I reiterate...It's all B.S. in my opinion...

Someone mentioned earlier that a "Ferry" flight wouldn't be excited for viewers...

Very True...for a normal ferry where everything works as planned...

Every Ferry or VIP flight I have ever done...be it USA Domestic or International was backed by either Flight International or Air Routing...both based in Texas, and both excellent "value for money"....Expensive Yes, but everything ran llike clockwork, as advertised...

Without a professional outfit to handle overflights, handling, hotac, and all of the numerous other issues that crop their ugly heads at the worst time...well, you should not even attempt a "ferry"...

For those of us who have "REALLY" been there and done that...this show is a discrace to Professional Pilots everywhere...

But then again the MS Sim guys among us are facinated by this misrepresentation of our craft...

DownIn3Green, with all do respect, it can't "ALL" be BS! I appreciate that drama is edited in but it can't be everything!

Are you suggesting that when in the 1st episode that C206 had fuel leeking out of the wing mid-flight it was actually a remote-controlled hose letting out water that caused an imaginary diversion? :E

I did a year of ferrying and loved it. I arrived with ATPL and a few thousand hours, but no ferrying experience and no other job available. My boss made sure I was VERY conversant with that company's SOPs (European company, doing mostly Trans-Atlantic trips) and I flew mostly west-east using my US license (mainly US reg aircraft).

It was challenging, I flew to airfields I had previously only read about, I met some great people (One of the re-fuellers at St Johns and his randy husky come particularly to mind)

As a job it does not provide a secure income, and I met people who had to fly THAT DAY to ensure getting paid, it can be very lonely and can screw up your personal life (I know we're at the Bloggs's tonight darling, but I'm stuck in Reykjavic waiting for the the weather to clear), but on a clear night, getting relays from the airliners above me, watching the Aurora and looking forward to sunrise I wouldn't have swapped that seat for my previous job at all.

I always treated the aeroplane as if I owned it, so that at the end of the flight I hope I had cherished as much as its' new owner would. I sometimes see aeroplanes I ferried and my mind goes straight to that trip and the pleasure and achievement that flying a small aircraft all that way brought.

When I retire from my present job I'd like to do it again for a couple of years, if I can find anybody to take me on.

SND

Bearcat....fair enough on your comments, but as SND says, it's a wonderful job where you will learn a lot, and experience many things that most people don't have a chance of doing once in a lifetime...

I still feel that the show is hyped, and the way it is being produced may entice many "unqualified" pilots to attempt something beyond their ability...

If you was glamour and fame after successfully completing a ferry flight, then take photos, call friends from far off continent, but when everything goes"bump" in the night...you don't need a TV crew interrupting your tired a$$ thought process halfway across the ocean...

BTW...I loved my ferry work, and would do it again in a heartbeat if someone would ask me...

Sort of a "Sister" thread here...

I watched a show I've never seen the other night....

"Airplane Repo"...This seems more realistic...but not by much...

Any thoughts?

Realistic enough I reckon. I spoke to a super super super-nice guy yesterday who is an ex-airline pilot who worked for a plane repo company. He had to march onto a 757 with AK-47s somewhere in Africa to repossess it. And without weapons he had to take another 757s from Charles De Gaulle when the crew was preparing to take off.

Addictive
Ferrying single engine and old weird types is like a drug, you get hooked. Have done many many in my time from C172 to a Mosquito across the atlantic. Every time I landed in Shannon after a 13,14, (record 19) hour crossing from Gander or St Johns I would have a pint or 6 guinesses in the Shannon Shamrock Hotel and promise myself and swear to God that I would never never never do another crossing............When that phone goes a few weeks later I have to appologise to God, pack my bag and go and find the next adventure. I did my last one recently after many years of pushing the throttles on a pair of turbines,: it was a DA20 from Florida to White Waltham. The buzz was still there and would I do yet another? I will have wait till that phone goes again.

PS
I found the 25 gal fuel tank in the co-pilots seat very handy for stubbing my ciggies out on. There was also a 90 gal tank 3 inches behind my head.

hawker, so you fly alone? No co-pilot?

Most do. No point in paying 2 people to do the job of one. Or loosing 2 in the pond.

Talk to the fuellers in YYR, they lose 1 or 2 a year. Bon Chance mon ami

BEARCAT
I think a co-pilot would have objected to cigarettes being stubbed out on him although I did give up that habit about 10 years ago. Any way 25 gallons of gas is a better co-pilot.
Another point about ferrying the pond in the 70's. No GPS and no long range NAV aids. In the early 70's there were some weather ships in Atlantic with an NDB but they never really knew where the were because they relied on astro and it could be weeks between star fixes. When the weather ships were abandoned it was pure DR for 14 hours without an autopilot. With careful planning I was never more than 30 nm off course when the shannon VOR came in. I wonder how many of the dangerous flight pilots would fly without their GPS's. Also a twin engined flight was never classed as a "ferry" it was just a flight.
Yes s/e across water does carry an element of risk but analysis of the accidents reveals that most are not caused by engine failure but pilot stupidity. (running out of fuel (or oil), getting iced up, micky mouse ferry fuel tanks etc) The one thing one has to have is time and being able to wait a couple of days for the right conditions is essential for a safe(r) operation.
Unless the attlantic freezes over or single engined aircraft are banned the lure of the waves and a single lycoming will always be there.

Ferry flameouts
 

Just a couple of days ago a french registered Skyvan flying from Europe to the USA suffered three flame out between Greenland and Canada probably due to an exotic and non approved fuel ferry tank installation and misuse of it...

What is fascinating is that the pilot feels that no incident reporting is needed even if regulations warrants that such reports are compulsory when flying a turbine powered aircraft....

It is however possible to do ferry flights with properly approved fuel installations and properly trained pilots. They are not more expensive just safer ...

Know what you mean Hawker750 - all that drama on the TV when you're equipped with GPS, turbine engines, Satellite phones, beautifully plumbed in extra tanks, digital fuel read out, weather radar..... Ahhh, "it's getting dark" etc

Certainly beats the old days - pencil, map, ruler, protractor, pistons, no comms, no radar, 45 gallon drums - take the tube out of one into the next one after a while - checking fuel levels with a bit of stick, running tanks dry to get every last pint out of them, weather reports three days old !

Aye, them were days !!

I think the guys at Wick said much the same thing in last week's episode.

Them were the days!

I remenber pitching up in Rangoon in an Islander enroute to Taiwan and not being allowed out of the airport because I had no visa. I was dog tired so the Customs boss allowed me to sleep on his table whilst he relegated himself to the floor. Nice chap he shared his breakfast curry with me.
Every ferry pilot has similar stories. Read the original: "Fate is the Hunter" by Earnest K Gann

Hawker750 - I think we're on the same page ..... I've got a mint condition First Edition, First Print of the Bible.... Fate is the Hunter. I'm not going to admit to how much I paid for it !!

Call me a philistine if you like. It is a good book, full of fascinating stuff, but I found it difficult to enjoy because of the flowery language used by the author.

philistine !! :D

Fate is the Hunter
I want a first edition. I re-read every couple of years just to remind me. Perhaps I will treat my self in a couple of months time when I look down at my old flight bag and decide enough is enough. Hunter readers will know what I am on about.

It's a bit of a joke really... even in the titles doesn't it say , " cowboy pilots flying little planes ..." or some such.
That Pete stragawhatnot seems ok ( L39 guy), but that irritating tosser who clearly didn't like being RHS on the cirrus , would have got the fire axe in his napper fairly fast. What a c@ck.