2 days to go and we are about ready for the trip over the Atlantic. Yesterday Achim packed the last emergency items including the inquipment we would need in case of a unforeseen landing somwhere in either the Ocean or the Ice of Greenland. Current plan (if weather allows) is to start from Stuttgart to France (Touquet) to meet up with a group of other TBM pilots. From there the group will fly together to Iceland where we have a night to prepare for the leg from Reykiavik over the Ocean to Greenland (Ilulissat). The Airport there is a bit of a challenge as its runway is only 800m long (normal international airports have at least double the length) and only offers visual approaches. This combined with rather un-predictable greenlandish weather might be a challenge but we will only know once in Iceland on the day before the flight if doable or not. If not we do have a well equiped airport closeby as an alternate.
The plan then foresees to leave Greenland on the same day with a second leg to Iqalit (Candada) where we plan to stay overnight and prepare for the final legs into the US (Michigan for immigration) and from there to Oshkosh.
Oshkosh during the AirVenture week becomes one of the busiest airports with the highest airplane density in the world and with planes arriving and departing every minute in parallel to flight shows the coordination brings some specialities (go to youtube and search for OSHKOSH Arrival).
The OSHKOSH arrival briefing is a quite impressive document in terms of pages and there are numerous, different approach procedures. We will go for the so called “Warbird” approach intended for fast TurboProps and as the name suggests warbirds. Once there pilots need to place a printed piece of paper including a code with the designated parking position (that had to be booked in advance) in the cockpit window so marshallers on the ground can direct the thousands of planes to the right parking area. Without proper preparation there is no chance to get into the airport.
We plan to arrive Tuesday evening when the airport opens again after the flight shows and then enjoy the OSHKOSH spirit. We reserved a RV (camper van) for the week and will keep you posted about our explorings.
So we are good to go and well prepared. The only thing we can`t influence is the weather and we will have to take it as it comes.
