Search results matching tags 'Around the World Solo Flight' and 'Florida'

Search and Rescue

Maurice — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:23:00 GMT

Panic, panic my flight to the USA takes off today and I have a lot of packing still to do here in my home in South Wales. I am returning to Florida first and plan to fly down to the Bahamas in a wee 'canvas and tube' aircraft with the hope of finding and rescuing Liberty Girl.

She was last seen at the end of February drifting tail up, like a fisherman's float, north-west from the spot where we ditched her in the ocean some half way between the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands. I hope to scour the beaches of the lower Bahama Islands and call in to the US Base on Great Inagua, and try and track down the helecopter crew who fished me out of the drink, I owe them a beer!

Sun 'n Fun Airshow, Tampa, Florida, is on the 8th April so I hope to get back for that as someone wants me to give a talk. A chance to catch up with old friends from all over the world and do a bit of 'bar flying' with guys still flying aeroplanes who are twenty years older than me.

After that maybe Trinidad via Martinique for the Falklands or the overland route straight for Mexico and Panama possibly. It all depends on a little project we are onto in the woods of central Florida!

Fog Stops Passage to Cuba

Maurice — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 12:50:00 GMT

Thick fog puts a stop to a 6 am flight to Cuba and I do not get away from Leesburg until 09:45 local. The head wind gets worse over the Everglades swamp but what a spectacle of wildlife, especially the Gators, I seemed to check the engine gauges a little more than normal. The fuel consumption is not good - close on six US gallons an hour and I have taken out my overhead tank. Cannot overfly Cuba, I am soon told, without 48hr wait for a permit. Dominican Republic is a must but a long, long way. Conrad, I might be knocking on your door sooner than expected via the Bahamas.

Turned back in the end and arrive back at the Keys with a T6 Harvard taxing past while a Waco biplane goes for a jolly. And there is a Pitts biplane just asking to be flown. I locate a host for the night. Ray up at Indian River had told me to look him up his name is Freddy and he sorts me out with food, bed, shower and sound advice on “does and donts" if I AM TO VENTURE INTO THE WEST INDIES. Then off to a hangar full of pilots for a beer of sorts, and a yarn or two.

Going for Cuba tomorrow but much hassle is predicted. West Indies is not so civilised as I thought. Bahama islands are both good and bad. Turks and Caicos steal a pilot"s money, will need a good lawyer. Ah, I know of such a person who represented me once in his first job (unpaid) back in the 80s. He now lives in Caicos, must search him out!

Diversions in Winterhaven

Maurice — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:31:00 GMT

At 7am Chris my current host disappeared to fly Delta Air jets to Europe leaving me to sit on his veranda to wireless into my server for e-mails prior to the days flying.

Later Airborne and heading south, the deflated life raft is now tied to Liberty Girl's roof obscuring the view a little, but the new windscreen gives me excellent warning of the hundreds of aerials and various radio masts that dominate Florida"s landscape. I was punching a 15 knot head wind south to Miami so I was low enough not to take those masts too seriously.

At 11am I divert into Winterhaven for fuel, I say Hi to the lads at the aero club who helped me out last year. I had come over to the "Sun n Fun" airshow to give talks and had gone for a swim in the lake before sleeping in a rental car. Well, it didn"t quite work out that way. As I waded waste deep into the mud and shingle, a huge dark shape moved in front of me. Two nostrils and an eye was enough for me to move like the proverbial *** off a shovel! I was only in my shorts as I ran up the beach and was definitely not stopping to see if he was following. I reached my car, quite out of breath, now limping badly from an old ankle injury sustained from hang-gliding 30 years earlier. Damn! I"m locked out. My car keys and all my clothes are on the passenger seat. Nothing for it but to walk to the flying club and T hangars with the hope someone is still about at 9 at night. A long walk on that ankle diagonally across an airfield gets me there. I was in luck. The Club rang the "rental" who rang "their local man" who in 40 minutes is there and with conventional and not so conventional methods forces an entry.

Fond memories indeed but I digress. I am now turning on to "base leg" for "finals" for the southerly runway of Winterhaven before I spot another airplane in the circuit. "Lookout, look out", an essential phrase when flying anywhere in the world. Always assume the unlikely and be ready for it. Always check things yourself in aviation and never rely on others except on the rare occasion when circumstances dictate otherwise. A quick "Hi and Bye" in Winterhaven since there are no landing fees in the US. Refuelled and Liberty Girl and I were off again for Miami.

