Canadian Ferry Pilots

Flight Date: 16/06/2022

Departed From: Nuuk, Greenland (BGGH)

Overnighting at: Narsarsuaq, Greenland (BGBW)

Fuel Stop(s): Narsarsuaq, Greenland (BGBW)

Distance Flown: 251NM

Flight Time: 1.9hrs

Wow! A day full of surprises…

Today’s landscape was making the entire trip worth it. Arriving in Greenland’s capital Nuuk is beautiful but going to a place of nature, scenic landscape and history is something fantastic (to me)! I shall say no more… just enjoy the pictures. 🙂

Surprise #1: Guess where we needed pay our fuel and parking bill?

Surprise #2: Meeting Jens from Denmark, the ‘everything’ pilot.

Surprise #3: Are we still moving? After departing Nuuk, climb out to 11,000ft, we were on top of the Greenland icecap. Well… without any reference it was hard to see ourselves moving.

Surprise #4: Bandits at 9 o’clock… well, this is Ronald and Mike in their Cessna 182. We met in Iqaluit and they are on their way to the Netherlands. They left 20mins before us from Nuuk and got the same route and altitude. We just had a very brief moment (the Bonanza was 50kts faster) were we could take pictures.

Surprise #5: Loooooooots of Icebergs

Surprise #6: A culinary experience in Hotel Narsarsuaq (in the middle of nowhere)… I haven’t been eating so many flowers in one sitting in my entire life I think…

Weather

There was a fog layer in Nuuk when we woke up. This was almost completely cleared by 9am when we headed to the airport. Reported weather in Nuuk and Narsarsuaq was SKC (sky clear) In Narsarsuaq, we landed with a 220@10 and 250@8 (either ends of the runway) tailwind on runway 06 because that was the straight in coming from the fjord and more importantly, it is sloping upwards.

Special Remarks

This will be our station for the next 2 nights… Today I experienced the worst sickness a pilot can get… “get-there-itis”. We had a big decision to make… 4hrs20mins over the water from Narsarsuaq, Greenland to Reykjavik, Iceland. The “Swiss cheese model” works well with pilot decision making… when 3 or more holes lines up, you better stay on the ground. 1. Long stretch over water with broken cloud cover all the way 2. Low feezing levels, 3000ft 3. Unstable airmass with CBs around Iceland (likely needed to descent through clouds from FL190) 4. Headwinds all the way, forecasted average was about 15kts. This would eat our reserves. 5. Second leg of the day The outlook forecast for Saturday looks promising with higher freezing levels and stable airmass.

One Response

BB says:

June 19, 2022 at 8:01 pm

I love the photo of TVB and the Cessna enroute! There seems to be very good food in very obscure locations! Lucky you.

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