Faeroes

Two Pirates wrote up their experiences of the trip, Nigel Webb and Roger Stroud. Inevitably they have differing viewpoints, so both are set out below ...

Ten go absolutely wild on the Faeroes

by Nigel Webb

30-AUG-01

Vagar (EKVG) is a remote windswept airport at the end of a fjord on the Faeroes, a tiny volcanic group of Islands that lie about half-way between The Orkneys and Iceland. It was also the venue for a Fly-in over the bank holiday by Julian Berry, Ian Bennett, Chris Wright, Alex Stillman, Roger Stroud, Richard Willcox, Adrian Beney, Mike Turner, Tim Emrys-Roberts and myself. We took four aircraft; my Beech Baron, a Tobago, an AA5 and an Archer for the 1500 nm round trip.

The idea of flying to Vagar was born a few months ago in a bar in Cork during a conversation between Roger Stroud and myself. The practicalities of an Atlantic crossing were being discussed, and the various waypoints that might feature in such a crossing were analysed. Of all the waypoints, the one that neither of us knew anything about was Vagar. Apart from it being the most northerly airport in the Jeppesen CEN04 airways manual, we didn't know anything else about it. A message to the usually so informativeFlyer magazine e-mail forum revealed nothing other than that one subscriber had a pen friend there.

So from the starting point of a total absence of information, the last few months were spent informally recruiting pilots to our cause and gathering charts and other information about the Faeroes which we shared via a website. A date was picked, the bank holiday weekend; 10 single rooms were booked on the Faeroe Islands and we impatiently waited.

For a journey including 250 miles over some of the most inhospitable ocean in the world, with the distinct possibility of being forced out of radio contact by low freezing levels, safety was of prime importance. With this in mind, Ian Bennett managed to arrange a ditching and maritime survival course at a specialist centre in Southampton that serves the offshore oil industry. An enlightening experience if ever there was one. Getting out of an inverted aircraft simulator at the bottom of a swimming pool is not easy! Accomplished businessman that he is, Ian also managed to negotiate a "special" rate on some key items of survival equipment.

So now thoroughly damp and at least a little nervous, last weekend finally arrived. The self-styled "Flying Pirates" arranged to rally at Kirkwall (EGPA) in the Orkneys on Saturday afternoon. My Beech, Lima Mike left Cambridge at 10:30 with Mike Turner and Tim Emrys-Roberts on board. We made the quick hop up to Teesside to pick up Adrian Beney and to load up with cholesterol in the greasy-spoon establishment. On arrival we bumped into Julian Berry and Ian Bennett, just leaving for the next leg up to Kirkwall. Adrian had been hard at work and in addition to his luggage, he had had made, personalised "Flying Pirates" Rugby shirts for the whole group. These came with a suitably piratical winged skull logo emblazoned on the front. All aboard then for the 1:35 trip up to Kirkwall. On departure, we spotted Roger Stroud and Richard Willcox's aircraft G-KITE on the apron. Clearly, they had sneaked in antisocially whilst we were filling our faces.

Our routing to Kirkwall took us over our first large expanse of water. North of St Abbs Head (SAB VOR) direct to Kirkwall, running up the picturesque east coast of Scotland at FL65 talking to Scottish Control. On frequency, we heard G-FLEA, Julian's steed, routing more conservatively, inland via Inverness. The arrival into Kirkwall is an unforgettable experience. Last year a subset of the Pirates made a similar pilgrimage to Kirkwall, and this was a very welcome return. The descent towards the circuit brings the visitor in over Scapa Flow, famous for being the location in which the German fleet was scuttled, with many wrecks still being diveable today. Indeed, to the low level flyer, the tiny oil leak emanating from the wreck of our own ship the Royal Oak is just visible.

Touchdown at Kirkwall revealed the final piratical ship, Chris Wright's G-NODE, which had landed a few minutes ahead of us from a Friday spent doing the Black Bottle Challenge on the west side of Scotland. An hour or so later, Julian and Ian arrived in the FLEA, and bringing up the rear several hours later once everybody else was firmly ensconced in the bar at the Ayre Hotel, Roger and Richard sneaked in once more in G-KITE. Big as they are, the Orkneys are not used to parties of 10 arriving unannounced, and the evening meal was spent uncomfortably crowded round a table for 8, the largest on the Island :-) There was much unhealthy discussion about freezing oceans, fog and VHF range, topped off with a glass a local whisky, before bed.