Now 3pm. The last 100 miles to the coast was over the Everglades, a flat marshy environment often with no undergrowth at all. Raccoons and deer I definitely saw but there is one short legged fury brown animal I am yet to have identified to me. It was with regret that I heard, too late, from the President of the Florida Aero club, Tony, retired from the motor trade and crash repairs, tells me that there is an unwritten law here not to go below 1000 feet for nature conservancy reasons, it being an area of special importance especially where birds are concerned. Knuckles are wrapped, it will not happen again.

At 4pm Tony met me at Hollywood Aviation just where he has homed his V tail Bonanza for 30 years. Made in 1964, I guessed right, not realising he has under the bonnet an I.O. 550 Continental of 310 HP giving a cruise possibility of just three times the speed of Liberty Girl! At 4.30pm it was onto Survival Products Inc's factory next to the sprawling suburbs of Hollywood to have my life raft serviced and where I buy another for immediate "use", I doubt I'll need it, but you never know.

Early evening Tony is desperately trying to find me a hotel with "good, dutiful" wife, back at the house. No good, all full or ridiculously expensive and too far away for a later scheduled meeting and film show. Tony remembers an empty house he has nearby, so that's my pad for the night. My sleeping bag is needed but there's one problem - no furniture, so all work on computer and telephone is done while seated on the loo!

Now the "eating" in Hollywood was an experience, even for Maurice! At 7pm we all met at a large "Corral" full of local residents of all ethnic possibilities, their average weight being well in excess of the national average. Food displayed was ranged down a sixty foot counter where the queues were waiting for thick juicy steaks, roast, barbequed or fried chicken and many, many other meats under preparation as we watched. Puddings (deserts) stretched all the way down to an ice cream machine that pumped out gallons of any flavour you needed! The kids seemed to be going back to their tables with plates stacked so high to be almost the size of their heads! Oh, yes and when we finished almost everyone went back for second or third helpings as if the world was due to come to an end. I reached for my camera more than once to record the spectacle of the totally inadequate seats they were all slumped on. I thought better of it, returning instead to the counter to get my third helping of scrumptious apricot pie and huge dollops of cream. To cross the Timor Sea, from Indonesia for Darwin in Australia seven years earlier, I had gone on a "no food at all" diet for 15 days before the air race, in order to carry extra fuel load.

I am not so sure if the West Indies will be treated with such meticulous pre flight planning?

The Battleship Stearman

Maurice — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:04:00 GMT

Judie organised from afar and Pete was my host. The venue was an old, much used hanger on the south end of the private grass strip south east of Ocala, Central Florida. Over 60 people attended to enjoy a hearty feast having wheeled out the Mooney, Stearman and Liberty Girl to make room. We had a good laugh and I made good contacts for bits needed for the cub and for further talks across America. Still no one could find me a map of Cuba for some reason or to find an easy way to blow up my life raft cylinder. George masterminded an alternative flotation solution or as Pete described it, "Liberty girl has a foam enema" which was achieved by blowing foam peanuts through a length of drain pipe using a powered garden sweeper!

Chris next morning took me for a flight in a smart blue and yellow 1940 Stearman biplane. Same year as my US two seat Taylorcraft was built, now in lots of pieces back in England. I bet the Boeing Stearman was four times the weight! Talking of weight Florida is not the place to embark on a diet or Gen's (my daughter) New years resolution for me to lose a stone. "What's a stone?" they say, while we all tuck into our second helping of local strawberries, short cake and whipped cream. "Oh, about 6 to 7 kilos", I say, tongue in cheek.

After wheeling out the aircraft again we "tank up" the Stearman on $3 a gallon autogas and I jump in. Built like a battle ship with a base ball bat handle for a control column! The cockpit is big, the rudder bars wide apart with mere basic instrumentation for the student to learn on. We rumble on down the grass and with immense torque in the 220 HP radial continental she effortlessly goes into a steep climbing turn, the music from that engine is just pure heaven. Must fly (steal) one home to England, I think. Another flight for air to air photos was not so good. The sun had been blazing all day until both aircraft were at 1000ft, wing tip to wing tip, both armed with cameras. Never mind, another day, perhaps?

One more night with Pete before a planned early start back to Leesburg to pick up bits of ordered equipment for South America, spare fuses etc. and then Perry Field, Miami some 200 miles south.