The planning Phase of this
Roundtrip
I purchased
this beautiful
travelling machine, a
Comanche 260C
(HB-PON), some 15 years
ago in the
USA, St. Louis, Mo. When I took
delivery, the aircraft
was in
absolute pristine shape, and it had just over 1,000 hours since
leaving the factory new. To
bring my newly acquired toy
back to Europe, I ferried
the aircraft across the
Atlantic,
via the Azores Islands to my home country Switzerland.
Since then, I have spent many happy hours
flying in the Swiss Alps,
throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Other flying highlights
were, when visiting the AirVenture in Oshkosh USA with
a bunch of European Comanche Affectionados in 1995, and an unforgettable
108-hour
flight around Africa with my
wife Anne, in 1998.
Good maintenance and perfect upkeep of
my Comanche over the
years was always a top priority for me. As the aircraft
total hours since new steadily
approached the 2,000-hour mark,
I started to investigate, where I
could best get a professional overhaul of my engine, as well'as a whole
list of
overhauls,
modifications and upgrades done to my
aircraft.
After a
long search, I decided to fly HB-PON to Johnston Aircraft
Service in Tulare, California, to have all the
work performed by Comanche specialists.
The
planning phase
for this long range trip to California and back
There were two scenarios possible for me to get
all this done:
Either leave Switzerland in early spring, and take the South
Atlantic route via West Africa,
South America, the Caribbean, and on to the
United States, to leave
HB-PON in California for the work, which would take at least three to
four months.
Returning back home would require taking
the
North Atlantic route via Northern
Canada, Greenland and Iceland
(the
best period with good
chances of reasonable weather and the least
icing conditions, which is between July
and September), or doing all this in
reverse, starting in early August
via the North Atlantic
first and
then taking the southern
route
starting in November to
return back
home in early December.
Due
to professional commitments in my company,
the decision was made to start the
planned trip with my friend and
fellow pilot, Olivier Reymond
at the beginning of August, and fly my Comanche to the
United States via the North
Atlantic - Greenland route.
Countless
arrangements had to be made in
advance before our departure. We had to
get special personal entry visas, as
well as entry and flight
permissions for HB-PON for the United States from the Department of Homeland Security
- an unbelievable administrative, time-consuming and
costly nightmare,
to say
the least!
The Swiss
Federal
Aviation Authorities requested
substantial
modifications to the installation of my 100-gallon ferrytank,
which I had initially installed in
the
United States in Bangor, Maine on the
occasion of my first
Atlantic crossing in
1991. They were
requiring, amongst a number of other things, the
mounting structure for
the ferry tank to withhold at
least 9 Gs, in case of a forced landing or a
crash situation. A whole R&D project had
to
be
started with the local FAA,
experts, consultants, and
aircraft mechanics.
Three
months and a whole bundle
of dollars lighter, the project finally
ended with a Swiss FAA-approved Airplane
Flight Manual supplement of 12 pages,
legally allowing me to use this ferry tank
from now on whenever I needed it. Both the medical examination
and the annual half-day IFR
skill test were due
just
before our departure date, and a box full of maps and approach plates had to be ordered from Sporty's
and
Jeppesen for the 31,000
kilometer
round
trip.