I awoke on Sunday morning to the sound of rain drumming on the window from a high overcast. Not the most auspicious of starts. Chris Wright had already obtained the Faeroes weather. 0350 FG VV///. Not good if you plan to land at an airport at the far end of a fjord. Ever the optimists, we headed off to Kirkwall airport and checked the aircraft out. Minor delight was taken from an improvement in the weather. 6000 OVC002. Still totally unflyable. The location of the airport makes instrument approach design very difficult. The approach minima, even under IFR are 4500 metres vis and 1200' cloud base. Not even the IFR jocks amongst us were going to be able to go. Having spent months planning the trip, 10 very dejected pirates sat on the baggage trolleys in front of a closed terminal at Kirkwall and listened to the rain falling outside. Meanwhile... the weather at Vagar continued to improve. 9999 SCT003 SCT005 BKN012.

This placed us in a tough position. Given the length of the flight, the total absence of any alternates and the prevailing headwind, most of the SELs would be running on close-to empty if they were to be forced to return from Vagar having discovered themselves unable to make an approach. This meant that for the first time in many people's flying career they actually had a meaningful and quite critical point of no return.

The plan then was for my party in the Baron to fly first, in front of the rest of the group. With an economy cruise of 180 knots, we would hear about the Vagar weather before the other aircraft, and could advise an early turnback, if no joy. We all left a slightly sunnier Kirkwall at 15 minute intervals, and climbed to FL85, our chosen cruise. This level yielded a slight headwind (around 15 knots), and was just at the freezing level. It was also selected for its ability to guarantee continuous VHF contact for the trip. The majority of the flight is still in the UK FIR, and was conducted in and out of IMC. All of our aircraft communicated between one another on 123.45, the north Atlantic approved air-to-air frequency. This enabled our team in the Baron to relay information about headwinds, clouds, icing and Vagar weather to the rest of the party. We also passed ETAs between one another for various key waypoints in order to ensure that we would quickly determine if anybody was in trouble. Finally, the 123.45 system allowed us to relay ATC instructions from Scottish as we gradually dropped out of radio range. The next frequency was a brief call to Reykjavik, in whose TMA, Vagar sits. Once they established that we were a convoy of VFRers going into Vagar, we were instructed to descend to FL55, to remain outside the Reykjavik TMA and quickly transferred to Vagar Information.

The first site of the Faeroe Islands was magical. covered in low cloud, they looked like King Kong's Island in the 1930s film. We descended low level to take a closer look and spent the last island-hopping 60 miles or so into Vagar relaying the good news to our fellow pirates. 9999 SCT012 BCN040 :-))) VCFG. :-(( The VCFG was not evident, so we opted for the "Waterfall arrival". The opening of the Fjord in which Vagar sits is some 50-100 feet above sea-level. This means that the Fjord ends in a beautiful waterfall down to the open sea, like an overfull bath. This arrival calls for the pilot to descend over the sea whilst getting into the landing configuration. When at about 600 feet all is ready, you enter the fjord over the waterfall. The fjord is shaped like large mile-long banana, which you fly along and around to find the airport at the far end.

Touchdown!

One by one, the others arrived, Roger and Richard finally touching down some two hours after our own arrival. What an achievement! 10 pirates safe and sound on Vagar!

Torshavn, the capital, and only town boasting any kind of hotel is 75 km away, and on a separate island. Because public transport is not brilliant we hired three cars from Avis. These cars were not like ordinary cars though. One had a flat tyre, the brakes had corroded on the other two, and on one, the power-steering, didn't. Clearly Vagar Avis doesn't see many tourists. Bugs fixed, we headed by car and tiny car ferry to Torshavn. Descriptions of the scenery cannot do it justice. From high mountains to deep cold fjords, the landscape is littered with boulders, which the locals think are hiding trolls. Sheep wander at random everywhere, even halfway down the steep sides of the fjords. The Foroyar Hotel sat on the hill-top overlooking the town of Torshavn with its brightly coloured houses and incredibly active fishing port. £67 a night bought one of the best views I have ever seen in any hotel. A quick trip down to the not-so bright lights of Torshavn and the discovery that beer goes for £5 a pint brought us to the end of a perfect day. For the first time, the pirates would not be flying the following day, so a fine meal of Puffin, Blubber dried fish and other Faeroese delicacies was consumed by the braver pirates, whilst the wussies went for steak, chips and other more conventional fare. Much alcohol was consumed in the true piratical style.

