Pumping 550 liters (150 gallons) of fuel by hand in remote Kuujjuaq, Canada, after flying through the night to make up for a delay due to hurricane Danielle
The first leg of the Atlantic crossing was next. We thus brought inside the cabin our survival equipment: an inflatable raft, wet suits and vests, and special food an water that should last an entire week.
Click on the arrow for more »»»Landing in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, after flying past the yacht of Russian billionaire Abramovich
Click on the arrow to see the amazing scenery prior to the landing »»»Landing for our first event, remnants of hurricane Danielle again. We had to disappoint those waiting for us and postpone the flights for the following day.
Click on the arrow for more »»»Stronger than expected headwinds made us fly with our eyes glued to the fuel indicators for over 5 hours.
Here we're just passing Shetland island, our last potential stop before reaching Norway.
Click on the arrow for more »»»A relatively minor, but potentially serious problem in one of the engines makes us cancel our Sweden stop. After looking throughout Europe for a place where the plane could be fixed quickly, we end up in Finland, where we were very lucky to find excellent mechanics.
Click on the arrow for more »»»Getting landing approval in Russia seemed impossible, and took us weeks of calling everyone we knew in the aviation business.
Once there, we realized that getting out may take as long. Russian beaurocrats had us in Moscow not in Saint Petersburg, despite the close monitoring of Russian air controllers on our way in. That made them tell us we can't leave until thy figure out why we're in St Peteresburg!
Here with the smiling Russian handler, after spending a full day getting our approval to take off.
Click on the arrow for more »»»Tallinn, Estonia, after landing from Russia, Estonian authorities abandoned us on the tarmac. After waiting for half an hour, we decided to walk out of the airport, and ended up walking into the EU! Customs agents called us hours later after they realized they forgot to check our passports, asking us to come back so they would not get in trouble.
Click on the arrow for more »»»Chisinau, Moldova: the Minister of health, TV crew, two girls with MS sitting the plane ... tower tells us we can't take off and can't tell us why. Calls to the minister of transportation, defence ... two hours go by and it's not clear why we can't fly.
In Moldova, the poorest country by far in Europe, private planes are almost unheard of and they didn't know what to do about us. In the end, it turns out they had a problem with the TV cameras on the plane ... but after the 2 hours we were allowed to film on board also!
Click on the arrow for more »»»Iasi, Romania: the fuel we needed can't be found in Moldova (our previous stop) and parts of Romania. So, with 2 TV crews and four young ladies with MS waiting we realized we cannot fly and get to our next destination.
We called several nearby airports, but no luck.
Then, without even giving us his name, a private pilot offered to fly each of the girls in his little plane. Flying in Europe is very expensive, yet he offered to spend a few hundred dollars without even being asked.
Only late we learned that the name of the generous pilot is Razvan Apetrei
Click on the arrow for more »»»Danube Delta, Romania: Fule management is a critical part of flying. And the number one cause of small plane crashes.
In Moldova, we flew just 15 minutes longer than planned. Add to that stronger winds on the way to Tulcea, by the Danube Delta, a natural wonder, and en route we started considering an emergency landing at the nearest airport, which was in Ukraine. After our experience in Russia this was not a desired situation.
Our digital fuel monitors told us we could make it, even if with the minimum legal reserves, but you can't tak risks. So we stayed very high until close to the aiport, and then we literally dove abrubtly to the airport.
Once we landed both engines stopped completly! We said "really?", thinking we just ran out of fuel. We hit restart, and then found out our calculations were right and we had at least 30 minutes of fuel, but rapid cooling once we pulled the power stopped the engines.
Click on the arrow for more »»»Istanbul, Turkey: the second least friendly country to small private planes. With 3 TV crews and people with MS we were told we can only fly back to Croatia, where we came from.
After some head-scratching, we found the solution: take off to Croatia, fly fo 15 minutes, then declare emergency, and come back to the same airport.
First time we did it, it did get noticed. But we did the same thing on the second flight! However, there was nothing air controllers could do, as declaring emergency is only the pilot's judgement, and they have to accomodate that. A little loophole that came in handy.
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