Chapter 31 - Pago Pago, American Samoa to Tontouta, Noumea

Have been told that this is the most picturesque leg of the journey. Leaving Pago Pago we head south west directly over Nadi airport, Fiji and all of the surrounding islands.

Haven't been to Noumea, so this will also be a first. Hope to get a few minutes to wander around the streets and soak up the local atmosphere and maybe fine a nice French restaurant.

Visiting these far away places is just business for Clamback & Hennessy and their pilots, not a sight seeing adventure, so I assume that we will be landing, clearing Customs and Immigration, refueling, eating, sleeping and getting up early in the morning to get going to our next port of call.

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Chapter 30 - Cassidy International, Kiritimati to Pago Pago International, American Samoa

This leg takes us over the equator into the Southern Hemisphere and we will now head south west for refueling and overnight. Don't know much about Pago Pago or American Samoa. Seems the town may have a population of about 14,000.

I guess that knowing very little about the island countries we are landing at is one of the major reasons I chose to do the trip. It is unlikely that I would have ever gone exploring  to these far away place as a tourist, so this is an opportunity which, after much consideration, I could not refuse.








A couple of photos from the internet.

The airstrip, which is 10,000' long and I read a note from a round-the-world flyer in 2007 who said to land 3000' long to avoid the rough surface and save your tyres.

Think they have had a devastating tsunami since then and it is probably in 100% condition.

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Chapter 29 - Computer generated weather forecast looks promising

Just had a look at the forecast for 384 hours ahead - 12th March. It forecasts a series of highs replacing the present deep lows which have been passing right above our course.

The forecast shows three of four highs following one after the other, and which offer to give us easterly winds for our route, which is exactly the opposite of the wind direction we have had for a couple of months.

Based on the above and with my limited knowledge, I predict departure around 16th March.

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Chapter 28 - Hilo, Hawaii to Cassidy International, Kiritimati (Christmas Island)

The second leg heads south from Hawaii to Christmas Island, which is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The Republic of Kiribati comprises 32 atolls and one island. It covers 3,500,000 square miles and includes the former Gilbert & Ellis Islands and Banaba which was formerly known as Ocean Island.

All blue ahead I hope the blue is always 8000' below. The further south we go, the less US Coast Guard protection we will have. From here on we will have people who are very willing to help if we have a problem, but without the planes and boats to help in the same way as the Coast Guard.

Not to worry. We don't expect problems and we have our life jackets and our life raft and our 406 ELTs - and of course, our rosary beads.


All downhill flying to Kiritimati (Christmas Island) and when we land at Cassidy International Airport we will be just 2 degrees north of the equator and 5' above sea level.

My understanding is that Cassidy International Airport has an NDB which doesn't help me much because VH-EXS does not have an ADF. That's been my favourite IFR instrument. Guess I will just have to get better with RNAV (GNSS) approaches.

Again, second hand, but I have heard that the clouds at Cassidy are NEVER below 1000' so the let down is over the ocean and then to the airport. Also I have been told that if the let down is over the island, it is no problem as the tallest part of the island is 43' high.

Wikipedia states that Kiritimati will be the first island to go under if the oceans rise. Hopefully, we will have taken off before then.

However, Australian comedian Rod Quantock stated in a recent lecture at the Canberra University, that rising oceans are now unlikely as the Japanese are taking so many large whales out of the ocean that the water level is actually falling dramatically.

Not going to bore you with information about the Republic of Kiribati, but it really interesting. Concentrated on Kiritimati (Christmas Island) history which includes WWII action, US and British nuclear testing, attempts to commercialise, permanent settlement not allowed until Independence from the British in 1979, population about 5,500, infrastructure is largely that left behind after the nuclear tests, abandonment of OUR runway by large commercial aircraft due to cracking and potholing.

There is a photograph of our intended accommodation below.

Ok. This may not be the 'Excelsior Grand' Hotel but I am told it is quite comfortable and appears to be one of the buildings constructed for the nuclear tests.

Also told that  it is reasonable and the room and dinner will be about AUD $140. Take cash, as credit cards are not acceptable.



