We are cleared for take off on runway 11/29 at Solas Stavanger airport in Norway (ENZV). Wind still from 120-130 degrees 35 gusting to 50. We accelerate and in no time we are airborne. Climbing through 1.000 feet we make a first attempt to turn left. No way, the wind is so strong that we feel we are losing control of the airplane. We continue climbing on runway heading, or so, for another 4,000 feet, where finally we feel comfortable to start our left turn towards our course to Iceland. We set on our course and we continue climbing to our assigned altitude of 28,000 feet (FL280).

As we establish our cruise at Flight Level 280 we realize that we are doing a spectacular 282 knots of Ground Speed. All the wind which gave us a hard time landing and taking off from Norway, now it is pushing us at almost 450 km an hour, or 324 miles per hour, towards our destination Reykjavik Iceland.

The weather is cold, as it is winter and at this altitude we see temperatures of minus 45 and less. The windshield deice is working overtime, yet can't compete with this cold. A thin coat of ice is accumulated around the edges of the glass. As we fly North bound to colder temperatures, there are more to see, though we don't know it yet. Skies are clear though and we are watching on a very long sunset, as it is the rule in this North Latitude. Left of our course is the North Coast of Scotland and directly in front of us the Faroe Islands, a small island complex which belongs to Denmark. They are lying half way to Iceland, right on our course. I shoot a photo of the Garmin 480 GPS Map screen, where you can see our course from Norway to Iceland over Farroe, as well as our ground speed indicating 282 knots.

The view of the Atlantic Ocean unfolding in front of us is spectacular, there are hardly any clouds around and the view to all directions unlimited. Inside the cockpit, it is comfortable, not very warm, but not cold either. The engine is running smooth, and we have the airplane on autopilot. Our radios are silent most of the time, and the conversation with the controllers very sparse. We have over three hours to go so we are killing our time looking around and talking about our past adventures. We have an eye on the engine gauges though. All in green and the flight goes on smooth. As someone defined once that “flying is long hours of boredom and moments of terror”. Not quite with our case, we feel we have everything under control, but still we are worried for not a specific reason though. We calculate again and again the gliding distance from this altitude, towards the closest airport or land, and the figures come up less optimistic as the time goes by.

We fly above Faroe Islands and we continue over the water. There is nothing but sky and water which are mixing in front of our path as the horizon is not clearly defining where the sky ends and where the sea starts.

Time is passing and finally we are able to identify the shape of Iceland far away on our path. We have Iceland on the GPS Map for quite a long time, as we set the range on 180 miles radius, yet it is a whole difference to be able to see the actual Land twenty something miles ahead. It is time for Costas to pay a visit to the bathroom when the controller from Iceland clear us to a lower altitude. I start the decent. We are able to sea the sea state as we are approaching the East coast of the island. The strong wind push the water towards the Land and the waves burst the coast of Iceland. Soon we are crossing the coast and we are flying above Land, the feeling is a kind of relief. The weather is hazy, however we see the landscape beneath us, and we identify the glassier and the geysers. We are decenting now to much lower altitudes, and the last pieces of ice melts and vanish from our windshield. We overfly Reykjavik airport decenting and turning on the base leg above the water. The long sunset is turning twilight as we turn on final, runway in sight and wind 10 to 12 mph right on the runway. We touch down and we are heading for the FBO parking area.

There is customs and passport control, by a very polite Gentleman and a very polite Lady who take care of the formalities, fast and effectively. The Gentleman tells us how astonishing is this nice weather for this time of the year. Temperature at six centigrade (42,8 F) and light wind. He told us that the previous day a 757 after three attempts to land on the field, finally went to their alternate (BIAR) Akureyri, up north, as of the near gale winds. We walk in the FBO where hot coffee is waiting for us, along with a file full of information about our next leg. Information does not look good, though. Strong head winds are forecast from the west, which makes our plan to fly directly to Goose Bay Canada, void. Also the flight via Greenland, with a fuel stop there seems to be difficult due to the same reason. We decide to check on the weather again the next morning. The local FBO have booked for us rooms at the Airport hotel which is right across the street from the FBO and next to the Control Tower of the airport. The security measures we know from all over Europe does not apply here.

