
Pilots who risk their lives flying tiny planes over the Atlantic - herendin
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34484972
======
dctoedt
My dad was a career U.S. Air Force fighter pilot. After returning from combat
duty in the Korean War, he did a tour of duty as a ferry pilot. He made the
North Atlantic crossing many times in single-engine jet fighters, often in
winter. The planes usually crossed in flights of two or more aircraft. My dad
said that he and his squadron mates had an informal agreement: If one of them
had an engine failure, another one would get behind the troubled aircraft and
try to _push it_ to maintain air speed. Fortunately they never had to try it.

~~~
sokoloff
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNbcPS3A9c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRNbcPS3A9c)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardo%27s_Push](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardo%27s_Push)

~~~
gadders
That is pretty cool. Pardo was an amazing guy.

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galago
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_Ying_Lee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazel_Ying_Lee)

For some reason, the link sites recently carried a bunch of articles about the
Chinese-American aviator Hazel Lee, who is buried in my hometown of Portland,
Oregon. Her job was to deliver planes during WWII, which is notable because
she flew lots of different aircraft.

~~~
partisan
Thank you for sharing that. She sounds like she was an incredible inspiration
to the people around her.

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zensavona
I still find it hard to believe that it's cheaper to pay someone (per the
article, for transport from UK to US) $20k to _fly_ your plane, than it is to
dismantle and put it in a shipping container, and reassemble it on the other
end.

Maybe I have a naive understanding of the complexity of taking a light
aircraft apart? I do know though, that shipping a container from Europe to
Australia (!) runs a bill of around $5k, and I can't imagine the plane
referred to in the article taking more than two containers.

~~~
idlewords
Most planes aren't designed to be disassembled, and you would be paying for a
complete structural rebuild while paying a certificated mechanic's hourly
rate.

~~~
AmVess
?

Small aircraft are readily dissembled. The wings and tail feathers of most of
them are bolt on affairs. This isn't to say that it's an easy task; it takes
knowledge and skill like most things small aircraft. I have personally seen
two people take the wings and tail feathers off of a Cessna 18x in less than
four hours.

~~~
idlewords
Stop bringing facts into the argument!

I thought the older planes were built so that the wing spar isn't detachable
without major surgery. But I defer to your actual expertise.

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minimax
If you liked this article you'd probably also enjoy the book "Wind, Sand, and
Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. It's all about his time flying as an
airmail pilot through the Alps, over the Sahara, and crossing the South
Atlantic in the early 20th century.

~~~
jacobolus
Both the original French and the English translation by Lewis Galantière are
lovely.

Chapter 3 is my favorite humanist defense of technology, and one of my
favorite pieces of prose about engineering and design:

 _And now, having spoken of the men born of the pilot’s craft, I shall say
something about the tool with which they work—the airplane. Have you looked at
a modern airplane? Have you followed from year to year the evolution of its
lines? Have you ever thought, not only about the airplane but about whatever
man builds, that all of man’s industrial efforts, all his computations and
calculations, all the nights spent over working draughts and blueprints,
invariably culminate in the production of a thing whose sole and guiding
principle is the ultimate principle of simplicity?

It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end,
to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship’s keel, or the fuselage
of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elementary purity of the
curve of a human breast or shoulder, there must be the experimentation of
several generations of craftsmen. In anything at all, perfection is finally
attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no
longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its
nakedness.

It results from this that perfection of invention touches hands with absence
of invention, as if that line which the human eye will follow with effortless
delight were a line that had not been invented but simply discovered, had in
the beginning been hidden by nature and in the end been found by the engineer.
There is an ancient myth about the image asleep in the block of marble until
it is carefully disengaged by the sculptor. The sculptur must himself feel
that he is not so much inventing or shaping the curve of breast or shoulder as
delivering the image from its prison.

In this spirit do engineers, physicists concerned with thermodynamics, and the
swarm of preoccupied draughtsmen tackle their work. In appearance, but only in
appearance, they seem to be polishing surfaces and refining away angles,
easing this joint or stabilizing that wing, rendering these parts invisible,
so that in the end there is no longer a wing hooked to a framework but a form
flawless in its perfection, completely disengaged from its matrix, a sort of
spontaneous whole, its parts mysteriously fused together and resembling in
their unity a poem._

[...]

The rest of the chapter
[http://pastie.org/pastes/10477072/text](http://pastie.org/pastes/10477072/text)

------
ohashi
Reminded me of Worst Place to be a Pilot
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFsVRQyhlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFsVRQyhlg)

~~~
JHof
They sensationalize this as "worst", but I'm sure many pilots would choose
jobs such as this over the mundane task of operating a large airliner if the
pay and career prospects were equal.

------
anjc
Very cool. Surely there are other ways to transport light aircraft though...

~~~
organsnyder
Seems like many of these aircraft would fit in shipping containers with some
slight disassembly.

