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Atlantic Crossing
by Gerd Wengler

Ever since I started flying 20 years ago my dream had been to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Working in real estate, I know that the first three rules are “location, location, location”. For a flight of more than 7,000 nm or 50 hours spanning two continents the first three rules are “preparation, preparation, preparation”. The most difficult part of the preparations taking actually a couple of years was to convince my wife Dorothy to come along. Her condition was that we fly to Ireland (a destination we both wanted to visit), have a vacation there, and fly directly back to Canada. That done and agreed to, it took a year of sometimes intense preparations to get ready for our trip-of-a-lifetime across the Atlantic. I soon found out that this was not a trivial undertaking.

Two big decisions with far reaching consequences had to be made: Which way to go and when. There are basically three ways to cross the Atlantic by small airplane. The southern route from St. John’s, Newfoundland, via the Azores Islands to Portugal; the middle route from Goose Bay, Newfoundland, via the southern tip of Greenland to Iceland and from there direct or via the Faroer Islands to Scotland; and the northern route all the way to Iqaluit, Nunavut, on Baffin Island, then via two stop-overs in Greenland (west and east coast) to Iceland and on to Europe.

The southern route, even though having the most favourable weather conditions, is not viable unless your airplane has a range of close to 2,000 nm. On the middle route via Narsarsuaq, Greenland, the two trans-oceanic legs are 675 nm each long which is in the range of most light airplanes; however, you need an HF radio and to fulfill Transport Canada trans-oceanic fuel requirements (normal IFR reserves, i.e. destination, approach, missed, alternate and approach, plus 45 minutes, plus 10% of the total) you again need extra fuel. With extra fuel tanks in the cabin, you loose your normal Certificate of Airworthiness unless there is an appropriate STC available for your airplane. You must then apply for a Ferry Permit, which has many restrictions, the most important being that you normally cannot take passengers along. You must also apply for prior permission to land in foreign countries (Iceland enforces this).

Therefore, I decided early on to fly the northern route. It is 650 nm longer than the middle route, but the longest individual legs are only about 475 nm long. Most light airplanes (C182 and up) have a maximum no-wind/reserve range of about 1,000 nm. That means that it is possible to fly to destination and back in case the weather turns unexpectedly bad. On the northern route HF radio is not required (TC AIM COM 6.7.1). The biggest disadvantage of the northern route is that you have to fly over the icecap in Greenland, which is more than 10,000 ft high. The lowest flight levels available are often FL140 or FL150 (14,000 or 15,000 ft.).

That brings me to the third in our traveling party, our trusty beast of burden, a Cessna 182T Turbo Skylane, C-FDOW, build in 2001. The operational ceiling of our airplane is 20,000 ft and we have build-in oxygen as well as a hot prop for getting out of the worst unforeseen in-flight icing. Both for flying in the northern parts of Canada as well as in Greenland airspace, an ADF is legally required (refer to TC AIM 3.16.10 and CAR 605.18). I didn’t have one, so one had to be installed. Other than that, FDOW didn’t need any modifications. IFR approved GPS is an absolute must; we had three GPS receivers on board.

Speaking of IFR: As per CAR 602.19, pilots attempting trans-oceanic flight must hold an instrument rating. Even though an IFR flight plan is only required above 5,500 ft across the Atlantic, NavCanada will not issue an oceanic VFR clearance when leaving Canada. In addition, it is extremely unlikely for any airplane to stay in VMC during the whole trans-Atlantic flight. Therefore, it mandatory that both, pilot and airplane are certified and current IFR.

One year before our trip and during a period of several months, I daily checked and printed the significant weather charts along the route. I found out that the best (=warmest) weather is during July and August. Freezing levels are always higher than 5,000 ft, usually even higher than 10,000 ft. North of 60 deg., there is no predominate wind direction. Highs and Lows determine which way the wind is blowing. I found out that the weather can be pretty bad for a day or two; however, it is also frequently the case that there is a stationary High over Greenland which sometimes stays two weeks at a time.

In summary, I decided that if we were very conservative with the weather, especially regarding icing and headwind conditions, and were prepared to wait out bad weather for as long as it takes, this Atlantic crossing would not present a much higher risk than any other flying in a light airplane. For the airplane to be “fit” I had an annual inspection performed by Leggat Aviation in Buttonville before the trip where we went through all systems with a fine comb. I then flew more than 10 hours to find any snags that might have been introduced during the annual.

A big hurdle to overcome was getting insurance. Initially, all insurance companies declined to insure the airplane. However, after many phone calls, letters and explanations (perhaps my recent ATPL helped), Global Insurance finally agreed to insure FDOW. But that was not all: During the course of the preparations, I found out that Denmark (Greenland and the Faroer Islands are part of Denmark) requires approximately $14 million (!) in liability insurance. In addition, the European Union countries require war and terrorism liability insurance. Both provisions, I was told, are simply not available in Canada. But, as before, countless calls and pleadings later, I had both of these added to my insurance policy. For a price of course: Dorothy and I could have flown to Ireland and back commercially twice for the price of the extra insurance alone…

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