That is not going to be a great worry for me as someone used my Amex card for a $99.40 feast at the Burger King in Instanbul on 23rd January and my card has been cut into three pieces.

There appears to be other accommodation and hotel(s) on the island for tourists who seem to be largely bird watchers or divers.

These islands are closest to the International Date Line and Caroline Island has been renamed Millenium Island because it was the first to see in the new millenium.

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Chapter 27 - Where have you been?

Nothing happening in terms of departure. Nothing to report other than that the weather, in what I would call the north east Pacific, is just a series of lows following each other and giving us strong head winds across to Hawaii.

I was searching to find out how to interpret one column of the published weather forecast by the NOAA for the aviation route and came across the personal blog site of Tom Bravender who happens to be the Aviation Program Manager for the National Weather Service, Honolulu ,HI which forecast for the air routes from USA to Hawaii. He explained the data in the particular column and sent me a chart detailing the zones for which they forecast along the route. The zones are simply 5 degree segments along the Great Circle route between US and Hawaii.

He also wrote: 'Good luck with the winds! This season has proved to be pretty typical of an El Nino winter, with a nearly zonal jet and persistent westerly wind component'. You can work out what a nearly zonal jet is because I don't know.

Tom has picked up on this blog site and is passing it on to the Hawaii forecasters as he thought it  would be interesting as they were probably unaware of  the degree of planning and preparation required to fly the route for which they were forecasting.

All we need is for them to 'on their toes' and to be extremely accurate in forecasting the precise weather for the day we depart.

I intend to continue loading the route segments as in Chapter 26 and then go back to sleep while we wait for better winds, which I don't see happening until some time after 12th March.

Chapter 26 - Santa Maria, California to Hilo, Hawaii

Some of these Nav Charts will look pretty boring. Most of them are dots in blue, as they are intersection points and not land mass. However, if you find it boring looking at mostly blue for a couple of seconds, then spare a thought for us who will be looking at blue for hours on end, punctuated by a few white caps below and maybe white clouds for some of the time. Hopefully no black ones or towering and turbulent white ones.

This is basically the international airline route from Los Angeles to Hawaii. I have been told that the traffic is heavy as is the shipping below and like guardian angels, the US Coast Guard is ever present in the air and on the water.

The Nav Log is largely self explanatory to pilots, and not too difficult for non aviators, given a little time work out what the abbreviations mean.

The fuel is in US Gallons. Multiply by 6 to get pounds for use with weight and balance. For conversion to litres, multiply by 3.78. It's easy if you fill with 100 US gallons. That equals 378 litres. If you don't have a calculator, it gets more complicated when you have used 13.5 US gallons.

On the first leg, you will notice we ran out of fuel and ditched with around 1200 NM to go. Not really. The built in fuel tanks hold 102 US gallons usable, so the additional fuel is in the temporary fuel bladders strapped in where the middle passenger seats were - right behind the pilot and co-pilot's seats.
The Jeppesen computer program knows that the maximum usable fuel load for VH-EXS is 102 US gallons so it won't load the additional fuel. I can 'force' it to change but the 'Fuel' column will be corrected by hand. For this exercise you can assume that the fuel loaded for the flight will be the Route Total (236) at the bottom of the page plus about 51 US gallons to give about 3 hours extra fuel margin. In the case of the first leg, the fuel loaded will be 236 + 51 = 287 US gallons. The exact amount will be adjusted to keep us at 30% max. overweight.

To give that some perspective, that's roughly equivalent to four (4) 44 gallons drums in the back of the aircraft, in addition to the fuel in the wing tanks.


Hope that makes sense to the non-aviators. It confuses the hell out of me.

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Chapter 25 - Saratoga N6PL

I have been asked to load a photo of the Saratoga, but all I had was a couple of partial shots which I took of the passenger side tail and wing.

I recalled that in December, I had seen a photo on Flightaware.com. Have loaded a small slightly blurred photo but a larger and clearer photo is available by clicking on the Saratoga N6PL link below.

Saratoga N6PL