TSC Tour PT.10: Grand Turk to BFU Caribbean
Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2005 1:37 pmHi all,
Well it was time for us to depart for our very last hop of the tour, Grand Turk to the BFU base on the British Virgin Islands 245nm away. A nice easy cruise down to the base - or so we thought.................
As we were eating breakfast we were asked if we could take on a rather strange BFU job, seeing as we were heading down to the base anyway.
Turns out that a guy called Tomlinson who has his own avionics business has just relocated to Virgin Gorda, but needed his 'baby' flying down there aswell.
"Can Corky navigate on his own"?
"Yeah, course he can - best navigator in the world........................................he can't fly for $h!t though"
So thats how our last hop came about, with me & Corky making our own seperate ways to BFU - Corky in the Goose.............................
& me in this:
No GPS, no DME, infact - only a compass for navigation & horror of horror's, no pitch trim:
The only thing for it was to take a bearing before I left each airport & follow my nose. This is my 1st refueling stop, Gregorio Luperon Intl. on Puerto Plata (MDPP):
Not a bad landing for this tricky little Fokker:
We were soon re-fueled & making our way in haste to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We left it to late really, as the sun was already going down. It was gonna be a case of following the compass, picking some lights in the distance & heading straight for them:
The sun goes down on another Caribbean day:
A night time landing in San Jaun:
& an early start for what is now, the very last hop of the tour:
Cheers,
TSC.
Well it was time for us to depart for our very last hop of the tour, Grand Turk to the BFU base on the British Virgin Islands 245nm away. A nice easy cruise down to the base - or so we thought.................
As we were eating breakfast we were asked if we could take on a rather strange BFU job, seeing as we were heading down to the base anyway.
Turns out that a guy called Tomlinson who has his own avionics business has just relocated to Virgin Gorda, but needed his 'baby' flying down there aswell.
"Can Corky navigate on his own"?
"Yeah, course he can - best navigator in the world........................................he can't fly for $h!t though"
So thats how our last hop came about, with me & Corky making our own seperate ways to BFU - Corky in the Goose.............................
& me in this:
No GPS, no DME, infact - only a compass for navigation & horror of horror's, no pitch trim:
The only thing for it was to take a bearing before I left each airport & follow my nose. This is my 1st refueling stop, Gregorio Luperon Intl. on Puerto Plata (MDPP):
Not a bad landing for this tricky little Fokker:
We were soon re-fueled & making our way in haste to San Juan, Puerto Rico. We left it to late really, as the sun was already going down. It was gonna be a case of following the compass, picking some lights in the distance & heading straight for them:
The sun goes down on another Caribbean day:
A night time landing in San Jaun:
& an early start for what is now, the very last hop of the tour:
Cheers,
TSC.
I wanna be there........... 