SEP & north pole
 

Hello all,

I was wondering if it would be possible and (reasonable) safe to fly over the geographical north pole with a SEP airplane.
Assuming one starts at the most northern airport in Canada, and flies directly towards the pole, it's a 450 NM trip x 2 = 900 NM. Assuming we have an airplane with a range over 1000 NM, this should be theoretical possible.

Now, what I am curious about:
* If an airplane is insured to fly in Canada, does this mean you can fly towards the geographical North pole for this ? I read that Canada claimed a piece of the north pole.
* What about the weather. During summer, is the weather at the north pole rather stable, or very unreliable ? Icing shouldn't be a problem in a CAVOK day. But then again, you are 3-5 hours away from the nearest airport.
* Rescue services: are there any available in this area ? If so, how to reach them once you are out of range of any radio station ? Especially when flying with a SEP @ FL100 tops.

This started more as a philosophical kind of question, but I would seriously want to do this someday, depending on the information this thread will provide.

Kind regards,
Digits

Which North Pole are you talking about?

• Geographic North Pole – the northernmost point on Earth.
• North Magnetic Pole – the shifting point on the Earth's surface where the Earth's magnetic field points directly downwards.
• North Geomagnetic Pole – the point of intersection of the Earth's surface with the axis of a simple magnetic dipole.
• Northern Pole of Inaccessibility – the point in the Arctic Ocean farthest from land.
• Ceremonial North Pole - where people go to have their photograph taken

.

Some would be much more difficult to reach than others. The problem isn't really the distance, it's the weather. I don't know what the height amsl the North Poles are, but could be significant - meaning that you wouldn't be able to get high enough. There wouldn't be any rescue services provided, so you wouldn't need to worry about being able to get in touch with any of them.

The closest airports, Alert, Eureka and Thule are run by the military. They do not welcome tourists.

The closest civil airport seems to be Resolute. Twotters from there have been known to do flights to the pole; sometimes even land nearby to pick up people who have taken it in their heads to hike/ski/swim there.

March is a good month for this as there is daylight and ice to land upon.

Perhaps Ken Borek Air at Resolute may be hired to position some fuel drums at a farther North landing strip that your tires would be suitable for -- they use tundra tires.

How would you steer the aircraft in such latitudes?

A number of people have done this.

Reading some of the writeups, it seems a substantial exercise in logistics, right down to "trivia" like getting a permit to carry a shotgun (for bears, in case you meet one bigger than you, before you get rescued :) ) and yes paperwork, more paperwork and then some more paperwork.

Weather appreciation will be vital.

The actual flying is a non-event, I suspect, because a decent GPS should still function although there isn't any map data N of something like 75N, in the common GNS IFR units.

I suspect the HDG mode of the autopilot might produce "interesting results" :) But the NAV mode should work OK, though you might need to cross the pole in the ROL (wings level) mode because the AP is still essentially flying a heading when in NAV mode.

Not many singles have that much range though. My TB20 will do 1350nm in best economy cruise, to zero fuel. I've done 900nm flights, but you want a few alternates ;) Winds could also ruin your whole day. For more range you might want something like a TBM700/850 which will do about 1600-1800nm to zero fuel (and in which the flight should be easy, at FL300+).

I was talking about the Geographic North Pole, so the one located at 90°N.

I also checked the current location of the magnetic north pole, and this one is located quite close to airports, so this should be 'easier'.

The average temperatures during summer are between -10 / +3 °C, which is like winter temperatures in our regions. Why would tundra tires be required then ?

Thanks for your input.

IO540, why is there so much paperwork involved ? It looks to me like you stay inside canadian airspace, so why would this legally be any different than a normal domestic flight ?

Thanks!

Seeing O/P's location, ENSB Svalbard might be a better point of departure. It's a bit further South, but it would save crossing the great pond.

@troddenmasses: the opening msg. clearly states to fly over the geographical north pole Now that we've got a clear unambiguous question for this once...

Timothy Nathan did it in his Aztec a couple of years ago. Alright, not a SEP but a MEP and similar numbers to many SEPs.Maybe you are braver than him but just one tiny thing to bear in mind, in a SEP if you go down it will be almost certain death.

