Day 2 started with an early 7:15 am breakfast before walking back to the airfield and readying the aircraft for departure number two in the sequence of six. We were airborne at 9:15 am local with me flying over familiar territory to Carlisle. Clear weather in the south gave way to cloud (as usual) north of Manchester and arrival at Carlisle at 9:45 am where we were quickly refuelled and for the first time, Phil added prist to the fuel as an anti icing agent. We had time for a chat with Ashley in Ops before we departed on our next leg to Reykjavik.
Phil flew this and for both of us, it marked the start of the adventure proper as we left the Scottish coast behind cruising at FL310 in clear air just above a thin cirrus undercast. ATC was busy as this was the final sector of radar control before the airliners above us were handed off on HF to Shanwick for their oceanic crossing. We saw several off to the left climbing through our level and FL360 seemed to be the favourite crossing level for today.
As we approached the FIR boundary we were handed off to Reykjavik Control and then asked to obtain our Icelandic oceanic clearance on box 2 from Iceland radio. This proved to be quite difficult as there was interference on the frequency and a long clearance to be read back parts of which had to be repeated but all good in the end. We had planned our flight to track round the NE of a depression; the initial crosswind of 70 kt was stronger than forecast but eventually turned into the forecast tailwind. One of our party tracked through the centre of the depression and captured a splendid picture of the circular cloud formation worthy of a meteorological textbook; the downside was a 70 kt headwind for them for quite some time!
All too soon it time to start our descent; we found ourselves nicely positioned for number 1 of the group for the approach and arrived at the FBO’s ramp in clearing skies closely followed by the Piper M500 and the TBM850 – very satisfactory. They and all the other aircraft had stopped for refuelling at Wick.
After customs formalities were completed we took a taxi to our hotel and then Phil and Ed, who had been there a few years ago on a family holiday, gave me a guided tour of the city including a very fine modern cathedral, a fascinating concert hall near the harbour fronted by glass rhomboids and a green mound landmark at the end of a harbour wall involving a long walk before meeting up with the rest of the group for dinner.
LFAT (Le Touquet) to EGNC (Carlisle) 330 nm in 1 hr 30 min
EGNC (Carlisle) to BIRK (Reykjavik) 890 nm in 3 hr 17 min