~~~
clamprecht
Yep.. here's a pic of an L-39 Albatros being shipped from Germany to the US
after a nice restoration:

[http://imgur.com/FfkBMjC](http://imgur.com/FfkBMjC)

It was probably just cheaper and less risky to put it in a box. (The L-39's
range is only about 550 nautical miles, maybe 700 on a good day).

That said, here's an article written by a pilot who ferried an L-39 across the
Atlantic. It talks about all the details that had to be taken care of (even
more so since it was a former military jet):
[http://www.internationaljets.com/overtheocean.html](http://www.internationaljets.com/overtheocean.html)
[http://www.internationaljets.com/overtheocean2.html](http://www.internationaljets.com/overtheocean2.html)

~~~
sokoloff
Thanks for the L-39 stories! I don't want to own one, as I'm sure I'd
eventually bore of 100gph fuel burns, but I enjoy the rented ride.

------
Pinckney
Reminds me of this account of ditching during a ferry flight to Hawaii:

[http://www.equipped.org/1199ditch.htm](http://www.equipped.org/1199ditch.htm)

------
rwmj
And I thought this article was going to be about ETOPS ...

~~~
herendin
That's funny, but from the anecdotal evidence it sounds like single-engine
ferry flights are at least a couple of orders of magnitude more risky than any
ETOPS scenario. Fewer lives are put at risk, though.

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erobbins
This seems like an amazing job and I am a bit jealous. I often wish I'd chosen
a different path in life.

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qnk
I would have thought that there existed some local or international entity
regulating private airplanes and their itineraries. I would assume the same
way you can't get on the highway with a bicycle or a scooter, these airplanes
shouldn't be allowed to fly over the Atlantic.

~~~
peckrob
Why not? The reason you're not allowed to get on the highway with a scooter or
a bike is because it's dangerous _to others._ The only danger to me taking my
airplane across the Atlantic is _to me._

I see this misunderstanding a lot among non-aviation people. I don't _have_ to
tell anyone what I'm doing when I fly. I can go to the airport, right now, and
fly my airplane pretty much wherever I like. I don't _have_ to file a flight
plan (provided I'm flying visually - non-instrument). I can take off and fly
pretty much wherever I like. I can take whatever route I prefer, provided I
keep in contact via radio with the relative controllers of the various
airspaces I might pass through and keep an eye out for other airplanes.

If I'm flying instrument, I do have to file a flight plan and stick to a
planned route (or communicate changes to my route). And unless I'm just up
doing practice around the local area, I always file a flight plan even if I am
going VFR. My personal rule is over 50 nautical miles or into a class C
airspace or above (basically, the area around most decent-sized airports), I
file a flight plan. It's free, keeps me safe and keeps ATC happy.

There are some other ICAO rules when your start crossing ADIZ (Air Defense
Identification Zone - the distance from shore where you must be identified). I
have never personally encountered this so I would have to brush up on the
appropriate procedure before doing it. But there is still nothing stopping me
from doing it provided I follow the rules.

Flying is quite free and liberating. Not so much as driving, but more than
most people seem to realize. It's up to me as a pilot to exercise good
judgement in not getting myself and others killed.

~~~
cpncrunch
>Why not? The reason you're not allowed to get on the highway with a scooter
or a bike is because it's dangerous to others. The only danger to me taking my
airplane across the Atlantic is to me.

Quite a lot of aviation regulations are designed to protect people from
killing themselves and their passengers. For example, the requirements for
carrying lifejackets/rafts, survival gear, etc. depending on where you're
flying.

Also, as pointed out in other comments, there are requirements for flying this
route (IFR, HF radio, liferafts, etc.), which are probably sufficient to
protect pilots from themselves. Yet, even if you follow all the rules and wear
a survival suit (which I don't think is required), it's still a highly risky
endeavour.

~~~
peckrob
> Yet, even if you follow all the rules and wear a survival suit (which I
> don't think is required), it's still a highly risky endeavour.

Absolutely, yes. No one would argue that this is not a massive risk. It's
risky, and there are lots of regulations that make it safer.

But just because it's risky doesn't mean it should be illegal, which is what
OP seems to be implying. It's a risk, but ferry pilots do a lot of smart
things to mitigate that risk.

Aviation in general is a risk, which is why we have massive tomes of rules [0]
that make it safe. And even if you follow every rule to the letter, bad things
can still sometimes happen that are completely out of your control. Weather
could go south in a hurry, or you could have a mechanical issue and lose an
engine. How you deal with those issues will decide whether you live or die.

It's risky, but it's not illegal. With a properly trained pilot and a properly
maintained airplane, those risks can be controlled. Part of being a good pilot
is about minimizing risk wherever you can and being ready for anything that
can possibly happen in the sky.

FWIW, I would not even dream of doing a flight that long over water, and I
have massive amounts of respect for those who do. Hell, I never fly further
from shore than I could glide if I lost my engine. The thought of being alone
in a Cessna over the North Atlantic without being able to see the shore scares
the hell out of me.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/FAR-AIM-2015-Regulations-
Aeronautical/...](http://www.amazon.com/FAR-AIM-2015-Regulations-
Aeronautical/dp/1619541475)

