I read the Federal Aviation Administration procedures and advice a few times and wrote them out to try to make them stick in my memory. One of the amazing aspects of the route is that air-traffic control clearance isn’t needed as long as you follow the rules. You simply turn up and make general broadcast calls, a sign that the tougher restrictions on all kinds of flying introduced after the 9/11 terrorist attacks only went so far.
From Westchester County Airport, north of New York City, I took off and headed west towards the Hudson. My first call on the radio, as I passed over the George Washington Bridge at the northern end of Manhattan, was to let other pilots in the vicinity know I was there. ‘Hudson traffic, amphibian, GW Bridge, 1100 feet, southbound,’ I said.
There was no reply, response or objection. I could have been in the Australian outback for all the interest I received. Another half a dozen position reports were required, using well-known landmarks. One, for a non-American, was surreal, and I broke into a broad grin as the words came out of my mouth: ‘Hudson traffic, amphibian, Statue Liberty, 1000 feet, tracking south and turning east for northbound in one minute.’
The Southern Sun was flying so close to the Statue of Liberty I felt I could almost touch it. The sun broke through the clouds, casting a wonderful sheen over the calm waters of Upper Bay. Ferries, boats, barges and yachts created a busy water life that would not have been out of place in a Richard Scarry children’s book.
The rules allow aircraft to circle around the statue, which was built to welcome immigrants to America. As a lone pilot and with tourist helicopters in the area, I decided not to push my luck. I was pretty happy as it was. To behold Battery Point, at the southern tip of Manhattan, right up to the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, and so many others I couldn’t name, was a high point of my life. It felt like an enormous achievement to have crossed two continents and the Atlantic Ocean. In the thirty minutes of that flight I felt elation, pride and a feeling that I can best describe as approaching bliss. If true contentment is possible, I had found it.
Like most foreigners, I was in awe of the size and density of New York the first time I went there, many years earlier. Seeing it from the air at low altitude brought a new level of appreciation. If you want to find a celebration of American freedom, look no further than the fact that any pilot can fly a small plane the length of Manhattan and, if of a certain ilk, do what I did next.
As the Sun passed a few ferries and approached the aircraft carrier Intrepid, which has been turned into a museum, I knew what I had to do. I called on the radio: ‘Amphibian Southern Sun, Intrepid, northbound, 800 feet, descending for water operations on the Hudson.’
The Sun eased down and landed on the murky waters. I paused for a few seconds to soak up the experience. She wasn’t the first plane to land on the Hudson, but unlike some I was able to take off again. I was so happy that I did a second ‘splash’n’dash’.
Then I opened the throttle and gently climbed over the George Washington Bridge. A couple of minutes before I reached Westchester, an awful high-pitched squeal came through my headset. I looked across the instruments, scanning for a problem – the lights on the transponder were flashing on and off. I switched off the device and the squealing stopped. As I came closer to landing, I turned it on again but the squealing continued, so I turned it off immediately.
A transponder is mandatory for any craft wishing to land at most airports operated by air-traffic controllers. It sends out a radio signal that identifies the aircraft on radar. It is a vital piece of equipment. I had never heard of one failing like this.
The Westchester control tower advised that it could see the Sun and asked me to cycle (switch on and off) the transponder. Rather than say, ‘My transponder has malfunctioned,’ I said yes – and ignored the instruction. I was apprehensive and keen to land. They could see me. I could see the runway. I had plenty to do before landing. I needed to fly the plane, not start discussing the technical problems I was having. The tower cleared me to land and didn’t ask about the transponder again. When I finally pulled up in the parking area, I shut down the engine and sighed with relief. Talk about a roller-coaster of emotions.
Landing on the Hudson was something I’d wanted to do for years, but the transponder problem had given me a big scare. It wasn’t life-threatening, but if it had failed during my flight down the coast from Maine, I wouldn’t have been allowed to enter New York airspace. I needed a working transponder to access many of the airports I had flown into over the previous few months. I seemed to have become a disciple of a strange ‘breakdown just in time’ religion.
I tried to turn it back on. The screen stayed blank. I shut down all the Sun’s electrics, then took a deep breath and a sip of water. I switched her electrics back on, and turned on the transponder again. This time it fired up immediately, and there was no squealing on the radio headset. This was weird and disconcerting: faults were bound to happen, but I preferred it when there was some logic to them, which made fixing them so much easier.
Even though the transponder was apparently working, I couldn’t risk another breakdown. Wherever I headed next, I would have to land at airports without control towers and remain outside controlled airspace. I was already planning to take the Sun down to Florida for an annual maintenance check, fix a couple of intermittent faults and get some upgrades. So while it was a concern, it wouldn’t stop the trip. But talk about timing.
Putting aside that mishap, it had been a magnificent day. I checked into a hotel near the airport, had an early dinner and retired early. Over breakfast the following morning, I pondered my next move. A lot of people following my flight had encouraged me to fly to the EAA AirVenture airshow in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which attracted half a million people and 10,000 aircraft. The annual gathering of aviation enthusiasts, which had started the previous day, was only several hours’ flying away. I had been promised a hero’s welcome on arrival and lots of attention.
