Mike has had a brief talk with James and Jean shortly after their arrival in Guam and relayed this to me: James say the rain was very heavy towards the end and they were really ducking and diving to avoid patches of storms. I do think that James’ comment to ATC when they told him they could not avoid the extreme conditions for the last 8nm in, pretty much sums up their attitude toward the trip so far. “Well… we’ve been through a bunch of it already so we should be alright…” Those who know James can just imagine him saying that…
The plan is for them to get some rest until 04h00 SA time (0200 UTC) , then head out back to the airport to refuel and take-off at 06h00 SA time (0400 UTC). The next leg, to Amata Kabua International in the Marshall Islands is a 16 hour flight with heavy (10 – 20 knot) headwinds pretty much the whole way. The weather looks really bad for about the first two hours with moderate to extreme storms but then gets better after that, not withstanding that they will have headwinds the whole way.
As soon as the guys are rested we will get some more news from them and let you know more about the flight to Guam, however as they are staying for such a short time and need some rest they might not do a full update until the Marshal Islands.
Andrew
Below are some excerpts of James speaking to ATC in Guam as they came in to land.
* Thanks goes to liveATC.net for making this possible
