For those who may be thinking of ferry flying as a career or as an hour building exercise I have just completed a two week ferry flight of a Britten Norman Trislander from Greece to Vanuatu and I offer the following bits of advice to those who may follow me.
Our route took us from Megara (Greece) to Luxor (Egypt), Bahrain, Muscat, Ahmedabad (India), Calcutta, Kuala Lumpur (WMSA), Bali, Darwin, Mt. Isa, Gladstone and onto Port Vila.
1. Overflight and landing clearances. Unless you know someone in the civil aviation authorities in the countries whose airspace you will be flying over/into don't try and organise these clearances yourself. I tried and did not get one single reply to my emails seeking permission for overflight or landing. We ended up using Mike at White Rose Aviation in the UK (
Overflight flight clearance Home) and he worked his butt off for us no matter what time of the day or night I happened to call him with a question or last minute change of plan.
2. Charts and plates. I had tried to organise all the Nav stuff we would need through Jepps but understandably my boss baulked at the nearly $3K it was going to cost us. Mike at White Rose suggested a company in the UK I had never heard of called European Aeronautical Group. I called them on a Monday and they had all the necessary IFR charts and plates at our Greek address the next day for a 6th of the price of Jepps. Big thanks to Anita at EAG!!
3. If you can, avoid India like the plague, particularly Calcutta
where pretty much everyone is friggin hopeless and will always have their hand out. The handlers have to collect money on behalf of every aviation authority that may so much as glance in the direction of your aircraft or the crew and we got stung around $950USD in both Amedabad and Calcutta. AVGAS here was the most expensive on our trip at around twice the price of anywhere else. If you do have to use India ensure the handler at your destination has your fuel upload figures absolutely correct or you will be forever waiting hours for anything extra you need. JetA1 probably wouldn't have the same problem but AVGAS is becoming quite rare in places.
On a brighter note if anyone is going through Ahmedabad and are having any kind of mechanical or avionics problems go and see Chief Engineer V.K. over at Ahmedabad Aviation and Aeronautics just off the parking ramp. Our Mode C was still screwed by the time we got to A'bad and he very kindly replaced ours with one of his old ones from his spares cupboard. Turned out his didn't work after we got airborne but we got the feeling there was nothing he wouldn’t have helped us with. Very nice bloke and had the cleanest and best turned out GA training fleet I have ever seen.
One further reason to avoid India. You have to give them 7 days notice to overfly or land and if you are late or early they may deny you access and you will have to go through the application process again which means more cash and more delays! In his latest book Richard Branson describes the poor service culture in India a national obsession. I concur!
2. If you go through Malaysia probably best not to use WMKK. On our 12 hour leg from Calcutta to WMKK we got told half way across we couldn't land at WMKK and would instead have to land at WMSA. The lady in the tower at WMSA told us that WMKK only accept scheduled international flights these days. That was news to both us and White Rose who sends aircraft through there regularly. Our ETA for WMSA was around 3.30am local! The diversion into Kuala Lumpur-Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah was a blessing in disguise and even though we arrived there at 3.30am pretty much unannounced the airport duty manager was waiting and we had AVGAS at the plane in 5 minutes as much as we wanted and at a very good price. Best service we had on the whole trip and they didn't even know we were coming.
3. When you are giving ETA notice to your chosen handlers at your destinations be sure to clearly communicate your specific hotel needs and budget. Understand that the handlers must think that every crew is loaded and wants to stay in 5 star hotels every night but clearly that isn't the case with all. It was a bit embarrassing turning up to be told that we were booked 5 star and then have to re-negotiate a new hotel because of the boss's budgetary requirements.
4. I'm not sure if some handlers are better at having maintenance on hand
than others but we found it quite difficult at most places to get anything
fixed or replaced, Mode C in point. When you are organising handlers it might be helpful to ask them if they have access to mechanical or avionics assistance on the field or nearby so that if you do turn up with a problem they can direct you straight away rather than standing around scratching their heads. This causes delays and after a long day you'll just want to go straight to the hotel.
5. Ensure your Mode C works on your transponder. UAE is very strict about this as is Indonesia and Iran. As I’ve worked in ATC it took some fancy footwork to negotiate onward clearances rather than long diversions or worst still, turnbacks! Thanks to the South African controllers in both UAE and Muscat for their patience and for organising onward clearances. If the guy in UAE remembers us in YJ-OO19 PM me and one day I’ll make good that promise to buy the beer at a Wallaby v Springbok game.
HF is also invaluable over long overwater legs. Make sure it’s working before you leave!
6. If you are transiting Australia ensure customs, immigration and quarantine are notified in good time of your arrival at the point of entry. I did notify them via a customs email address in Canberra but they did not notify Darwin and justifiably we had some interesting questions on arrival as they had about 10 minutes notice from ATC. The customs boys mentioned that if we hadn't been able to prove that we had given someone notice of our arrival (glad I had kept that sent email!) then they had every right to tear the plane apart and have us put it back together again. Make sure someone in those agencies acknowledges your notice of intended arrival!
Also if you plan to leave Australia from a non designated international port for fuel reasons etc then you must give an agency called the National Passenger Processing Committee at least 30 days notice of your intentions. Even if you don't have passengers on board apparently! Believe it or not these were the hardest people to deal with on the entire trip.
7. If you want your family and friends to see where you are on your route, Spidertracks was a great tool for keeping them informed.
8. Finally, if you can, TAKE YOUR TIME. I would recommend no more than 3 days flying before taking a break. Unfortunately we couldn't do that due to our boss's tight schedule and a number of delays in Greece. We were exhausted on our arrival in Vila and I still have a sleep debt. The plane had no auto pilot and a lot of the flying was full IFR. On 6 to 11.5 hour legs it gets pretty tiring.
On the positive side some of the scenery was breathtaking. My favourite sights were the extinct volcanos and old lava flows in Saudi Arabia (Yes, Saudi!), Bali always a favourite, and how green everything was from Darwin to Longreach. Now if the rain will stop the good folk up there can get back to business!
I'm sure there's more but if anyone has anything to add please feel free. Above all if you are offered the opportunity to do a ferry flight, go for it! The good far outweighs the bad and as long as you keep a sense of humour even when someone is trying to bend you over you'll make it out alive and happy.
A couple of quick thank-you's.
To Mike at White Rose - couldn't have done it without you.
Tim the ex BN engineer who was instrumental in getting Big Bird flying - great effort and hope you bring your portable A/C with you to V2. I sweat just sitting still.
To the management and staff at Hotel Maniatis in Sparta for tolerating all our requests for faxes and copies. They never thought they would see the back of us.
V.K. in Amedabad - thanks for all your help. The encoder is on it's way back.
The airport and refueller guys in WMSA - fantastic service at short notice VERY early in the morning on Chinese New Year. Nothing short of top marks.
My mate Tony Lloyd-Jones in Gladstone - for the short notice stop over you'll always be welcome in V2. They've just installed a new casino for you to plunder!
To all the ATC guys and girls from Greece to Vanuatu. Thanks for your patience and tollerance of a 90kt CLIAS aircraft in your arrival and departure flow. Particularly to the Calcutta departures controller who didn't realise how slow we were and gave us runway heading as a departure instruction while the tower controller lined up jets for take-off behind us and with multiple jets on ILS final. I've never heard so many jets get spun off an ILS in my life! That poor bastard is probably still in the nut house cursing our call sign!
To all our friends, family and loved ones for the constant stream of good wishes, thoughts and messengers. You kept us moving.
Cheers,
G