The Icelandic Met Office reports a surge in seismic activity near the volcano, signaling a possible eruption in the coming days and prompting the evacuation of nearby Grindavik. 

The memory of the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull looms large in the collective consciousness. The event led to widespread disruptions in the aviation industry, with volcanic ash clouds drifting across Europe, causing the largest peacetime closure of the continent’s airspace. The closure affected approximately 100,000 flights, stranding millions of passengers and resulting in an estimated economic impact of billions of dollars lost. More recently, the 2014 eruption of Bárðarbunga led to temporary airspace closures and flight diversions. 

The Keflavik International Airport (BIKF) in Iceland holds particular significance for general aviation pilots navigating across the Atlantic. Serving as a vital waypoint between Europe and North America, Keflavik is a crucial refueling and stopover point for smaller aircraft making transatlantic crossings. An eruption near Keflavik could impact flight routes, necessitating alternative plans for GA pilots navigating the challenging Atlantic airspace.

• READ MORE: Ferry Flight: Daher TBM 940

Volcanic ash clouds pose a significant threat to aviation, as they can damage aircraft engines and pose risks to flight safety. The U.S. Geological Survey emphasizes that volcanic ash clouds are composed of fine particles and glass that can cause engine failure and damage crucial aircraft components. 

• READ MORE: Hawaii’s Volcanic Eruption ‘An Exciting Thing’ for Pilots

Pilots are advised to stay informed about volcanic activity and exercise caution when flying near affected regions. The USGS provides guidelines on how pilots can identify volcanic risk and take necessary precautions. Some tips include:

• Monitoring volcanic ash advisories: Pilots should regularly check for volcanic ash advisories issued by relevant authorities. These advisories provide real-time information on the location and concentration of volcanic ash clouds, and may include SIGMETs, NOTAMs, and any USGS-issued volcano observatory notice for aviation (VONA).
• Weather radar and satellite imagery: Utilizing advanced weather radar and satellite imagery can help pilots identify volcanic ash clouds and plan alternative flight paths to avoid potential hazards.
• Communication with Air Traffic Control: Maintaining open communication with ATC is crucial during volcanic events. Pilots are encouraged to report any encounters with volcanic ash and follow controllers’ instructions promptly.
• Volcanic risk assessment: Pilots should recognize and assess volcanic risk factors. These include understanding the characteristics of volcanic ash clouds and their potential impact on aircraft systems, and evaluating the potential risk when making a go/no-go decision.

While the situation in Iceland is unfolding and being closely monitored, airlines and aviation authorities worldwide are preparing for potential disruptions. Passengers are advised to check with their airlines for updates on flight schedules and be aware of the evolving situation as experts work to mitigate the potential impact of the impending volcanic eruption.

The post Iceland’s Volcano May Threaten Air Missions appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

A ferry pilot named Tom Lopes recently flew 2,521 miles in a new Cessna 172 from Merced Regional Airport/Macready Field (KMCE) in Merced, California, to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (PHNL) in Honolulu, Hawaii. The flight took just over 18 hours and required a ferry tank with extra fuel and other special equipment and preparation.

Lopes has been a ferry pilot since 1988 and has flown small planes similar distances on many occasions. This time he was delivering a new Cessna 172 G1000 NXi Skyhawk, N490NW, to George Hanzawa, who runs George’s Aviation, a flight school and aviation services company. Such ferry flights are fairly common.

Hanzawa told FLYING on Thursday that they waited months for favorable winds before Lopes made the flight to Hawaii. "We knew the plane could make the trip. It was never a guess," he says. "But there was no way we could carry enough fuel to buck headwinds. It was a long time before the weather started to agree with us."

He said he was surprised to find that so many people had become interested in the flight through social media. “I couldn’t understand it at first because we have made flights like this before. Why was it going viral now?”

