Ferry flight from BAF to BAFB-- Days 4-7

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DAY 4-5 : 7-8 July

We woke up in Sigonella and after taking off past the beautiful Mt Etna we continued our way across the Med towards England. We flew over Italy, France, and across the Channel, flying over the White Cliffs. Upon arrival in Mildenhall I ditched the group and went to meet up with Soupy, Kim, and Liss in London. There was a bit of a debacle with my rail tickets because the station in Ely didn’t accept American credit cards and my new debit card is still in California. So I had to get off the train in Cambridge, purchase tickets, then get back on the train. Thankfully I met Kim at Kings Cross far too easily and we made our way to a pub near where Soupy works to catch up a bit before Soupy and Liss met us after they got off work. 

Mt Etna on the departure

Etna and the coastline

Southeast coast of England

It was so amazing to catch up with them. Its always such a blessing when you haven’t seen someone for a long time and yet, after being together for about 5 minutes, you immediately feel like you were never apart. I stayed with Soupy and Liss at their place in Brixton overnight and in the morning I headed back to the train station to catch a train to Cambridge to meet up with Anthony and Becca.

I wandered around the city a bit while waiting for them and I was struck by how similar Oxford and Cambridge are. You would have a hard time differentiating them if you didn’t know them particularly well. Of course Oxford is abundantly superiour, but it was nice to get to see a bit of Cambridge. I met up with Anthony and Becca and we got to catch up while eating at the Anchor, the Cambridge equivalent of the Head of the River. We then walked along the Cam to Anthony and Ben’s place and hung out a bit before Anthony brought me back to base to prep for the next day’s flight. I worked out, watched Brazil get absolutely torn apart by Germany, studied the oceanic crossing procedures for our next few flights, talked to some Bagram folks, and then called it a night.

Kings College, Cambridge

Cambridge

DAY 6: 9 July

After looking at our fuel plans and timing estimates, we decided to skip the leg from Mildenhall to Prestwick and just continue straight through to Iceland. Its good that we did because of snafus with our flight plan we were delayed for 2 hours on the ground at Mildenhall and we were all significantly on edge before we even took off. Once we got airborn we flew over the Scottish Hebrides and out towards Iceland. The other aircraft had some radio issues over the sea and it affected our ability to get clearances and whatnot, but we finally made it to Iceland, where we had to shoot the approach to mins and broke out of the weather only about 30 feet above the minimums.

It was cold, rainy, and windy but we walked about 10 minutes from our super nice hotel to a seafood restaurant right on the bay and enjoyed a really tasty dinner while watching the first half of Netherlands-Argentina. I barely made it through the second half and penalties before crashing and sleeping straight on through until it was time to wake up and head out towards Greenland and Canada.

Over the Hebrides

On the water in Iceland

DAY 7: 10 July

The flight from Iceland to Greenland was beautiful. The Greenland terrain was gorgeous and we would catch great glimpses of it through patchy white clouds the whole way. The terrain on the approach was really cool as well, and for much of the approach we were flying lower than the terrain within just a few miles of us. It was a good thing that we were VFR the whole time because knowing that stuff was around us and being in the weather would have been nerve-wracking.

Over Greenland

Glacial lakes in Greenland

On the ground in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland

We ate lunch in the café at the airport and before we headed off we had to come up with some contingencies because the weather forecast for Goose Bay (or next stop) was pretty bad but we were tight on fuel and therefore didn’t have a lot of good divert options. We came up with a plan and chose to press, but the weather turned out to be much better than anticipated and while we did have to dodge some thunderstorms once we got over the land we didn’t have any issues getting into Goose Bay.

However, when we did land in Goose Bay we discovered a bit of a problem. We had some stuff on the aircraft that we were told would be removed before we left Bagram but was still there. So that became a whole thing with loads of phone calls and conversations and figuring out what we were going to do with all that. After several hours on the ramp sorting that out we finally made it to our hotel. Except that we were taken to the wrong hotel where they didn’t have any rooms for us, so we had to get to the right hotel. It was a long and slightly stressful day but it was nice to know that when we landed the next  day we would be back in the US!

When we landed in Canada

And 5 minutes later as the weather rolled in