Bank Holiday Monday morning was spent touring the islands in a small boat that we had chartered. The original intention had been to visit the famous "bird cliffs", home to over 3.5 million Puffins and Fulmars. Having eaten a number of their friends the previous night, the Puffins conspired to hide themselves, and the weather made the sea too rough for some pirates to stand. A brilliant way to pass the morning. The afternoon was spent at a preserved Faeroese village in the company of some 100 US and Canadian pensioners from a passing cruise ship. "Awwww Geeeeez. This is soooooo quaint..... I wanna tell you... this is just like that place we were just at.... what was it called again...... that little island..... yeah.. Scotttttland....". We noticed our party's tame Scot, Mike MacTurner looking twitchy and reaching for his baseball bat, so we headed swiftly off.

Another night of Puffin eating followed, and more discussion of the weather for the journey home.

A grim set of pirates arrived back at the airport early on Tuesday morning. Cloud lined the fjord and the viswas low. I asked the FISO what he though. Ho, you have been *so* lucky with the weather, he said. 8000 metres and BCN006, just right for a VFR departure. Stornoway was our destination this time, prompted by the desire to route back via new and undiscovered airports. We left last in the Baron and took photographs of each of our colleagues as we caught up with them in turn on the way home. 123.45 once again served to insure that we could all look after one another, and a passing jet North West xyz helpfully relayed messages for us. Well... it would have been helpful had it not been for the fact that the pilot got every single fact wrong in the relay, and seemed to be under the impression that the phonetic for "D" was Dixie. For ever more will G-NODE, be known as "Dixie Echo". Perhaps it was the revenge of the American Pensioners.

An uneventful trip back saw Lima Mike touch down at Cambridge some 4.5 flying hours later from one of the most exciting flying adventures that any of us has ever experienced. An experience made all the better for the incredible camaraderie that has grown up amongst all 10 of us. The shared experience of the meticulous planning, preparation, encouragement and finally the execution is an unparalleled way of improving *everybody's* flying. All of us, with our widely varying experience levels learnt a lot on this trip.

The Flying Pirates are now researching our next conquest. We'll report back...

Nigel

The Faeroes - a Pirates Tale

by Roger Stroud

Nigel has already submitted a report of the Vagar trip, but there are a few differences between the 'Webb-Air' view of all this, and that of just one of the SELs.

Richard Willcox's, and my tale started off with a certain amount of confusion as we were asked to change planes having already arrived early at Bournemouth for an early departure. Putting VB back to bed, then finding the other aeroplane, reloading our gear, and setting off, delayed us by an hour an a half. This had repercussions for later as the destination for the day, Kirkwall, closed at 4:45. Fortunately, the other plane, G-KITE, had a cruise prop which gave us an added 5 knots cruise. This allowed us to catch up somewhat and in fact we were able to arrive at Kirkwall with an hour in hand. The downside is that we missed the first rendezvous with the others at Teesside. Never mind, the first leg was complete and the usual evening of piracy followed. We even managed to confine ourselves to spending the evening within 200 yards from the hotel as per usual. ;-)))

Flying an SEL on the leg to Vagar was, from the start, one area of the trip that absorbed a lot of our attention from day one of the planning. The sea crossing that would take us around 2hr 20mins in still air (2hr 40mins as it turned out) could not be taken lightly, and it was clear that we could not just 'turn up' at Vagar then divert if the weather was too bad to land. A lot of planning went into researching sources of weather, a spreadsheet was prepared calculating the Critical Point (the point at which it is as quick to go to the destination as turn back), and the Point of No Return (the point by which you have to turn back if you are to reach the alternative airfield - back at Kirkwall). As Nigel said, by arranging for him to go ahead and report back on conditions at the Faeroes, we were able to make the decision on whether to carry on or not, well before we reached the PNR.

The other concern, of course, was the consequences of ditching. Having scheduled the dunking course, courtesy of Ian, it became very obvious that if we entered the water it was unlikely without a lot of team effort that we would have the strength to get into a life raft. Fortunately, we were all in low-wing a/c, and perusal of several experiences of ditched pilots reassured us that we were likely to have a few minutes while the plane floated, to deploy and enter the life raft. We also discussed routing and whether it was worth a small dogleg to fly over a couple of oil rigs part way across. In the end this was discounted, though we did have the waypoints plotted in case of the need to ditch. The route was Kirkwall direct to AB, an NDB on the Southern tip of the Faeroes.

On the morning of Sunday, we hurried off to Kirkwall airport to prep the planes and wait on the weather at Vagar. As time went on the actuals gradually improved until we were able to make the decision to go. Preparations were made amid a flurry of gallows humour. The sea crossing was daunting and was in the forefront of everyone's mind. Finally, ten mad souls - six in survival "blobby" suits boarded their aircraft and we were ready to go.

We're off!

