea to Micronesia to Marshals to Hawaii ).

The panoply of complications for you, whether needing to time seasonal preferential winds, or now needing to re-shake down your airplane, or with changing jurisdictional dictates, would be on my mind. I would be pulling my hair out not having my airplane easily at hand to keep up my currency and satisfying my flying fix. Wishing you better tidings.
 
It looks like N686AK is getting ready to do the same thing - any minute now. (As mentioned at the end of Blancolirio's latest video). Also flown by Tom Lopes. Scheduled departure was about 15 minutes ago.

Edit: Just departed at 1637Z - this time it's a C208 Caravan.
 
sonnikaz said:
It looks like N686AK is getting ready to do the same thing - any minute now. (As mentioned at the end of Blancolirio's latest video). Also flown by Tom Lopes. Scheduled departure was about 15 minutes ago.

Edit: Just departed at 1637Z - this time it's a C208 Caravan.
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Blancolirio's latest video explains a lot, although the actual reason for staying at 6k not explained. Was it better winds staying at 6K? Also, I get the feeling the pilot cruised at higher power initially at 6k to keep the IAS up until fuel bladder burn off so as to eliminate the aft of envelope imbalance and not just because of over gross considerations. And using higher power ( full power could mean full cruising power at 75% and not necessarily open throttle) did not negate them leaning ( if 75% or less) to some degree and/or using CHTs as a guide to lean to safe limits before throttling back.

One other observation. If the flight team was truly concerned about range to Hawaii, why depart Merced with full fuel instead of Monterrey Cal, for example which is 80 miles further west.Obviously, not worried but would have increased reserve.
 
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Tom Lopes is very experienced at this stuff. Anyone in this thread questioning his math or legality needs to get over it and respect the damned good aviator he is.

Must be hard to sit 16 hours or whatever in a 172 with that giant pair he has.
 
Todd82 said:
No I respect the hell out of him. I wouldn't cross Lake Michigan in 172 let alone the Pacific.
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I’m not quite sure what your implying, but I think we all respect his skill and expertise.
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I’m not quite sure what your implying, but I think we all respect his skill and expertise.
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A ways up the thread there seemed to be some people questioning the strategy, legality, etc. Because this is POA where *everyone else* must be doing something against regs or as inferior airmanship
 
There are doers, watchers and nay sayers. However, I think most are here to learn how to safely expand their competencies, flying capabilities and adventures. That’s why I(we) fly.
 
Juan Brown posted an excellent follow up video that answers pretty much all the questions posed in this thread. Highly recommended. He has some great photos and videos on it showing the ferry setup.

Particularly amusing is the clip of the pilot getting out of the plane...he looks exactly like you'd expect after 18 hours folded up in a 172. He's quite a bit older than I expected...I was thinking you'd give this job to a 20- something, but apparently he's friends with the flight school owner.

 
MajorTurbulence said:
Thanks for the additional info.

Given that the FAA approves the ferry permits, and while they accept over gross configurations, they must have limits to how much they allow for safety. Also I would guess they would disapprove any configurations that are past the aft balance envelope limit.

Also, I’m curious about inflight oil supplementation systems. My Lycoming O360 burns a quart in 13-14hrs; other engines may not be as thrifty. While I don’t know if flying near 55% power causes more or less oil consumption than usual, this 18 hr flight may have dropped my oil level 1.3 qts. While I usually fly with the dipstick at the 7qt mark since filling to 8 will cause a rapid purge of the first quart without much benefit, I can see that filling to 8(max on dipstick) on this trans-pacific flight would give me something extra. Even so, I could expect the oil level at destination to be around 5.5 qts, which should be OK. However, if the flight was longer, or an engine required 1qt every 5 hrs, one could be 3-4 qts down. Are there oil supplementation systems available just for these types of ferry flights? A quick internet search was not revealing.
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I can't recall their name right offhand but there is a company that specializes in these extended range ferry systems and it appears they've got both the hardware and software as well as the eggheads to work it all out to the satisfaction of the customers, ferry pilots, and FAA.

Barring emergency they only have to make one takeoff at the severely overloaded weight followed by a very low and slow climb to cruising altitude.

Fortunately with the collapsible bladders you get little or no "slosh" so as long as it's properly balanced when installed there should be no problems with a shifting center of gravity in flight.
 
Salty said:
18hrs x 8gph x $5gal =$720
150 gal fuel bladder = $2000
Ferry pilot $50hr x 18 hrs = $900
Ferry pilot return flight = $500
total = $4120

And iMO these are conservative estimates. I bet the bladder(s) and pilot were a lot more than that.

Either they already had the bladders, or they expected shipping delays to be as long as the weather delay would be.
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Good point I don't think anyone else was considering. Even prior to Covid there were serious supply/shipping problems building mainly due to crane operators on the west coast going on strike.

Enter Covid and things got exponentially worse almost overnight and have not really improved much in the last year and a half.

I know a good many ferry pilots. Those on the higher end are making 500.00/day plus expenses so it isn't that bad for a 14-18hr trip.
 
Pinecone said:
How is flying a light plane that much different than a coach seat?

Oh, the light plane has more room. :D

The longest commercial flight I have taken was 17.5 hours. Non-stop EWR to HLG or the reverse.
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You can get out of a coach seat to stretch and flex. The one thing I hate about flying to Africa is that I have to get up and walk around, stretch and flex numerous times during the flight due to some old spinal injuries.

Trying to make a trip like this would be absolute torture for me in a small plane. 4-6hrs in a seat is my absolute max.
 
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