I was still reflecting on the trip from London, and I couldn’t get the incident near Goose Bay out of my mind. Walking into an airshow in my flying suit with my chest out and being lauded had a certain appeal, but it was the wrong reason to go.
I had always admired the few generals through the ages who, having won their battles, with power there for the taking, returned to their farms and simple lives. I was proud of what I’d done but didn’t feel triumphant. I toyed with the idea of turning up at Oshkosh, but decided I wasn’t ready to face any big crowds, and that I needed to get to Florida to get on with some maintenance on the Sun. The transponder fault seemed like a warning: You’ve done well, but don’t get cocky.
The morning television news led with the weather battering the mid East Coast. A tornado was heading for the Carolinas, which meant I wouldn’t be able to head south for a couple of days. Besides, I needed to rest, both physically and mentally.
New York was by far the most crowded place I’d visited during the whole trip. It was the loneliest, too. As I walked the streets with no real plan, the previous week’s events weighed on me. For several moments I had not only thought death was imminent, I had accepted it. The lack of activity and distractions in New York brought this to the surface. I was having a delayed reaction to the trauma of almost killing myself.
I questioned whether I should continue. I didn’t want to leave the Sun in New York, and she definitely needed some maintenance work. I was starting to think the best thing would be to get her to the factory, get the work done and ship her to Australia. I asked Barbara Pfeiffer, my freight agent of twenty years, how much a container would cost to move the Sun from Florida to Melbourne.
I decided to put off making the decision for a few days. I didn’t want to be mentally bogged down by it. I had a long trip ahead of me, whatever I decided to do afterwards. New York to Florida I decided I would undertake nonstop. It would be my longest flight ever, around twelve hours, a leg no other Searey, let alone your average Cessna, would dream of making.
New York City is rem
arkable for simultaneously catering to mass and niche interests. As a fan of Winston Churchill, I was thrilled to make a pilgrimage to Chartwell, the only dedicated Churchill bookstore in the world. Located in midtown, it had been in business for over thirty years. Along with books about Churchill, it has many original editions of Churchill’s own works. I held an autographed first edition of one of Churchill’s many volumes in my hand, in awe of the inky, barely legible inscription penned by Winston himself. The US$12,000 price tag saw it soon safely back inside the locked glass cabinet. Instead I bought a copy of the recently published Churchill, by the British politician Boris Johnson – in paperback no less, which struck me as appropriately humble.
Top of my visit list, though, was the World Trade Center memorial and Freedom Tower, the building that replaced the Twin Towers. Two waterfall pools had been built in the foundations of the original north and south buildings, making a very elegant memorial, with a sense of emptiness and loss that was sad yet fitting. The names of all of those lost were etched into a metal surround to the pools.
There’s an observatory and restaurant on floor 100 of the Freedom Tower, and the elevator that takes you there has a very nice feature. The three walls have floor-to-ceiling LED screens. As the elevator ascends, they display the physical development of New York over a few hundred years. The view from upstairs was spectacular, although the building owners had created more of an ‘experience’ than necessary by installing video displays and annoyingly loud commentators, and by trying to make more money by renting out informational computer tablets. Most people just wanted to look out the window in peace.
Although restaurants at the top of buildings don’t usually have great reputations, I thought, What the heck! The food was pretty good, the wine list fair and the sunset beautiful.
As the sun started making the whole city glow, it had a powerful effect on one guy. He kept nervously walking back and forth, turning and twisting between the tables. After a few minutes of this strange behaviour, he pulled a small box from his pocket and asked his dinner companion if she would marry him. Fortunately, she said yes, and the room applauded most enthusiastically. Bravo.
I was glad to spend a couple of days in New York, and pleased I hadn’t left immediately for the Oshkosh airshow. I don’t think I would have felt a real sense of arrival in the United States if I’d pushed on. I needed time to reflect, relax, reset.
Although I had decided to fly to Florida in one go, I didn’t know what I was going to do beyond that. Perhaps it would then be the right moment to call it quits and return to a more regular life.
26.
Key Largo
‘Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.’
BUCKAROO BANZAI, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984)
Being able to watch a movie with a glass of red wine, walk to the toilet and even sleep was infinitely easier flying in a commercial plane than in the Southern Sun. But nowhere near as much fun. After leaving her at the Searey workshop in central Florida for her annual service and helping for a few days, I took a Qantas flight home to Melbourne to see my family. I also attended the Melbourne International Film Festival, caught up on some work and investigated air-space and airport clearances for the Sun’s Pacific route home.
I weighed up the options. If I pressed on, I could become the first pilot in history to fly solo around the world in an amphibious plane or flying boat. Given I had travelled so far, it seemed a waste not to go the extra distance. On the other hand, the trip had almost turned into a disaster. And not just the incident near Goose Bay. The numerous equipment glitches could have been far more serious. I had been lucky, and was worried that my luck would run out. Sometimes you should quit while you’re ahead.
