Flying over the northern Atlantic and especially Greenland in fall can be tricky. Fast changes in weather, strong winds, low clouds, snow and ice and the lack of landing fields makes planning far in advance difficult. If conditions permit, we plan to depart from Stuttgart (EDDS) and fly during the first leg to Prestwick (Scotland) for a fuel stop. Our next leg will take us straight from Scotland to Iceland (Reykjavik) where will plan to stay for a day and explore the country.
The next leg will be the most challenging one from Iceland to Greenland’s west coast. This routing leads across the open sea and the ice fields and mountains of Greenland. There are almost no alternate airports on the route and the weather in Greenland is to a certain extend unpredictable at this time of the year. Pilots must wait for the first weather reports from Greenland before allowed to depart Iceland – if conditions allow. A scenario to be avoided is starting the trip and facing below minimums weather conditions in Greenland as fuel will not allow a return and as mentioned alternate landing fields are rare and usually also facing difficult conditions.
Our current plan is to land in Nuuk – the capital of Greenland at its western coast and stay there for two nights and explore the surroundings. From Nuuk the journey will take us further west towards the Canadian coast, with another fuel stop at Goose Bay – an airport in the middle of nowhere with not much around. From there we will continue down the Atlantic Coast towards the United States and finally into the Boston area.
The trip should take us around 5 days if everything goes as planned. We are now setting up logistics for the first legs including accommodation and transportation in the first destinations while continuing the flight planning, getting the plane ready and setting up the pack lists.
Preliminary trip plan:
| TUE 19.09. | EDDS – EGPK (Prestwick) |
| TUE 19.09. | EGPK – BIRK (Reykjawick) |
| WED 20.09. | Iceland (ground day) |
| THU 21.09. | BIRK – BGGH (Nuuk) |
| FRI 22.09. | Greenland (ground day) |
| SAT 23.09. | BGGH (Nuuk) – CYYR (Goose Bay) |
| SAT 23.09. | CYYR (Goose Bay) – KGON (Groton) |
| SUN 24.09. | KGON (Groton) – BOSTON (tbd) |
| MON 25.09. | Boston / BUFFER |