We have the rooms looking to the field, right in front of the ramp, where our PC12 is parked. Next to us a single engine Bonanza V Tail on US registration. We will found about it tomorrow. We have a light dinner and we go straight to bed after the long trip all the way from Zurich. We had accumulated over 8 hours of flying that day, and we were on the move since 05:00 that morning. Too much. I hear a noise, like artillery shooting and I go to the window, a spectacular view of fireworks, North of the field above the city. It lasts for over twenty minutes. When I asked, next morning, what was the purpose of the fireworks, and what did they celebrate on the 10^th of January, they told me that they had the fireworks for the New Years eve, but as it was misty and rainy that night, they spent the fireworks now.

Next morning we are back at the FBO for an updated briefing. Weather was not improving and the direct flight to Goose Bay Canada is out of question. The distance of 1,450 miles is near the maximum range of the airplane (1,700 miles) as we were fully loaded with the owners luggage, and can only accomplish the flight safely on no wind conditions. Iqaluit North Canada is also 1,300 miles away, and we have a similar problem, plus that they report temperatures below minus 40 centigrade (-40 F). Greenland, at 850 miles away looks the obvious refueling stop, however the head wind is in excess of 110 mph at our flight level, which makes the trip marginal at the present conditions. We decide to wait for an improvement and take a tour to the city of Reykjavik, two miles North of the field. Then, on our way out from the FBO we meet the pilot of the Bonanza. Michel from Belgium who is on a ferry flight from Texas to Hungary, to deliver this old Bonanza (parked next to us on the ramp) to her new owners. He was flying directly from Goose Bay Canada to Iceland, taking advantage of the favorable tail winds, when one of the six cylinders failed when he was flying abeam Greenland. He continued to Iceland on five cylinders and now he was waiting for the spare part to be delivered in order to continue his flight to Hungary. What an adventure! and on top of that he told us that the last leg, Greenland to Iceland, he was flying at 2,000 feet , covered with blankets as the heater of the airplane was not able to compete with the freezing temperatures. I thank God that we crossing the pond on such a marvelous airplane, well equipped and in sound condition.

The city of Reykjavik is beautiful. People are kind and friendly, there are several restaurants and cafe, and it has a huge fishing port with several fishing vessels, which are fishing in the inhospitable waters of North Atlantic. The day is sunny and the temperature between six and eight centigrade (48-50 F), therefore the streets are full of people walking, shopping and enjoying the unexpected beautiful day. We take a walk down the port side, and then back downtown to have lunch and later coffee. We are back at the FBO late afternoon to check on the weather one more time. It looks like next noon, the conditions will improve so we prepare a flight plan for Greenland Kangerlussuaq airport in the South West part of the island (Sonder stromfjord in Danish). We spent the next morning sitting in the FBO and waiting. Our flight plan is to land in Greenland for refueling, taking advantage of the three hours daylight, as we were unfamiliar with the airport, it is a good practice for us to be there on daylight, and then take off and fly to our final destination for that day which is Goose Bay Canada.