The climb out from Kirkwall was directly to FL65 so that the engine-stressing climb could be over land. As the coast eased back under the wing all that could be seen was cloud and a steel grey sea. The realization that there was over two hours more of this ahead was intimidating and the mood in the cockpit quiet.

It is hard to convey the feeling of how slow the time passed as we droned on over the sea. As we had elected to cruise at the slowest of the three SEL's speeds, we went last. The only real breaks in the monotony were the constant Ts & Ps checking (was the temp maybe a tad higher than last time?), positional reports to the others in our group, and the radio. Firstly Kirkwall, then Scottish until they could no longer work us; then Reykjavik. I got a real buzz working Reykjavik. It gave a very real feel of being far up in the North Atlantic: and listening to the airliners getting their hand off for the North Atlantic crossing gave a very real sense of how far North we really were. At one point I remember that we talked about pilots in the last war, who daily set out in single engine aircraft for long patrols over this very sea. I imagine that the trepidation must decline with each successful trip, but the chance of engine failure doesn't; and how must it feel, all alone and hours out at sea, to hear your engine falter?

Passing 61 North, we knew now that we were nearly at AB on the Southern most island of the Faeroe group. There is still a long way to run at this point, but being close to land is a relief, and gradually the imposing view of this very rugged landscape eased out of the grey. Our first view was of craggy mountains jutting out of the sea, with huge plumes of cloud boiling from the tops. We dropped to get under the edge of the cloud and started our slow meander up between the islands.

As reported, the Waterfall VFR approach into Vagar is stunning. A crescent lake running approximately North South spills from over 50 feet into the Atlantic from between a gap in the surrounding hills. The approach is to fly part way up the lake then turn left onto Runway31, but being aware of the location of the runway does little to prepare you for the way it springs from the surrounding hills. Base to finals was accomplished in a 60+ degree turn then do your best to settle things down for the landing. Finally on the runway, we reunited with our fellow pirates at the fuel bowser, and climbed stiff-jointed from KITE.

The events of our stay have been ably recounted by Nigel so I can safely leave most of it out. I will just say that a lot is said about the Islanders' habit of eating just about anything that they can lay their hands on, including pilot whales and puffins. In fact we saw a boat crew catching Fulmars in a net, whilst on our boat trip. What is immediately obvious though, is that these folk have needed to farm and hunt every resource they have here. If a slope is less than 60 degrees, they plant potatoes on it, if over, they run sheep on it. The sheer tenacity of these people is evidenced everywhere, and if my cosseted viewpoint makes me at first baulk at their way of life, I for one can easily forgive them. We were reminded at one point that these dour Islanders lost 4.3% of their population, and 30% of their shipping whilst supporting the UK in the last war. Churchill said we should not forget their contribution to our survival. I did not know of their sacrifice, so it appears we already have.

Tuesday morning looked fairly good as we left our hotel, but arriving back at Vagar airfield it became obvious that it was just about fly-able, but set to deteriorate. Back in the survival suits we clambered awkwardly aboard and fought the planes up into the turbulent air, staying just below cloud at 700 feet. Turning right back over the lake the turbulence increased tenfold as we passed between the hills. For a few seconds as we burst clear of the waterfall the plane was tossed like a leaf. By far the worst turbulence I've encountered. Climbing out to FL55 we again watched the impressive scenery slip away behind us. The trip back was flown mostly in thick IMC. This time with more of a headwind, our crossing was to take 2hrs 50mins, finally descending out of cloud at 1200 feet for Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides.

This should have been pretty much the end of our tale, except that the SELs had planned to spend the last night of the trip in Oban. This is a short trip across the Minch, past Skye and into the sheltered inlet to the great Welcome of Oban airport. Having had so much go right for us, we all suddenly found ourselves in low thick cloud just off Skye, with no choice but to climb and go IMC. Although Oban were reporting good weather, with no radar service to give us a safe let down through cloud, KITE followed FLEA on a divert towards Prestwick. As it turned out, the weather ran obliquely across the Minch, so in fact it was easily possible to track back to Oban once we'd burst clear. Chris in NODE decided to do this, but having made our way so far South, an in flight conference decided FLEA and KITE would carry on to Prestwick. Nobody could keep their eyes open beyond 9 o'clock that evening.

The final drag down to the South coast seemed almost a non-event. FL55 mostly into increasingly good weather, then descend into Bournemouth in time for lunch.

As we bedded the plane down one of the local pilots who we'd spoken to on the way out, walked over. "You made it then?" he grinned. Distant though it all seems now, we most certainly had!

Roger