So I loaned my SPOT messenger to my boss, who said he was doing a long ferry flight to deliver a single engine piston aircraft. The SPOT will be a neat way for friends and family to keep track, and I thought some here might as well. He was pretty jazzed and it sounds like a cool experience. I checked my tracker log this morning and they were off on schedule just after 5am. Should be interesting to watch the flight path over the next week. The link is under the avatar.

For all of you on my help list, if you get a message and don't have floats and long range tanks, stand down...

What's he flying Matt?

its cool to see the track and be able to keep tabs on him. Looks like he is headed for Hawaii.

Who is getting the aircraft? What kind? Does he need any help to de- tank it?

akavidflyer wrote:Looks like he is headed for Hawaii.

If he isn't, he is going the wrong way.

It's beautiful here now. Trades are back.

Matt 7GCBC wrote:Should be interesting to watch the flight path over the next week.

Must be a slow airplane if he is headed for Hawaii and it is going to take a week to get there Will be cool to see where he is going. Not sure I have the guts for a flight like that but it sure would be one heck of an adventure!

whee wrote:

Matt 7GCBC wrote:Should be interesting to watch the flight path over the next week.

Must be a slow airplane if he is headed for Hawaii and it is going to take a week to get there Will be cool to see where he is going. Not sure I have the guts for a flight like that but it sure would be one heck of an adventure!

Last month another floated Cessna Caravan landed here going to Australia from Wip (Aussies love them). It was so heavy it blew a tire taxiing I was told later. I can not imagine flying an amphib float plane to Australia. Unreal for sure.

There are two of them.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N318 ... /KTCY/PHTO
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N317 ... /KTCY/PHTO

porterjet wrote:There are two of them.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N318 ... /KTCY/PHTO
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N317 ... /KTCY/PHTO

Never seen that before. Very cool.

Nice sleuth work, John. I won't spoil the interest, but think AOPA did an article on a previous Cirrus delivery to a similar location.
Don't know the specifics on Turtlepac or what tanks. Will have to look up the N# myself to see what models are being flown. Whee, if the offer came up on the next trip, I'd have to find the guts to do it at least once. You know you would too!

9 1/2" from Tracy to Hawaii on my map and he's 3" into the flight. Looks like he took off at 5am Pacific time So he's got 61/2" to go? another 12 hours wow

Matt 7GCBC wrote:Nice sleuth work, John. I won't spoil the interest, but think AOPA did an article on a previous Cirrus delivery to a similar location.
Don't know the specifics on Turtlepac or what tanks. Will have to look up the N# myself to see what models are being flown. Whee, if the offer came up on the next trip, I'd have to find the guts to do it at least once. You know you would too!

It's Russian Roulette with most small piston aircraft, especially leaving here going West. Cirrus should be easy however I would guess. I would not do the trip ever. Seen and read to much loss over that much water around here. Unless it was my plane that I owned and operated since new. No dice.

Turtlepacs are great, my buddy from Australia uses them. The pumps, tanks and everything can be removed in a couple of hours. Our shop here has bunches of aluminum tanks left for dead after the flight. Turtlepacs are the only way nowadays from what I see here now.

The last airplane I helped over was a C172 in a 40' sea container. FSDO will not let C172 come from mainland anymore via ferry flight. The crash off Hilo ended that. We shared the container with an "Extra" look alike owned by the president of Hawaiian Airlines. He still owns $200 for the trucking from the Harbor to PHNL.

i wonder if the low battery state decreases the reliability of the spot. Battery was low shortly after takeoff.

3 summers ago, I was in one of the last rows at OSH on the south end (affectionately known as North Fond du lac). A Mooney with an odd tail number parked in the row behind me. Chatting with him, he had flown all the way to OSH from Holland! He'd stopped in Greenland, but that was the only stop along the way: Rotterdam-Greenland-OSH. His whole back seat area had a flexible tank in it--don't know if it was a Turtle-pac, but it looked similar.

He'd owned the airplane for several years, and was confident in its maintenance. Apparently he'd had pretty good weather, and no difficulties at all with the airplane. He said the worst part of the trip was wearing the survival suit all the time.

Several years earlier, I met a man and his son from Finland, if I recall correctly, who'd flown a modified 206 with a turbine conversion on amphibs to OSH. They stopped more often than the Mooney Dutchman did, so they didn't have temporary tanks in the 206--aftermarket auxiliaries plus the regular tanks were enough.

Not sure I'd trust any small SE airplane to stay in the air that long. I've flown over Lake Michigan in my younger, stupider years, and that's enough big water for me.

Cary

Tracy to Hawaii, that's awesome! And fricken' scary!

My cousin flew his 210 completely round the world,

I asked if he was concerned about engine issues, he said "planes go trouble free for 175 hr stretches all the time, just hope this is one of them"

Last leg, HI to Cali was a piece of cake following all he had been thru the last 24,000 mi. Crappy fuel, hostile airspace avoidance, weather, US customs...

Btw, he was very methodical about the ordeal, intimately involved with aircraft overhaul and prep prior. Took a military water ditch course, arranged checkpoints with awaiting fuel stashes etc.

Whyd he do it? Not sure....

What kind of airplane? Did I miss that somewhere?

Don't think mentioned

I was wondering what Matt's boss is flying.