A Farewell in Vienna

John and Karen are leaving us after a fantastic crossing of the Atlantic and are ready for more adventures in the near future!

A very proud pilot, he brought us to Vienna with no sweat.

Thank you John!

For Our Pilot Readers - the Leg From Reykjavik to Vienna, Austria

For our pilot followers, our leg from Reykjavik, Iceland to Vienna, Austria is the longest leg of the Journey, a total of 1600 NM, forcing us to break it down to 850 NM and 750 NM with a technical stop.

The Great Circle route takes us over Norway to Vienna with a stop in Stavanger as the best solution.

Here is the brief:

Tail winds were forecast on the first leg and we got them!

Easy departure out of BIRK, passage through a thin cloud layer into blue skies shortly after. We were stopped at 5,000 feet for 3 minutes because of incoming traffic but the rest of the journey went well. We had an ISA -2 on departure all the way to 30,000 feet and then all the way to our cruising altitude. The ISA kept climbing all the way to +14, that gave us a slower TAS but we managed to land with 950 lbs of fuel.

The NOTAM called for work with the possibilities of closure on the ground in Stavanger, but the most interesting one was the warning about a flare stack erected 2.5 NW of the threshold of Runway 18, the one we were using. We had to make sure we were above 700 feet because of the gas release climbing up to 300 feet above the stack. Lower then that and we were at risk of flames! 

Even at the required 700 feet above, we looked out the windows to make sure, and no flames! We were pretty happy about this one.

The turn around was fast but lacked the proper facilities for the ladies....no running water at the airport so the ladies were required to walk to a small house next to the fire station. Just another mini adventure.

Then  we were on our way to Vienna...I loved hearing the clearance, giving us a SID, and then hearing the word "Flight Plan enroute."...we never got it....except direct to VOR...The office had done a great job on the briefing and we spent some time entering all the way points, some showed up others not so much so it was quite the labor of love to enter all of them into the route. And we received direct to the boundaries of each country.

The arrival into Vienna was also an experience with no STAR assigned followed by radar giving us direct way point on one of the arrivals labeled WW891, which was presented as whisky whisky eight nine one...

We were ready and had a great arrival at the Vienna Airport.

Here is the speed up video of the landing:

Our Time in Iceland

Our flight to Iceland was beautiful. The trek over Greenland never ceases to amaze me with the sights it offers while flying, never ever boring!

we had to do the GPS approach to Runway 29

The PC12 crew enjoyed their time in the survival suits

Our home in Reykjavik, the unique Borg Hotel, a master piece of Art Deco

We continue our culinary experience along the way.

For meals, the Borg Hotel has a great restaurant and the Fish Market and the Fish Company are 2 more restaurants in town that should not be missed!

Our "small" ride for our tour through Iceland

Standing at the fault where the American and European tectonic plates meet.

Do not throw money away...noted.

John has found his ride

Stop to see the Geysers

It has been said that this statue was erected after the last stop of Steve Walenz....need to be checked.

The Gulfoss Waterfall on display

and then the famous stop at the Blue Lagoon...yes it is cold outside but the water is warm, very warm

The Blue Lagoon now offers a private lounge, a must for Air Journey

Robes are offered

we are all supposed to look 20 years younger after a dip in the Blue Lagoon....I'm still waiting

Flashback to a View of Ilulissat through Film

Here are a selection of films from our arrival and our time in Ilulissat

The arrival in the PC12

The magnificent view from our boat outing

The Reykjavik Leg

We are slowly but surely getting closer to Europe.

These were the details of our flight to Iceland:

All of these slides are part of the Air Journey briefing.

735 NM , a good leg for the Mustang and the longest one so far on the Journey.  We anticipated an arrival with an exciting view of the BIRK airport

Reality was slightly different:

Because of commercial traffic we were sent roughly 100 NM North West, not exactly the right direction for our destination.

But we still made it with a healthy 980 pounds of fuel on arrival.

On Our Way to Reykjavik, Iceland with a Pitstop in Kangerlussuaq

We say goodbye to Ilulissat this morning. We are all re-boarding our "Sky-Chariot", also known as the Pilatus PC-12, for our flight to BGSF in order to switch back into the Citation Mustang.

It was another nice flight over the green parts of Greenland.

Never used the Mustang as a static cargo before

Amazing what you can fit on board! This was only for static storage, everything was removed for our next leg, the comfort of our passengers, and of course for our luggage!

Our Last Dinner in Ilulissat

The fact that this is a very remote and very north, 60 degrees north to be exact, destination, I must say that Ilulissat has a great handle on gourmet meals making great use of local ingredients.

We enjoyed our farewell dinner at the Restaurant Mamartut:

We even went for the Whale steak....