I would need a bathroom break!https://t.co/miUoNa3Gae

— Kelly Lepley ✈🌍👩‍✈✈👩‍👧‍👧🇺🇦 (@kclepley) August 26, 2022

Hanzawa said he heard that someone spotted the Cessna’s planned flight path on the ADS-B tracking app Flight Aware and they didn’t believe it was possible for the airplane to fly that far nonstop. Word got around, and soon hundreds of people were following the Cessna’s progress, wondering when it might run out of fuel and splash into the ocean. “They didn’t realize that we had souped it up,” Hanzawa said.

“With the ferry tank, we had roughly 210 gallons of fuel,” he said. “We calculated that we would have about 22 gallons to spare, but we landed with about 25 gallons."

The aircraft began the cruise portion of the flight at the flight-plan filed altitude of 6,000 feet, according to Flight Aware. However, Lopes eventually climbed as high as 10,000 feet to take advantage of a tailwind that Hanzawa found in the weather forecast.

“Tom didn’t have access to online wind information, but he could receive the texts I was sending,” Hanzawa said. “That’s how I let him know about the tailwind. We wound up getting an extra 5 knots of ground speed at 10,000 feet.” For most of the trip, cruising speeds were roughly between 113 and 130 knots.

After landing, Hanzawa proclaimed the mission accomplished with a post on Facebook. “Well our brand new G1000 NXi Cessna 172 made the 18 hour and 5 minute flight from Merced, California, to Honolulu (nonstop), of course. Pilot Tom Lopes did it again.”

Lopes–who couldn’t speak with FLYING because he was already preparing for his next flight—will be ferrying a Cessna 208 Caravan  across the Pacific to Thailand. His wife, Dee Lopes, who works with her husband at their company, TDL Aero Enterprises/Gateway Air Center, told FLYING that he’s planning to embark on his next odyssey on Friday. 

The post How Far Would You Fly a Cessna 172? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Though any record of completed transatlantic flights is unofficial, Magrit Waltz surely ranks among those pilots who have made the most outside of wartime. Launching from Tarbes, France, on May 11, Waltz set out on flight number 900, in a new Daher TBM 940, N64MA, from the manufacturing facility there. The aircraft was headed for Muncie Aviation, in Indiana.

Waltz departed Tarbes (LFBT) at 11:13 GMT for Wick, Scotland (WIC); then on to Keflavik, Iceland (KEF) for the night. At 9:41 GMT on May 12, she left for Goose Bay, Labrador (YYR), arriving at 11:05 am ADT, and continuing on to Bangor, Maine (KBGR), with an ahead-of-schedule arrival at 13:03 EDT. The legs ranged in length from 3:16 for the first leg, then 2:27, 4:52, and 2:02 respectively—with the 940′s maximum ground speed en route clocking in at 389 mph (338 knots) on the final leg, with 368 mph (318 knots) the top ground speed on the segment from Wick to Keflavik.

Waltz began ferrying aircraft for Daher and its previous entities in 1991, ferrying a TBM 700 with TBM test pilot Christian Briand. She’s since delivered more than 200 TBMs from France to the market in North America. But her time in the skies above the North Atlantic dates back much further, beginning in 1976, when she started to fly a variety of GA aircraft for several distributors and OEMs.

Waltz reported to Flying that she considers the main “difficulties” in any crossing to be on the ground—dealing with customs, passport control, and, perhaps, “suspicious authorities.”

“Ocean crossing with a single engine requires to have a life raft and survival suit,” said Waltz, “with special procedures to report your position. HF installation is no longer mandatory, especially with the use of [a] sat phone, which [performs better].” According to her, “The key to a successful ferry is weather to anticipate the fact the wind direction and strength may change abruptly, especially during the segment between Scotland [and] Greenland.” Making one small concession to the relative risk of any ocean crossing, Waltz decided that after her 50th [birthday], she would ferry only turbine airplanes, such as the 940.