I would assume the proper north pole is very close to sea level (plus or minus a few thousand), considering it is made of frozen sea ;) There are no mountains there, that is for sure, the air will be nice and cold so density alt not a problem, and any SEP would be able to fly over it. On a nice day I imagine it would be very pleasant flying, smooth, good viz...

Thanks for the Svalbar hint, but my location is irrelevant. Since I haven't found someone willing to rent me a plane to cross the ocean, I'll probably rent one in USA or Canada if I ever do it. Which would make the range the most important factor to find a reasonable priced airplane.

Depends on the weather. Dick Rutan and friends got rescued when the AN2 they were in broke through the ice after landing near the pole.

http://www.dickrutan.com/northpole.jpg

With the right equipment, good weather, very good insurance and a dose of luck you'll be fine! :\

Polly Vacher did it, and not too long ago even.

Polly Vacher - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Given T's frequent reports of a guaranteed dual engine failure in his Aztec in an OAT below about -15C due to BA038-style fuel icing (or whatever - unless adding IPA or PRIST) I don't think the # of engines is always relevant :)

What's the freezing temperature of fuel?

-58C from elsewhere on here (for 100LL anyway).

Yes, for pure avgas, but any dissolved water will cause it to wax at much higher temps, and the Aztec seems to suffer from this more than most types (reportedly; I have been totally unable to establish any reason why it might).

I have never dug out any indication of a TB20/21 suffering from fuel icing, and I have flown for hours in -30C or so. Same engine type, too.

Maybe the Aztec has a fuel selector which is mounted on the airframe skin so it gets very cold. The TB20 fuel selector assembly (with the filter etc) is warmed by the cockpit. Or maybe the owner has knackered filler cap seals? Quite common in GA.

Not sure of you're license situation, but I'd recommend that you buy the General Navigation ATPL book first. Polar Navigation even if you do use a GPS must be second nature and an aircraft with a decent gyro is a must (North is referenced to a meridian (Grid North) rather than magnetic north and is used in areas where the magnetic disturbance due to dip/being close to pole makes nav difficult if not impossible.)

Been a few years since I had to do grid north and all that good stuff! Was it cadburys dairy milk, mmm...very tasy, comapred to galaxy..or something like that!??:)

oofftt don't remind me...gnav=:ugh: ;)

PPL, but I'll have a CPL, IR and ME before I attempt make the trip. I am familiar with the theoretical aspects of grid navigation etc.

For me it was..

"True virgins make dull company.":)

Havent heard that one but I like it:) Might pass that one on to some students.

Not those of Middle East origin, I trust ;)

is another one I saw online.

Getting serious for a moment though, I find it easier to imagine a protractor on a map measuring the true track, then rotating the protractor to mimic variation and deviation. The mnemonics always confused me.

An utterly clueless Walter.........

The world is full of people like SoCal App, who might think that the trip over to Catalina for a Bison Burger is the most terribly exciting flying, and like to rubbish anyone who has a little more imagination.

Luckily, there are people (such as Timothy Nathan, or Polly Vacher) who also thought at one point "I'd love to fly my GA aircraft over the North Pole", and went out and did it. No doubt they had a lot of people like SoCal App rubishing their plans, and I'm very thankful that they ignored them.

Let's face it, the flying itself is easy. None of us here can pretend that flying a GA aircraft, especially after you've been doing it for 150 hours or more, is hard. So it all comes down to planning and organisation, and you don't have to be a grizzled pilot for that; I'm sure there are airline pilots with tens of thousands of hours who couldn't find their way out of a cardboard box without their ops department.

When I had 150 hours, I decided to rent a Cessna 172 for 5 weeks and fly from Florida to California and back. Not as adventurous as the flight mentioned here, but I still got plenty of "the usual crowd" telling me I was an idiot, and needed at least 500 hours and an IR. Thankfully I ignored them, and had an excellent time...

There are some people on here who really get off on trying to keep others down. Thankfully, you soon spot them and learn to disregard their "wisdom"! Happily, some of the more valuable contributors filled out page one.

I have no interest in the North Pole, but I'll certainly fly round the world some day, and to South Africa. If that offends you; tough! I'm doing it anyway! It's not like it hasn't been done 100 times before.

Katamarino, I wouldn't pay too much heed. Indeed, look up SoCal App's post history.

You'll soon see that EVERYBODY is a troll in his eyes! :p

SoCaL,

Why not? That's what insurance is for.

