Leg 3

Leg 3

Keflavik to Nuuk 8th December 2002

After a VERY speedy repair job by the Icelanders, (which cost a significant chunk of my beer budget!), I left Keflavik at 11.26.

It was only dawn here at the time and I was rewarded with some views of both the sunrise and the northern lights.

I had a bit of a queue at the hold short point of the runway as a Cessna and a very nicely painted 737 (picture of the Colliseum in Rome on the tail which I assume is a default paint job as I haven't downloaded it) waited to take off.

I'd decided to climb to 12,000 feet cruise altitude for the journey across the Northern Atlantic to Greenland, and then descend to 3,000 feet to take some snaps of Greenland itself. his reflects badly on my memory of my first attempt at flying around the world when I followed a similar route for this leg, as you'll see.

The weather deteriorated from blanket white cloud to some ominous black versions, but soon improved again. I sat back and scanned the ever present clouds as I flew. However, my semi-slumber was rudely interrupted by the sudden arrival of some VERY bad weather accompanied by a plummeting drop in altitude of 700 feet despite the best efforts of the autopilot! Major amounts of turbulence also dispensed with any ideas I might have had about a comfortable lazy flight as I watched the autopilot struggle to maintain level flight at the right altitude.

Things eased off as I approached the Greenland coast and I headed down to 3,000 feet to take some pics. I'd forgotten two things from last journey when doing this:

1) Greenland is the epitomy of Arctic waste virtually all over.

2) Whilst 3,000 feet is fine as you pass over the coast, Greenland is, effectively, one big hill. This time, fortunately, I had a radar altimeter fitted, and was able to use it to increase my altitude from 3,000 to 9,500 in increments of 500 feet to maintain roughly 300 feet between me and the icy ground.

This kept me busy for about 20 minutes. There was then a short period where the ground level remained constant followed by the same exercise in reverse as the ground altitude dropped away towards the Western coast.

Then came the good bit, which I couldn't fail to remember from my last visit here: The fjords. Well, to be fair, I'm not sure they're actually referred to as fjords in this part of the world, but that's what they are and they looked absolutely beautiful as I remembered them. Repeating history, I turned off the autopilot and meandered through them as I approached Nuuk.

I turned in on final approach unencumbered by A.T.C. this time (there is none at Nuuk - you announce your own arrival over the airwaves), and landed, resolutely avoiding any attempt to take any external screenshots until I was safely down!

I headed immediately for the bar having avoided another repair bill, and looked forward to staying until next weekend when I'm heading up to the most Northern airport modelled in FS2002 - Alert in Canada.

Screenshots

1) Back in the Baron in time for the Northern lights.