We are cleared for take off at 13:00 local, from runway 01, and shortly after we are climbing for our cruise altitude at 28,000 feet. Wind is calm, and the day is partially cloudy. Again we have the vast Ocean beneath us and we start the so called routine of checking and re checking the gauges and the instruments. There is no need to calculate the gliding distances anymore, as one hour later on our course there is nothing but the sea. As we are already at our altitude for more than half an hour, we realize that our windshield is turning opaque. The deice is not able to compete with the freezing temperatures which read now 62 centigrade below zero (-80 F), and leave us with a tiny hole to look through in my side and a little bigger one on Costas side. Of course we have the side windows clear. And then comes the Master Warning. The buzzer sounds and on the annunciation panel we realize that we lost our hydraulics. We are in the middle of nowhere, and it is not funny at all. Reading the airplane's Operation Manual we realize that the minimum temperature that this airplane is certified to fly is minus forty centigrade (-40 F), and we are exceeding this limit by 22 centigrade. Well, what we are doing now?. At a first glance, we see that lost of hydraulics will give us a hard time on landing as we have to manually extent the landing gear. This is really a painful job, and we are not happy, else we do not have any other imminent danger. Then we make a second thought, what if we did not lose our hydraulics but due to the extremely low temperature, hydraulics suffering contraction, shrank, so to speak, in their reservoir, their level being now below the sensor, and therefore we have the alarm that we lost them.

We have to do something, in any case we cant just seat there and do nothing. We decide to decent a couple of thousand feet to a “warmer environment”and see what happens. We ask clearance for FL 260 which is granted immediately and we start a slow decent. After a while, the temperature is minus 58 and the alarm is silent. We breathed with relief. We decide to remain at FL260 for the rest of the flight. We are operating in a temperature beyond the operational limits of the aircraft anyway. At a distance we finally see the East coast of Greenland and the gray mountains of the island behind, raising up to 12,000 feet. Their peaks are razor like, and look very inhospitable, certainly not a place to execute an emergency landing. We estimate a forty minutes flight to cross the south part of Greenland toward our destination airport in the South West of the island. To our right on the South East coast there is a small airport with unpaved runway, just for an emergency landing Nerlerit Inaat (BGCO) and to our right again on the South East there is a larger airport Kulusk (BGKK), which can serve for a while for an emergency.

We are approaching our destination, and the weather report is light winds, a four thousand feet overcast and temperature minus thirty five on the ground. It is 14:00 hours local time and we hardly have an hour and a half left before dark. We decent towards the sea and we turn on our long final approach. As we further decent above the land, we see that we are in a narrow fjord, which is getting more narrow as we fly North East towards the airport, and there is nothing there but snow- everything white. We feel uncomfortable as it looks like we are flying in a trap. Our windshield is almost clear now, the opaque ice melted completely after our decent to the “warmer” temperatures. Finally two miles out of the airport we see the runway, a tiny black spot among the vast white ice cup which covers the whole island. We land and turn left towards the ramp in front of the Passengers Terminal. We pay a visit to the NOTAM office for a weather update and to confirm our flight plan, while they refuel the airplane on the ramp. A very kind policeman, drives us with his car to the passenger terminal and he wait for us to have a fast lunch in the self service restaurant and do some souvenir shopping. I buy a hat with the logo “Greenland the coolest place on earth”.

Greenland is really a cool place, literally too. With a population over 50,000 who live only on the ice free coast of the island, in several towns, it is interesting that there are no roads between the towns and the transportation is done only by boats or airplanes. Greenland is considered the biggest island on earth, but not a continent by itself, and belongs to Denmark, though recently, the local government have more power. The Island is covered by ice all year round except the coastal areas and several scientists believe that if the ice cup melts we will see actually a complex of islands connected with a glassier.

Back in the ramp, and we are rushing to the plain, as time is critical. We need to be out of there before dark, and we have 800 miles to fly to Goose Bay, wishing we will catch the last light upon our arrival. We are much more knowledgeable now about the crossing, and much less stressed. The time to enjoy our adventure. We start the engine and we ask for the clearance. We are taking off from runway 28 and we are climbing on runway heading to our assigned altitude which is initially 14,000 feet. As soon as we climb through 6,000 feet we look in front of us a magnificent sunset, which will follow us almost all the way to Goose Bay, our final destination for the day. As soon as we cross the Greenland coast, we are assigned to 26,000 feet (FL260), and as we level off, autopilot on and coupled to the Garmin 480, we start to look around. Well, there is no water to cross any more. The sea beneath us is frozen and we can see vast flat areas of ice, where we can settle in case of an emergency. We do not know how rough is the surface of the ice, and if we would have not crash on that but certainly there is no ditching in freezing water. Soon after we lose all communications with the ground. We are too far away both from Greenland and Canada for our VHF to receive or transmit any communication.