Without committing to a circumnavigation, I had asked the Searey mechanics in Florida to thoroughly examine the Sun. They removed the front deck and re-terminated the wiring, a step I hoped would end the intermittent electrical faults. In Melbourne I commissioned a larger flexible fuel tank bladder that could hold 110 litres, which was enough for five and a half hours of flying. The fuel bladder would be strapped into the passenger seat. Mike from White Rose agreed to seek permission for the Sun to fly through the Philippines and Indonesia, but advised that for Russian airspace I would need to deal directly with an agent there. He had never been able to secure permission for solo adventure flights through Russia, and on my analysis I would need this, if I was to cross the northern Pacific Ocean.
After a month in Melbourne, on 8 September 2015 I boarded a Qantas flight bound for London. I arrived the day Elizabeth II became Britain’s longest-serving monarch, and pomp and ceremony filled the air. After a quick visit to 1 Savile Row, coffee with a cinema colleague and a visit to the Grand Empire cinema in Leicester Square, I caught a flight from an overcast Gatwick Airport to sunny Miami. It took just forty-one hours from Melbourne to Orlando, via London: the same distance and route the Southern Sun had managed in three and a half months. The efficiency of modern air travel was humbling. But I was itching to be reunited with my flying boat, and to start exploring the world from above again.
Progressive Aerodyne had been closely involved in my preparations for the trip to London. Now that I planned to go the whole way around, the company’s involvement again became vital. I felt like more than a client. They seemed really proud of the Sun’s adventure, which was also creating greater awareness of the plane among pilots around the world. It had certainly given some credibility to the strength and robustness of the design.
I was lent an apartment at the airfield operated by friend and mechanic Russell Brown, who serviced Seareys for the company. I dined with a few local pilots on different nights, and all of them were great company. Jim Walsh suggested many local sights to fly to and visit, and my time with the guru of Searey flying, Dan Nickens, was very special.
Dan is a great adventurer, having flown his Searey across America from Florida to Alaska, with his wife, Anne, following in a motorhome and meeting him each night. He has an enormous amount of experience. I hadn’t told him of my troubles at the end of my Atlantic crossing, so he never knew how much his calmness, stories, encouragement and friendship helped me decide to push on. Dan had accompanied Richard Bach on a cross-country Searey journey, which resulted in Bach’s later book Travels with Puff. He encouraged me to write a book when I was finished, which I had pondered but had not decided upon until talking with him. Dan also gave me great tips on flying up the Mississippi and across to Alaska. Thanks, Dan.
When I was alone, my diet usually consisted of a can of tuna, some nuts and a glass of red wine. I visited just one cinema in Florida, the Aloma Cinema Grille. The ‘grille’ referred to the fact you could eat a burger at a small table next to you; the seats were comfortable but looked like 1980s vinyl office chairs. The flat floor made it hard for everyone to see the screen. Not the best execution, but on the personal space index in my research it ranked mighty high.
Progressive Aerodyne asked me to give a presentation at the Tavares Seaplane Base, which is close to the Searey factory, an hour north of Orlando. The event, held at a newly built function centre over the edge of a lake, reminded me of my dad pulling out a Kodak slide projector and a carousel of photos from a family trip. This was similar, except I arrived by air and was greeted by a big crowd, including the mayor, Kirby Smith, and the city’s business development manager, John Drury. Many Searey enthusiasts had flown or driven long distances to attend, including a couple who had come from Texas. No pressure!
I focused on the flying aspects and the people I’d met, and showed many photos of the sites I’d seen. The audience seemed thoroughly interested, engaged and asked lots of questions. The following day, the local newspaper, the Daily Commercial, published an article on its front page under an apt headline: ‘Going Solo’. I was so pleased to have been able to share the story like this, especially for Kerry Richter, the designer of the Searey and builder of Southern Sun. He had helped me many tim
es over ten years, and so much over the last few especially. He loved all the stories, and saved my photos to his computer so he could share them with his father, Wayne. I think he was pretty proud that the little plane he had designed twenty-five years earlier had gone from ‘puddle-jumping’ to a circumnavigation.
My planned route home was designed to combine a mix of geographies, sites and cultures. From Florida I would fly to New Orleans, and from there follow the Mississippi north to Minnesota, then west to Oregon, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. From there it would be across the Pacific Ocean to Russia, then south to Japan and the Philippines, through Indonesia and back to Australia. The whole trip depended, of course, on me getting clearance for every country. One rejection would make the journey impossible and I would have to head home by other means.
One of the upgrades installed in the Sun in Florida was a replacement Spidertracks unit, the satellite device that transmitted the craft’s position to a website. The new version had in-flight text messaging and access to weather reports from satellites anywhere on Earth. It was a huge safety improvement that would have been very useful when I was out of radio range over the Atlantic.
After ten days in Florida, with me helping complete the service and upgrades, I still didn’t have permission to enter Russia. The predominant winds in the North Pacific at that time of year are from the west, which would make the trans-Pacific leg even harder. As an alternative, I also requested permission to land at the most westerly airfield in the Aleutians, a US Air Force base, but that seemed unlikely. If the Russians didn’t come through, I figured I’d turn around in Seattle and spend a couple of weeks exploring America before shipping the Sun home.
Voyage of the Southern Sun Page 19
