Wow, that happened fast. It feels like we left Springs a week ago so much has happened. Things are a bit of a blur for me. I have a theory about how to live longer … If you live a normal life like most of us do, doing virtually the same thing every day you find that the days and weeks just blend into each other and the next thing you know it’s your birthday again and can’t understand what happened to the year. But, if you are extremely busy doing completely different things every day and manage to travel enough so that you land up sleeping in a different place every few days you will find that suddenly time seems to stretch and affectively you live longer – what you did yesterday feels like it happened a week ago and what you did last week feels like months ago.
Sao Tome is definitely the most relaxed African country I have ever travelled to. No one hassled us, everyone was friendly and helpful, we saw almost no police and they didn’t even ask to see any of our papers. It is expensive though – that stop cost us well over $1000.00. Gulp! I am keeping a list of expenses so that we will know exactly what this trip will cost us and we will be happy to share it with you.
It was my turn to sit in the left seat yesterday and I was not too happy in the beginning. Apart from a little bracket on the prop control motor having cracked, I lowered the carb needles one notch and was worried about overheating … but the biggest worry was the fuel. It was dirty, looked like a mixture of petrol and oil and smelt bad. After takeoff I watched the temperature of the EGT s like a hawk and although they were fine I stayed near to the island for a while as we slowly gained altitude. Once we were up to about 5,000 ft I felt happier and my heart slowed down to a trot …
The flight was easier last night that is for sure. It is just the most amazing thing to be bombing along above the sea in a little cocoon feeling alone and yet somehow not along – knowing that a lot of people would be watching our progress as the satellite tracker logged our track. James and I spoke a few times in the night about who we thought would be up and following us. We both love the idea that somehow we can really share our adventure with anyone in the world and in particular that anyone can log onto our website and follow our progress in real time … so I can’t tell you how disappointed we are that it didn’t work this time. On the first nights flight all 3 GPS’ would suddenly lose satellites every 6 or 7 minutes and yesterday it dawned on me that it had to be the satellite tracker because that sends out a burst every 6 minutes. What I did was place a small aluminium plate under the tracker in the hope it would solve the problem but I must’ve done something else to stop it working. Tomorrow we will try to sort it out.
So now that we have undertaken 2 fully laden overnight flights we have a much better idea of the performance and endurance. When the Sling is full it weighs about 900 kg, the ground roll is about 400 m at sea level and it climbs at about 250 ft/min. The speed in the first few hours is slow … a true airspeed of about 85 knots but as we burn off fuel we are able to cruise at about 95 Knots which is what we predicted. Fuel burn in the beginning now that we are running a bit leaner is 19 l per hour and during the last part of the flight it goes down to 17 l per hour. So lets see for tomorrows flight to Brazil … 4050 km, average of 90 knots, average of 18 l per hour … that makes 440 L. We have 450 so we are home and dry. Easy as long as the ATC doesn’t make us do a circuit. In reality we need tailwinds to reduce our stress levels …
You really can’t sleep easily … well not yet anyway. We are still way to strung out to relax properly. There were isolated thunderstorms ahead of us last night and for the first time we used the Strikefinder. I am so happy we have that instrument. When there is a lightning strike within 200 miles it shows on the screen as bright little dot so we were able to see exactly where the storms were and avoid them. I know that tomorrow night we might have to dodge more storms .. it’s quite scary actually but thrilling at the same time.
What we have done a few times now is cover up all the instruments until it is completely dark and then with your headsets off it is almost what I can imagine it must be like being in space – a huge black sky filled with stars and darkness and monsters below! The noise level is not too bad but it is definitely more comfortable with headsets on. Our luggage is all in the back just behind us so whenever we need something one of us undoes our seat belt and then we are able to turn around and get whatever we need which is usually food or warm clothes. Tomorrow we must buy another blanket – cold has been our main problem towards the early hours of the morning. The best would be a cabin heater – quite easy to do at home but not that easy here so it will have to wait.
When over the sea we fly with our life jackets on and the life raft and emergency food and water within easy reach. It is a terrifying thought … an engine or prop failure or running out of fuel over the sea and having to ditch. I am absolutely sure the plane will flip over onto it’s back if we do a sea landing. And of course it could happen at night … OK, lets not think about that for now!
It is so great to receive so many messages of support … and it is particularly good to see that old dear friends are writing from every corner of the world. James and I read every single message at least a few times and they make us smile and lift our spirits.
OK, we are off to town now to hunt down chicken and chips and beer. Beer first.
Mike