We transmit our position and a kind pilot of an Air Canada airliner who is flying far South from us relays our transmission -with his strange English French accent- to the controller, and his answer back to us. We monitor few airliners on VHF all of which are capable to transmit or receive on our behalf and this makes us to feel reassured as of the communication issue. The weather is beautiful. The sunset is always there filling with special colors the horizon and it is a smooth flight, warm in the cockpit and the temperature rising outside as we are reaching Southern Latitudes. We keep discussing stories to catch up for the years that I was traveling due East and Costas was traveling due West, to counter-fight the boredom of an uneventful flight in the middle of nowhere.

Some time later we are crossing the coast of Newfoundland Canada, heading for Goose Bay airport. We are now in contact with Goose Bay, and its getting dark. The airport reports ½ mile visibility in snow and ground temperature of minus thirty five centigrade (-31 F), also runway covered with 10 inches of snow with poor braking action, of course! We are cleared to 19,000 feet and we find ourselves in the soup, with outside air temperature at minus nineteen centigrade (-2 F), a temperature inversion. As we further decent to 14,000 thousand feet and we are thirty five Nautical miles from the airport we start to accumulate ice on the wings. I start to work the deice, both for the wings and the propeller. Soon after, the prop deice quits. I recycle it but no success. Aha, we got something here! We are now 20 miles out and we listen on the frequency another airplane five miles ahead from our position to complain that he has no ILS signal. Good news. We check our instruments and we do not have ILS either. Very good news. We announce to the controller that we also have no ILS signal.

The ride is bumpy now, and the snow restricts visibility to zero. Prop deice is back on and off, while I keep the wings clear as much as I can. We discuss our options. The controller is asking if we have experience with GCA. (which stands for Ground Control Approach and it is used to bring down military fighter aircrafts.) Costas transmit “affirmative”. I stare at him surprised, how it is so I ask him, last time I had GCA training was back in our first pilot school almost thirty years ago. He looks at me apologetically and tells me that his experience is also since that day. Excellent, and now what? We turn basic and all of a sudden ILS is alive. We are turning final about six miles from the runway and we can see beneath us the rocky coast in the dusk, as we are four miles out, all of a sudden, like a curtain was removed, we see the runway lights, and the airport itself lighted. We touch on the runway and the plane stop by itself on the fresh snow, the ground controller instruct us to clear the runway on our left through taxiway Eco. I tell him that I am unable to identify the exit as all signs are covered by snow. He apologizes and tells me to continue until he tells me where to turn. We finally find ourselves parked in the ramp in front of the local FBO.

The crossing was over. What an adventure. Well we still have to reach White Plains New York which is our final destination, but the actual crossing was over.

The customs officer and his colleague approach our plane and take us in custody inside the FBO. One is taking Costas in the office while the other is waiting with me outside. Then we change places. The formalities are over and the two kind officers offers us to drive us to our hotel on their car. We have to stay and fill the flight plan for the next day, and get the latest weather briefing, so we thank them and they leave. So kind people. We plan to depart at 10:00 next morning and the forecast is good weather with strong headwinds. Well we will see, as now we have land beneath us and several alternatives. The FBO driver takes us to our hotel, next to a pub, not far away from the airport. The whole town looks like military barracks, this is the impression I have as I look outside the window, and everything is covered by snow. But it is not snowing anymore. We step out of the car, and the silence of the snow - covered place strikes us. We have a light dinner and straight to bed. We are exhausted, yet I am very happy.

I will describe my feelings at the end of this adventure until then have a very beautiful day

To be continued.....