Planes that will make the Hawaii trip

Several years ago I answered an add looking for pilots to ferry 6 Navajos from Hawaii to South Dakota.

I guess the pay wasn't good since he told me I was the only qualified pilot to respond....:eek: So the plan evolved to him, his business partner and me making 2 trips apiece.

About a week before we were scheduled to leave for Hawaii, I got a call from the guy explaining that the financial backer pulled out. He will call me when he finds financing again....

anxious-waiting.gif


Not sure how I feel making a solo trip across the Pacific now that I am older and supposedly wiser...

(and yes, I have peed in a bottle while flying a Navajo while I was wearing several layers of arctic clothing, and did not spill...)
 
I'm always ready to land by hour 4 of a flight, get out, stretch my legs, empty the bladder. That is just too far for a single hop.
 
Crashnburn said:
Why not put floats on C-172, or similar, and fuel bladders in the floats? You pump the fuel out of the floats first so you have buoyancy in case you need to ditch. Then you don't need to stuff ferry tanks in the fuselage.
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An interesting idea, but the floats would cause so much extra drag that you'd increase the time and thus fuel requirements significantly as well... And you'd still sink if you had to ditch for a good portion of the trip.

Also, don't floats have bulkheads in them to prevent the entire float from filling with water because of a single leak? That would mean some sort of wacky selector to choose from one of your dozen tanks.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
An interesting idea, but the floats would cause so much extra drag that you'd increase the time and thus fuel requirements significantly as well... And you'd still sink if you had to ditch for a good portion of the trip.

Also, don't floats have bulkheads in them to prevent the entire float from filling with water because of a single leak? That would mean some sort of wacky selector to choose from one of your dozen tanks.
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Plus filling the floats with fuel would cause all buoyancy to be gone, and the plane would sink before you ever started it up, assuming a water take off. I want to say floats provide buoyancy of gross wt of the plane plus 60%. So the weight of that 172 would be ~ 2.6 times over published gross.
 
EdFred said:
Plus filling the floats with fuel would cause all buoyancy to be gone, and the plane would sink before you ever started it up, assuming a water take off. I want to say floats provide buoyancy of gross wt of the plane plus 60%. So the weight of that 172 would be ~ 2.6 times over published gross.
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OK, thanks for explaining why it's not a good idea.
 
EdFred said:
Plus filling the floats with fuel would cause all buoyancy to be gone, and the plane would sink before you ever started it up, assuming a water take off. I want to say floats provide buoyancy of gross wt of the plane plus 60%. So the weight of that 172 would be ~ 2.6 times over published gross.
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I was making the assumption it would be amphibious floats and a land takeoff. You'd never get off the water that heavy regardless of where the fuel was.
 
EdFred said:
Plus filling the floats with fuel would cause all buoyancy to be gone, and the plane would sink before you ever started it up, assuming a water take off.
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Gas is lighter than water, the specific gravity is about .75, give or take. You wouldn’t lose all buoyancy. You might lose enough to make it unworkable, though.
 
GaryM said:
Gas is lighter than water, the specific gravity is about .75, give or take. You wouldn’t lose all buoyancy. You might lose enough to make it unworkable, though.
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In 50 - 100 foot seas in the middle of the Pacific it's not buoyant enough for me to be anywhere near it.
 
GaryM said:
Gas is lighter than water, the specific gravity is about .75, give or take. You wouldn’t lose all buoyancy. You might lose enough to make it unworkable, though.
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1.6 * .75 is 1.2, so by my math it would still lose buoyancy*

* when you add the weight of the plane. The floats by themselves would still float.
 
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Mxfarm said:
I’ve got a bunch 7/32 7024 if that will help. :D
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If you needed to weld two ships together, that would sure make a dent in it. Not only will my inverter not run that in 7/32, I don't know if my mask goes dark enough for it, either...
 
Whitney said:
So who is going to go buy 5 decommissioned aircraft carriers, weld them together, and anchor them halfway. Build your own community, and become king or queen.
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Neat concept. It was considered in the late 80's, early 90's in the Gulf of Mexico. Situation: About 800 helicopters supporting energy companies shuttling among a couple thousand structures, ships, mobile drill rigs and most A/C with a fuel endurance about 2.7 hrs. Many operating 150 NM+ from shore.
Solution: Bob Suggs (founder of Petroleum Helicopters Inc) saw a need for a mid ocean refueling, maintenance & chow hall. He located a couple of WW2 escort carriers that USN sold to foreign countries and now they were on the market for scrap.
Concept: Set up a maint facility, fill the ship's avgas tanks with Jet-A, provide wx observations and tow the ship out to sea and anchor it. It was seriously considered.
 
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Maxnr said:
Neat concept. It was considered in the late 80's, early 90's in the Gulf of Mexico. Situation: About 800 helicopters supporting energy companies shuttling among a couple thousand structures, ships, mobile drill rigs and most A/C with a fuel endurance about 2.7 hrs. Many operating 150 NM+ from shore.
Solution: Bob Suggs (founder of Petroleum Helicopters Inc) saw a need for a mid ocean refueling, maintenance & chow hall. He located a couple of WW2 escort carriers that USN sold to foreign countries and now they were on the market for scrap.
Concept: Set up a maint facility, fill the ship's avgas tanks with Jet-A, provide wx observations and tow the ship out to sea and anchor it. It was seriously considered.
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Good idea actually, surprised it wasn't done.

I figure that 5 together should be long enough for people to land and take off from, hold a lot of food, fuel, and living space to build a community on.
 