If the insurance does not cover the planned expedition, then fair enough. PERSONALLY I would pursue it further and put questions forward - "What would be the excess premium IF...?" etc, but for the purpose of this thread, FAIR ENOUGH.

If the insurance DOES cover it... No reason to disallow it. If I knew my car was fully insured for the purpose and I would redeem the full value in any problematic/disastrous event, I'd happily let someone rent it and try to drive it across the Atlantic! I'd get about 5 hrs worth of rental income before the inevitable happened! ;)

As to the MORAL issues, well, a different kettle of fish.

North Pole Journey
 

Digits,

A friend of mine alerted me about your post.

In July of 2010, I piloted a SEL aircraft, a Cessna 350, over the geographic north pole.

My departure point was Resolute Bay (CYRB). It's 1,000 nm from the pole. I equipped my plane with a 100 gallon ferry tank from TurtlePac in Australia. I also had a life raft, a GPS Tracker (a Winnipeg Company) and a sat phone on board.

My return trip included a stop in Eureka (CYEU) which is 600 nm from the North Pole. It's a fantastic stop! A weather station is located there at 80 degrees north. John and his crew are very hospitable.

My insurance also includes Canada, but my 2,000 mile round trip into international territory was added at a cost of $1,000, with a 30% deductible.

An outfit called Global Rescue out of Boston was hired for backup rescue. They charged about $300.

Please pm me and I'd me happy to discuss my journey.

Wayne R. Maynard

Wayne Maynard

Flying to the North Pole would be a wonderful adventure, the navigation an aviator's challenge but I hate the cold. The Nordkapp and midnight sun was fun but I don't think I'll fly further north.

Kat, not in the immediate future but I too will one day fly to S.Africa, hopefully in a Piper Cub.

Two ship formation? ;)

From the UK, flying south is the general idea :)

The fact that it has been done doesn't make it a good idea.

13 Rescued Near North Pole After Plane Crash in Blizzard - NYTimes.com
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - North Pole man 3 others survive plane crash near King Salmon
Alert, Nunavut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What happenend to the Africa flight?

That's exactly the attitude that gets these "wonder" pilots killed.

I'd add "and a good understanding and appreciation of the dangers involved of flying in a certain type of environment."

I'd argue that a grizzled pilot probably has a greater understanding and appreciation than someone with a mere 150 hours log time, and as a result has more chance of surviving any unexpected situation that he/she may find himself in. They probably have a greater chance of avoiding these situations in the first place.

Over the last couple of years there have been a number of high profile accidents in the USA which involved pilots who completely under-estimated what they were getting themselves into and have killed themselves and others in the process. When you look into the accident reports with the benfit of hindsight you have to wonder what they were thinking at the time. The only conclusion that I can come to is that they weren't at all prepared for the flying environment that they encountered.

Who in his right mind would want to go to that frozen bit of nothing? Think Palm trees, azzure blue seas, hot sun :E
Done both the North Atlantic crossing (have to do it again on the 16th feb another ferry! yawn ) and south Africa and know which i would choose ;) Give me sunshine!!!! Grass skirts and a cocktails not polar bears! dont like ice in my drinks anyway!

10540 only .53 posts a day compared to your 4.34 posts a day :{ need to get that up to catch you up hence stupid posts like this. Hope you liked the hansome pic of me surrounded by angry natives enroute to SA I sent you :)

Pace:E

Let me explain some things. It is true I have been posting questions that might seem a bit farfetched, but let me assure I've been exploring these possiblities for a while, and they are still on my list of things to do.

The first time I asked about Africa trip was many years ago, when I first had my PPL. The information here gave me better information and made me decide it was perhaps a bit too early. 3 years and a little experience later, I asked the same question again. This time, with some pprune people, I got a travel plan and a rough indication of the costs. We found some lead on an airplane, but due to personal reasons, the copilot and passenger had to cancel. Since I can not pay for South-Africa on my own, I am looking into other original and a little adventurous destinations which are financially within my reach.

To give you some more background information: it took me 4 years to find someone who was willing to fly with me from Belgium to Romania. In those years there were 6 people who "seriously wanted to fly there" and cancelled at the last minute. I do not want to go through that again and waste a few years until someone finally wants to fly to Africa with me. Hence the backup option of something else I really want to do. So basically, if somebody wants to join me on the trip to Africa, that one will have priority, but in the mean time, I didn't see any harm in looking for alternatives.

