Yesterday we decided to delay our departure for Hawaii due
to strong winds outside the west coast of the US. Today we have been monitoring
the winds and the weather forecasts and the winds should improve enough by
tomorrow morning, allowing us to depart at about 6am local time. As of now the
winds and weather is ok but we will have another look at it in the morning
again before we make a final decision. It will be a night departure and we will
start out at lower levels to avoid possible freezing temperatures and the worst winds.
We expect the strongest headwinds on the first portion of the flight and then
it should gradually turn to tailwind as we get further away from the US
mainland. There is a Low sitting north east of Hawaii that might give us some
headwinds again as we approach the islands but we don’t expect these to last
over long distances. We will get a good idea of how the actual winds compare to
the predicted winds as soon as we level of on cruise. We will continuously calculate
and adjust our point of no return which will vary with the winds and our ground
speed. If we do not progress according to, or better than, our planned minimums
we will return to Santa Maria.
Flying for Christ 