The post Waltz Makes 900th Ferry Flight, in a TBM 940 appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

On March 8, 2020, I stepped out of G-SWAY and onto the soggy British mud at Damyn’s Hall Aerodrome an hour east of London. G-SWAY is a Super Cub that belongs to one of Britain’s most famous and historic flying clubs—the Tiger Club. I was the newest member of the Tiger Club, having completed my checkout with an instructor and then soloing an EU-registered airplane for the first time since completing my EASA pilot license in Iceland. At the time, I was flying to London every few weeks with my job as a Boeing 757/767 pilot for a US airline. The future was bright and the skies were clear; but a rumbling was developing throughout the world of a new virus that would threaten our very existence.

A mere 3 days later, the first of many restrictions upon travel was announced. Initially, this excluded the UK. However, only days after the first European travel restrictions, the ban spread to the UK and Ireland. I was still flying back and forth as a pilot for the airline, and I immediately noticed the effects. Our flights going to Europe started to become empty, and citizens overseas were rushing to return home. The first time I came back to the US as a crewmember on the 767, it was like a scene out of a post-apocalyptic movie with full-gear representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and customs screening passengers for any sign of the virus. The world was starting to change before my eyes.

My last flight on the 757 was to Las Vegas, Nevada, a town near and dear to my heart. At the time, the Las Vegas tower had closed down because several controllers became ill. The captain that I was flying with hadn’t been to a non-towered airport in a while, so it was a good learning experience for him. The casinos on the strip were closed and the strip itself was abandoned, making for an eerie sight on our drive to Henderson where there was an open hotel. We had barely 10 paying passengers on the flight. We had gone from full flights to 10-percent occupancy in a few days.

With the drawdown of international flying, I soon found myself with more time off than I wanted, so I returned to ferry flying. While most overseas business had shut down as countries closed their borders, I still found myself ferrying within North America. Canada had become nearly militant with their restrictions, often claiming that general aviation flights and ferry flights were not essential until fully explained to customs officers. Uber drivers had become scarce and the few that continued driving created plastic barriers in their cars to separate passengers. Hotels had put up plexiglass barriers like bank tellers, and there were no longer courtesy shuttles. People would jump back if you accidentally got too close, as if a ghost had crept up on them unexpectedly. The fear spread like wildfire, and not even the experts had devised a strategy to put it out.

Between March 7 and April 1, I flew almost every day as a ferry pilot or as a commercial airline pilot. Some states would make passengers fill out quarantine forms if you arrived from certain other states. I landed in El Paso, Texas, to find the National Guard waiting and asking for paperwork stating where I would be self-quarantining. I found that many FBOs were closed or had different procedures in place in order to follow CDC guidelines. After landing in Texarkana, Arkansas, in a Cirrus, I was told that I had to fill out a form to tell them how much fuel to add, and then had to give my credit card number verbally from across the room since they would not touch credit cards. Some cities, like El Paso, mandated that everyone would wear a mask in a public building. I started to keep one in my pocket for local restrictions. Some notams would show closures, but often you would either hear it on the AWOS (such as at Midland Airpark) or see a sign posted on the door that an FBO was closed, making logistics challenging. At one point, I was told I could not use the bathroom in the FBO because of local restrictions while the employees sat inside, which made for an awkward scene!

I did find that the experience differed dramatically between states and even US customs stations. Some states are starting to open, and after a recent delivery I had an excellent steak dinner with my student in Omaha, Nebraska. It was my first time eating at a restaurant in 2 months, and one of the most exciting moments of my recent adventures.

Meanwhile, the flight school that I’ve been occasionally instructing at is also starting to open but taking precautions for student training. I’ve started to find that fear is moving more toward reason and mitigation of risk, and human resilience has become the motivation for our decisions. While for now the future seems uncertain for pilots and the aviation industry, the unwavering commitment to recovery and strength that I’ve witnessed shows that together we will overcome the obstacles presented by this calamity. This is only a temporary setback. The industry will continue to rebound and I have no doubt that we will see the same or even greater prosperity in time as we relentlessly pursue our passion for aviation.

The post Flying During A Global Pandemic appeared first on FLYING Magazine.