Day 3 generated some new challenges. The flight to Vagar (the capital of the Faeroe Islands) started with clear weather. We immediately went “feet wet” and flew several hours until some of the outer Faeroes came into view. Clouds started to form below, and around, the plane. The approach is one of the more challenging and unusual in the world. It is a localizer approach taking the plane over several islands with rather high hills. As a result, there are multiple (one dozen?) step-downs along the way. Some are quite steep. In the end, the approach, at the MAP, our choice was to execute a missed approach or duck under. Every pilot knows that ducking under is a very bad idea and should never be done. But we were in the middle of the Atlantic, with clouds closing in tighter and thicker with every passing minute. We ducked under, touched down on the numbers, and then rolled out up-hill to the ramp. It turns out that the runway runs more-or-less, from ocean on one end to ocean on the other, and on a hill. The ramp and facilities are at the top of the hill (middle of the runway). We were greeted with many enthusiastic airport workers. While our plane was being refueled, they encouraged us to “stay a while.” They need all the visitors they can get, I guess.

We politely declined and taxied to the bottom of the bottom/end of runway 31. By then the clouds had cleared a bit and it looked good to takeoff to the North. During the runup, the prop wouldn’t come out of feather during the feathering test. Just as we radioed the tower to this effect, they announced that a passenger jet was on approach and to expedite take off. Not so easy, but my co-pilot jumped out of the plane with a prop tool and unfeathered the prop. While he was getting back in and stowing the tool (which is as tall as a man), Jonathan restarted the engine, ran a quick feathering check, and we started rolling. We took off just in time to avoid forcing the passenger jet to go around.

By the time we took off, clouds had returned and shrouded a small uninhabited island off the north end of the runway. This isn’t any island—it rises almost 2000 feet into the sky. Since we couldn’t see it, we decided to execute a short-field takeoff maneuver – in which the pitch and airspeed are set in order to gain the maximum climb angle. Once comfortably clear of the obstacle, we resumed a normal climb and contacted Atlantic Center. They acknowledged our call sign and let us know we were coming in garbled. Not a good sign. We tried several more times, to no avail. Happily, a Royal Navy Cobra heard us clearly enough to relay our position and intentions. From that point on, it was just the sound of the engines and the sight of the water below that consumed our senses for several hours. We made landfall near Kirkjubæjarklaustur. At least now we could dead stick it into a landing rather than ditching in the North Atlantic…

From there, we flew along the coast to Reyk. Under international flight rules, when a plane on an instrument flight plan goes Nordo, the destination airport is shut down to takeoffs and landings at the ETA. Such it was at Reyk, with 747s and 767s flying in holding patterns waiting for us. Not a way to make friends, but beyond our control. Reyk tower welcomed us to Iceland with “Clear runway 31, taxi to [the visitor ramp], all further travel is canceled UFN.”

It took days, with many false starts, to find the radio problem. In the end, it wasn’t the radios at all, but rather a $5 connector at the antenna. Once fixed, we had three radios again and were good to go…

Except for the weather. Low pressure approached from the West. “Never fly into a low” is the key teaching for pilots flying the North Atlantic. So we sat. Then another day. And another. When the weather cleared, we headed West – for Kulusuk.

Kulusuk is a town on the island of the same name. It is more-or-less West of Reyk and is just off the main island of Greenland. For planes that have a range of under 600 or 700 nm, it is a necessary stop on the way across the Atlantic. The flight to Kulusuk has a special attribute for the Beech 18: it has a PNR. A point of no return. As soon as the pilot elects to commence descent into Kulusuk, there are only three ways the flight ends and only one of them is good. One can ditch, one can land “off-field” (that is, crash), and one can land on Kulusuk’s sole runway. Weather reporting is not available en route, so we assessed the weather at the PNR. Low clouds were starting to form, with about 10-20 percent coverage. We could see the 14,000 foot (plus-or-minus) in the distance, which was behind Kulusuk Isle. So down we went. We dodged clouds, descended towards approach altitude, and received clearance to land when we were 50 miles away from the airport, since there was no one else around. This is not La Guardia! We spotted the small glacier/mountain on Kulusuk, rounded it counterclockwise, rolled out on final and touched down at a near-deserted airport.

Out post-flight inspection revealed some problems with the cowling and some missing rivets. Off came the cowling, some basic repairs performed, the plane reassembled, but by then it was too late to continue in daylight to Kangerlussuaq, on the East side of Greenland.

A couple of days later we lifted off into a low cloud deck. The big glacier to our West, shown in the picture nearby, rose to 14,000 feet “plus or minus.” The most recent geological survey, taken 18 years earlier, shows the height as “approximate” and the even the location as “approximate.” So how to avoid when one is in the clouds? We cork-screwed up and up and up until we hit 16,000 feet. By then we had to don oxygen masks. This was near the absolute limit of the aircraft. It was flying very near to stall speed. And we were near the edge of the weight-and-balance envelope. Over time, we burned off fuel and the lighter load improved performance. By then we were out of clouds and over low rolling hills of Western Greenland.

Kangerlussuaq, formerly Sondrestrom Air Base, was reportedly a B-52 based and an emergency landing strip for the space shuttle. Put differently, it has a long runway. A very long runway. Especially for a plane that can land in less than 1000 feet when called for. For us, this meant shooting the ILS approach, and then flying down miles of runway before touching down and rolling up to the ramp for gas and a sandwich.

One hour minutes later, the plane was in the air heading for Canada. Iqualit to be exact. On Baffin Island. We arrived to find that their fuel tanks were empty. All they had were 55 gallon barrels of fuel. And no pumps. Except for two that were inop. So we disassembled the two inop pumps, combined the parts into one semi-working pump, and started hand-cranking the fuel into the plane. That took quite a few hours, but good exercise after days of sitting.

We were 2/3 of the way through our journey (measured in miles). The next morning, we took off and made it all the way to Chicago, by way of Chibougamau, Quebec and Toledo.

We landed on September 6, 2001. A few more days’ delay on account of weather and/or mechanical issues, and we would have been stranded in a distant airport for weeks on account of the international shutdown of air space after the tragedy of 9/11.