And yes I am a dreamer, but without that, I wouldn't be flying in the first place. I completely agree all these things might have tons of issues that are not visible at first glance, hence the quest for information, of which pprune is a valuable part.

Congratulations on a demanding but no doubt exciting flight. It is no joke even in a tricked out $600,000 high end tourer like the Cessna 350. Over the years I have had a few PPL's approach me to discuss similar ideas for very high latitude flights. The one thing they all were very surprised about was the high costs when operating in the far North. I think it would be valuable to the pprune readership if you could provide an estimate of the total costs of the trip including necessary aircraft modifications, fuel and hotel costs, ground service fees etc

To be fair, there is nothing wrong with having dreams. We used to call my brother's kitchen table the "dream table" as we'd often sit around and talk about doing things like this. His was to sail across the Atlantic, so he did, in a 45' yacht and ended up in St Lucia.

I posted a while back on the other Forum about flying South into West Africa, which I'd love to do (Africa can be a real s*ithole but has a strange attraction to it)...However after taking advice from many people with far more experience than I decided the logistics were too much of a nightmare and too costly in an Avgas powered aeroplane and so can't be bothered. I'd do it in a DA42 though due to the availability of JET-A.

People often cite Insurance as a reason not to do something. Well a friend of mine ferried a Diamond DA40 to Australia, from California (actually Florida originally) and this included direct from California to Hawaii (17 hrs non stop), followed by 1200nm legas over the South Pacific. It took them about 5 days I think and the insurance loading was in the couple of thousand $ range, so not horrific.

A friend of mine just drove his Porsche 911 from London to Saigon, and he wants to redo the trip in a year or two by air (he's a pilot too)...so I'd be up for that in my aeroplane. There is a Gardan Horizon at our airfield which flew UK to Australia some years ago.

Good luck!

Pace - got your email & replied to it. Not sure if your incoming emails work, however.

Yes got yours ;)Both handsome devils

SoCal...

You have based your opinion of this poster on a few, isolated posts that you have read over the years, and decided that he is a troll. I have a little more to go on than that. He is entirely serious about doing some real flying. He is already a licensed pilot, so hardly a "Walther", and has put in the effort needed to obtain a JAA IR, and ATPL theory. I've sat planning routes around Africa with him, and he has an entirely common sense understanding of some of the issues involved, as much as a 150 hour PPL without African experience could have, IMO.

I have no doubt that he'll complete his South Africa trip before too long (perhaps in a 3-ship with myself and African Eagle!), and while the North Pole trip is a hell of a challenge, you never know if you never try. We've already seen that a number of people have done it before; and it's entirely possible that there's someone out there who wants to do it in their twin, but can't find a copilot to accompany them! This forum is a goldmine of information, when you sift the wheat from the chaff, and a great place to kick off this kind of enquiry and ambition.

So, you keep plying your boring views, and people like myself, digits, and many others on the thread can keep going with the really interesting flying ;)

AE; I'm entirely up for South Africa :)

Back in 1982 BA were exploring polar routes to Japan using the then state of the art INS nav equipment. I was flight engineer on a 747 trip to Alaska, with the fleet chief pilot as captain, and various avionics engineers keeping a watch on the nav gear.

All went well as we approached the pole, CAVOK viz and white flat ice with bright sun. Then 30 secs from o/h the pole one of the INS units failed, shortly followed by the other two. Failure mode was due to 'degraded nav data' 'standby mode' Frantic efforts by the experts failed to convince the INS units that all directions from the pole are South. This was during the cold war and a Korean airliner had recently been shot down by the Russians. It was essential to not be heading towards Russian territory and we needed a reliable heading to steer. But the three compasses were useless, our two VORs were useless, and the two ADFs refused to pick up anything. I remember suggesting that the boy scouts taught me to point the hour hand of my watch at the Sun and read off North at 12 o clock. Four faces looked at me and someone said pi*** off eng! But the First officer dug out a set of astro sight reduction tables and after much pencil work came up with a bearing relative to the Sun which we took up. Two nerve racking hours later the ADFs picked up a faint signal from a Canadian beacon and we were able to get a position. Feeding the data into the INS sets got one of them back on line, and we began to relax a bit.:ouch: