We got up at 4:20am as usual to make it to the airport by
5:00am for a 6:00am departure. Getting up early enough has been quite easy as
we have moved two time zones westward after every flight. Weather was fine in
Majuro but the cyclones north and south of Solomon Islands caused some strong
headwinds and crosswinds along most of the route to Cairns, Australia.
Fortunately we now had the landing permit for Honiara on Solomon Islands.
I departed first at 6:19am and turned right towards our
first waypoint on the airway to Honiara. Hansjoerg started up right after I
departed and 3 minutes later he calls me up and says he has to shut down again.
He had got a warning on his instruments about an engine temperature exceedance
and wisely enough didn’t want to cross the ocean before he had sorted out what
the issue was. As I had just departed I decided to return to Majuro. As we are
flying the airplanes with one crew only we have found it very valuable to fly two
planes together and be able to communicate to support each other and discuss
issues and route options along the way. And the leg to Honiara already had
quite a lot of weather requiring some big diversions. My only challenge with
now returning was that I was still 1,100kg over max weight. In other words, I
had to make a really smooth landing. Early in the morning the runway asphalt is
not hot, usually causing rising air over the runway, and there were no
obstacles nearby to create turbulence from the winds. So I managed to make a very soft landing and taxied back to the parking.
Back on the parking area Hansjoerg was already communicating
with our engineers in Uganda. With their help we got the engine data records
out to see if there had been any exceedances. All the temperatures in the
record were within limits so he then did some engine runs to see if it reoccurred
and it turned out that the avionics created a certain temperature warning well
within the normal temperature-range. Knowing this, and with all other engine
parameters showing normal, we decided to continue with our flight.
Now we were over two hours late and it would be way too late
for us to fly all the way to Cairns, Australia. It would mean almost three
hours night flying at the end of a very long day so we decided to fly to
Honiara, Solomon Islands, to spend the night. Before departing we had another
look at the weather along the route and made some adjustments to our route to
avoid a big weather system. By having IR satellite pictures laid over our route
map on our Garmin iPad flight planning software, we easily could plot a route
to avoid weather. The direct distance to Honiara is 1,262nm or 2,237km. To
avoid the weather systems we had to divert 300nm northwest of our track,
increasing the total distance by 60nm. We had plenty of fuel so this was no
problem, and at least we would be a lot closer to our final destinations. And
we would get to see the famous Solomon Islands. I didn’t mind at all.
Climbing out of Majuro we flew over some beautiful atolls.
These also had an airstrip, giving us more options in case we had to return.
Along the route there were other nearby airstrips as well, giving us a lot more
options than on the two previous flights to Hawaii and Majuro. Our guys flight
following us via our satellite trackers gave us weather updates along the
route. Except for some few areas with buildups and rain showers we mostly
followed the planned route and it turned out to be a good plan.
After passing clear of the weather system to our southeast by
following airway B589 we requested Brisbane to then go direct to Honiara. This
turned out to be more complicated than it should be, as Brisbane center had to
forward the request to Honiara, which seemed to never get back to Brisbane
again. Knowing that these requests require some time over the Pacific due to
lack of radar I eventually after 25 minutes told Brisbane I was still standing
by for that direct-to request. Brisbane then asked me to try to contact Honiara
via my satellite phone and gave me five different numbers to reach them on. As
talking on a normal sat phone without a headset-connection would be useless I
texted my request to the numbers but they did not go through. Eventually almost
an hour had passed after giving them my request and I arrived at my planned
waypoint from where I would go direct Honiara anyway. Knowing that there are
practically no other traffic out there at our altitudes made it feel a little
bit frustrating to continue on a big diversion when I could go direct and save
time and fuel.
From waypoint Tasak to Honiara we followed the border of the
Papua New Guinea airspace. We did not have an overflight permit from Papua New
Guinea so we had to stay clear of their airspace. So we stayed left of our
airway to give us some margins when having to fly around rain showers.
Eventually we approached Solomon Islands and we passed between
the Malaita and Santa Isabel islands before passing over the Tulagi and Ngella
islands, where the US forces in 1942 landed to fight the Japanese who had been
occupying the island. We then landed on Henderson Airport, Honiara, on the Guadacanal
Island. The airport was originally built by the Japanese in 1942, shortly
before the Americans captured it in the battle of Guadalcanal. The airport is
uncontrolled with a flight information service only. After landing we refueled and
went to our hotel in Honiara. Our taxi-driver James willingly gave us history
lessons on our way pointing out the places of the battles in 1942 and -43. It
was truly a beautiful place. Green, lush, mountainous with rain forests
surrounded by white beaches and blue water.
Flying for Christ 