Why not just use an oil platform, minus all the oil rig stuff. Put a deck over the whole top.

Designed to be permanently anchored.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I was making the assumption it would be amphibious floats and a land takeoff. You'd never get off the water that heavy regardless of where the fuel was.
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The problem I see with that is that if you make it all the way, you don't need the floats anyway. If you do need the floats, you have no control over when, and if they're still full or mostly full of fuel, now it's a really bad day.
 
Pinecone said:
Why not just use an oil platform, minus all the oil rig stuff. Put a deck over the whole top.

Designed to be permanently anchored.
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Lets look at that. First, those structures have a fraction of the deck area of a five hundred foot "Jeep" carrier. The carrier also has a whole other hangar deck. More business possibilities.

I don't think there are any unused (abandoned) structures in US waters. The Dept Of The Interior requires that when those wells stop producing, the wells must be plugged and abandoned (P & A) by a strict procedure. The platform or structure must be removed without harming endangered turtles or other sea animals. Don't hurt Flipper.

Bob Suggs's plan was do-able but never got off the ground

I've provided helicopter support when this was done. A large barge mounted crane in the 1,000 ton plus capacity is hooked up. The legs are severed below the mud line with explosives. No joke, a diver descends inside the large, tubular legs and plants the C-4. A helicopter search pattern is done looking for Flipper. If all clear, the charges are blown for all 4 or 6 or 8 legs at once. The crane loads the structure on a barge and transported to a ship yard to be refurbed.

The average water depth for the GOM is over 5,000ft. Any anchoring of vessels has to be done in the area of the Offshore Continental Shelf. Can be 500 ft deep and extend more than 100NM from the "beach." You know you have left the cont. shelf when your chart says "Beware, there be dragons here".
 
Albany Tom said:
If you needed to weld two ships together, that would sure make a dent in it. Not only will my inverter not run that in 7/32, I don't know if my mask goes dark enough for it, either...
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Company in Michigan makes specialty electrodes. They've got a 3/4" 1000amp stick rod. Nuclear Meltdown.
 
Maxnr said:
He located a couple of WW2 escort carriers
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Ha, his legend continues. It was closer to the mid-80's as Suggs died in '89 and the vessels were actually a couple single-hull oil tankers he wanted to use which could no longer be used to transport oil. They were to be floating field bases to service the "new" up and coming deep water exploration. However, the concept failed due a number of reasons to include the industry tanked, technology and directional drilling started to become integrated, and some newer model aircraft had the range to meet the initial requirements. Plus no other operator was going to stop at one of those places and fill up.

Besides, once the oil companies got their sheet straight they found they could hit blue water due south of Venice in about 75 miles. And as a FYI, there are still over 2000 abandoned wells/rigs slated to be P&A'd as we speak but they're all on the Shelf and basically useless for anything else. The fly overs are still required before demo however not for Flipper's benefit but for the benefit of the turtles. Heaven help if one of them pops up belly up. Film at 11.
 
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Racerx said:
Company in Michigan makes specialty electrodes. They've got a 3/4" 1000amp stick rod. Nuclear Meltdown.
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That sounds like the steak that John Candy sat down in front of, in Uncle Buck I think. If you can run this rod...
 
Maxnr said:
Lets look at that. First, those structures have a fraction of the deck area of a five hundred foot "Jeep" carrier. The carrier also has a whole other hangar deck. More business possibilities.

I don't think there are any unused (abandoned) structures in US waters. The Dept Of The Interior requires that when those wells stop producing, the wells must be plugged and abandoned (P & A) by a strict procedure. The platform or structure must be removed without harming endangered turtles or other sea animals. Don't hurt Flipper.
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I was talking about the one in the Gulf, not the middle of the ocean.

Why do you need all that space if is just a refueling stop?

For the flight deck use, Navy helicopter can fold their rotors, and in some cases, fold that tail rotor down. So most civilian helicopters would not be able to be moved below.

I was not talking about one hooked to a well. Just start with the platform. It is designed to be anchored in deep water and stable when anchored. For a carrier, anchoring is typically only in a sheltered harbor.
 
Pinecone, are you referring to one of those semi submersable floating drill rigs? You know, the ones that have a day rate in the seven figures? It would be neat if you can just anchor anywhere in GOMEX. Just make sure that the 2.5 by 3 NM lease block that you picked is not already taken.
I regret that Mr Suggs didn't consult with me during one of our several conversations. He did not, however lay out any cash on the idea.
 
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Pinecone said:
Just start with the platform. It is designed to be anchored in deep water and stable when anchored.
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FWIW: that ship has sailed with the current models flying deepwater. And while there are offshore platforms now with fuel for the smaller field aircraft, most of the heliports on those platforms could not handle the weight of the larger deepwater fleet.
 
Will insurance companies sell a life ins policy with me as beneficiary, on the life of someone I'm not related to and barely know?
 
Bell206 said:
FWIW: that ship has sailed with the current models flying deepwater. And while there are offshore platforms now with fuel for the smaller field aircraft, most of the heliports on those platforms could not handle the weight of the larger deepwater fleet.
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As a matter of fact, when I was flying a BH 214 Super Transporter, there were only two offshore refueling locations that could handle our 17,500 lbs and were east of Morgan City. The good news is I had the "legs" to go real deep offshore and didn't need gas stops. I used to know the pilot for the North Slope Borough (Alaska) 214-ST. Theirs was mainly used for air ambulance work. Their North Slope Borough area was 600 miles wide. They had Aux tanks.
 
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