Flight 59 : Wiscasset, ME to Jacksonville, FL

Date: Tuesday May 26th, 2009

Departure: 16:55 local time

Routing: Right down the East Coast of USA: Newport - Hartford - New York - Norfolk - Wilmington - Myrtle Beach - Savannah - Jacksonville.

Aircraft: Eastern Airlines Q-400

Altitude: 4,000 feet

Miles: 1,100

Arrival Stats: Arrived after 3.5 hours in the air - just after sunset at 20:27 local time. This equates to 310 mph average - I thought it would have been a bit higher ...

Notes: I was SHOCKED! Wiscasset Maine kept me there two weeks - what a great little place! Anyway, back to flying .... There was certainly more to see and do today - lots of time tuning VORs into the radio! I flew down the eastern seaboard over some better-known cities. Finally I enjoyed the sunset near Savannah, Georgia and just 73 miles later I landed in Jacksonville - Nuclear Powerplant shortly before finals.

Flight 58 : Gander to Fuel Range

Date: Tuesday May 12th, 2009

Departure: 05:00 local time

Routing: Down the Eastern shore to see how far I get ...

Aircraft: Canada JAZZ Q-200

Altitude: 4,000 feet
Miles: 718

Arrival Stats: Arrived into Wiscasset Maine at 07:10. With the time change this is 3.2 hours or 224 mph

Notes: After a couple of days in Gander I was ready to head south. I had no real idea how far I was going to make it, just took off and headed southwest along the coastline. Being so far north, things seemed pretty bleak up here and the early morning light provided little color below. I flew over New Foundland and Prince Edward Island, through a couple of storm fronts, nothing big, finally putting down in a cute little village called Wiscasset. ("The prettiest little village in Maine - on the National Historic Registry since 1973)

Flight 57 : Sumbaugh UK to Gander Newfoundland

Date: Thursday into Friday May 7-8, 2009

Departure(s): From Sumbaugh at 19:00 GMT

From Iceland at 22:09 GMT

From Greenland at 01:18 GMT

Routing: Hop-Scotch across the North Atlantic

Aircraft: Air Labrador Q-200

Altitude: 19,000

Miles: 2,091

Arrival Stats: Including the brief stop-overs for gas, stretch and bathrooms it took 9.8 hours to cover the full distance. Average then is 213 mph.

Notes: I had good weather and generally clear skies for my Atlantic Crossing.Seems like it took the sun a long time to set but once it did I had a real treat - about 3 hours of Arora Borealis! Finally I arrived into Gander for the weekend - 'round midnight or 1 AM local time Friday morning.

My plan now was to head

south into the Caribbean and

South America. I was looking

forward to views like this.

Flight 56 : Innsbruck to Sumbaugh, Shetland Islands

This leg will be much easier to just do in narrative fashion - I have a story to tell!

I had spent just a couple of days in Romania, then flew across eastern Europe to Austria. After a week in and around Innsbruck I was ready to head across the Atlantic Ocean. I figured I'd head up north and see how far I could get. So Wednesday afternoon, May 13th, I climbed aboard the British Airways Q400 and set in a 1,022-mile route leaving mainland near the Belgium/Dutch boarder and following the east coast of the UK up over Edinburgh (a past FOTM on http://www.toomuchfs.com/) to Sumbaugh in the Shetland Islands (another past destination at http://www.toomuchfs.com/).

I left Innsbruck at 18:00 local time figuring I'd get into Sumbaugh in time for a hot cup of tea before rolling into bed at the same B&B I had used just a few months ago for our Flight of the Month. I departed westbound and climbed to an initial 12,000 feet, planning to drop lower as I flew along. I crossed over the Bodensee area (yep, another past Feature Flight on http://www.toomuchfs.com/) and headed for Luxemburg. Well, this is where the story gets interesting. I ran into a front of real-weather thunderstorms! (I tried, but never did get a good photo of the lightning)So rather than dropping I climbed, eventually ending up around 22,000 feet and changing course to avoid the biggest cells. I was outside the aircraft taking photos when, BANG! I must have been hit by lightning because I lost Comm Radios, Autopilot and GPS!

Luckily, I know how to fly and navigate without those things but, I figured being without Comms I should land. With the plane trimmed out nicely and only being 34 miles from Luxemburg, I ran to grab my manual of radio frequencies and dailed up the VOR and NDB, then I set my squawk to 0077 (should be 7700 for emergencies - I found out later) and started my descent. The lower I got the soupier the weather got - and I did not have the ILS frequencies so just had to guess that the NDB was near to the runway heading.

I crossed the NDB .... and flew on ... finally finding the runway and landing safely at 19:03 local time.

Obviously this does not finish the story because the leg continues to Sumbaugh.

Some 34 hours later I was able to depart Luxemburg

and continue on my marry little way - across Belgium, along the UK coast to Edinburgh, Scotland and on up to the Shetland Islands.

All told this was a 38-hour leg which means my average speed was about 27 mph!

Flight 55 : Sibiu to Innsbruck

Date: Thursday 07-May-09

Departure: 5 AM

Routing: East across Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Northern Italy etc

Aircraft: Swiss International Q400

Altitude: 11,000 feet

Miles: 595 miles

Arrival Stats: Arrived to Innsbruck at 08:22 but there are a couple of time zones in there. It's about 2.3 hours or 258 mph

Notes: Pretty flat across this part of Europe at least until you get into northern Italy which has been a Feature Flight beforeand of course, Innsbruck was a feature flight too. Different approach for me though, coming in from the south and descending down one of the valleys into Innsbruck.

Flight 54 : Kalamata to Sibiu

Date: 05-May-09

Deprture: 06:00 AM

Routing: North over some VORs and some of the most scenic areas of the world.

Aircraft: Croatia Air Q400

Altitude: 10,000 feet

Miles: 574 miles

Arrival Stats: Arrived to a VFR approach, eastbound, just under 2 hours flight time. That's over 290 mph!!

Notes: What a great flight this was. After many weeks in Greece (and touring many of the thousands of Greek Isles) this was a perfect way to get back into this around the world project. I've been thinking about a Vitural Airline based in Korfu and after this flight I'm even more convinced that I should be flying to/from there during any free time I may have.I departed Kalamata southbound, then turned north and headed toward Korinth, then Thessoloniki. Beautiful scenery below!Then over Sophia, Bulgaria and across the mountains into Romania landing just before 8 AM in the quaint-looking town of Sibiu. Wow, that was great!