There have been some weather systems in south-western
Pacific that we have monitored the last few days. One cyclone east of Australia
might give us a little too strong headwinds for our last leg to Cairns. A
SIGMET (Significant Weather) report of embedded thunderstorms existed for
Marshall islands, and Majuro was right on the edge of it. It was stationary,
but weakening and by Wednesday morning it was clear that it didn’t affect
Majuro more than creating some cloud layers and we decided to go.
I departed first this time, right before sunrise. It was a
warm and beautiful morning compared to the previous two departures from Wichita
and Santa Maria. Hilo airport is south-east of a big volcanic mountain and when
routing west you have to go north around the mountain. The takeoff and initial climbout
was uneventful and I was again impressed to see the caravan’s climb performance
1,100kg overweight, but as I got further north I found myself in a strong and
continuous downdraft caused by the westerly winds passing over the mountain.
Due to my poor climb performance, or rather the lack of it, Honolulu Center
gave me radar vectors until I was above 8000 feet and north of the mountain. I
was then cleared direct McFly, the first waypoint on the airway to Majuro.
Soon after leveling off at 10,000 feet, I was given my
primary and secondary HF frequencies for San Francisco Center. And ironically,
again I could not establish contact. I got a third frequency but no joy on that
one either. I realized that this time my HF was not sending, only barely receiving.
I tried to reset the circuit breakers of the HF system, but with no success. We
knew that Honolulu Center would not allow aircraft to cross the ocean without
HF-contact so Hansjoerg in 7MF who was in contact with San Francisco requested
for permission to relay my position reports. We flew with 25nm separation and
stayed in touch on a company VHF frequency. San Francisco approved our request
and we could continue towards Majuro. I hope we manage to fix the radio in
Majuro, or else I might not be able to continue onwards to Australia.
The first 600nm we had moderate headwinds and some cloud
buildups south of our track. The temperatures were good so this time we didn’t have
to worry about icing. About 200nm after McFly waypoint the winds started
shifting towards north and eventually north-east giving us a nice push in the
back.
A little over 6 hours into the flight I passed the Johnston
atoll to my left. It is an abandoned US military base and was used as an air
force fuel depot and also as a test site for nuclear weapons and storage
facility for agent orange. The place was highly contaminated in the past but
according to US fish and wildlife services it is now a nature reserve and under
their management. They even look for volunteers to come and work there to study
ants! Not a place for an extrovert social person. But I very much welcomed a
piece of land I would be able to land on in case I needed to. The runway still
looks fairly intact. So if anyone is interested in solitude and studying ants
on a deserted tropical island you know where to sign up.
As we continued towards Majuro we picked up more and more
tailwind and for a couple of hours we were cruising with a groundspeed of over
200 kt. On the previous two flights we had been battling 40-50 kts headwinds,
so this was something I very much welcomed. And the weather was now just
beautiful! Finally I could get a clear view of the open Pacific.
The sun moving
toward west eventually made it very hot in the cockpit, and wearing the
survival suit doesn’t make it much cooler. So the IFR enroute charts were quite
useful and helped cool down the cockpit. Thanks, Jeppesen!
At 14:03 February 18th local time I passed the International
Date Line and fast forwarded to 14:03 February 19th.
17:41 local time I landed on Majuro, Marshall
Islands. 13 hours and 25 minutes after leaving Hawaii. There is not much space
here, but they have managed to build a very nice runway on the little sliver of
land they have available. It is uncontrolled, only have a CTAF frequency and a
guy giving you the winds and altimeter settings. All air traffic transmit
blind. We communicated with San Francisco all the way until we were on the
ground. On ground I was directed to the fuel bay were the handling agent and
refueling guys were ready waiting. It was almost like a formula one pit stop. I
was handed my handling papers as soon as I opened the door, the immigration guy
asked for general declaration forms and my passport and stamped me in, and
stamped me out two days in advance. The fuel guys immediately started filling
up my tanks. When we were done refueling and closing up the airplanes a waiting
shuttle-van drove us to the hotel in Majuro town, 11 km east on the island. I
got a nice room with an ocean-view, and later realized that it is impossible to
get a room without.
Flying for Christ 