Today was a long day. We woke up to fog which soon cleared to mist and low cloud and took off at 9:30 am local time for Grande Riviere, a small airport about 730 nm to the SW and around half way to Saute Ste Marie where we entered the USA. Some members of the group missed out this intermediate stop and flew direct; this was within our range capabilities but made for a long flight so we decided to break half way. The weather was fine and we had an increasingly useful tailwind with an undercast beneath us which slowly broke up to reveal frozen lakes and tundra and eventually pine forests. Two other group members stopped there and left before us while we refuelled and enjoyed our sandwich lunch thus ensuring we bought no fresh food into the US.
The next sector was to Saute Ste Marie which turned out to be a small club airfield; we had some difficulty in working out our arrival in local time which was a requirement for filing the necessary US customs form in advance – were we four hours behind Greenwich or five hours? In the end, it did not seem to matter as the US border people were there in force but processed us quickly as well as scanning the aircraft for radio active substances – luckily none found. It turned out we were GMT – 4 but this had become GMT – 5 by the time we arrived in Oshkosh.
We then had a short 20 minute flight to Mackinac, a small island where the only form of transport was horse drawn wagons. This was a holding point to assemble the group before the final leg to Oshkosh when the airport reopened after the afternoon show. There was time to walk down to the little town for a large ice-cream. Then on to our arrival at Oshkosh which involved a further hour’s flight and then a VFR arrival following the ‘Warbirds’ routing. There was much activity with many other aircraft arriving within the short time the airport was open after the day’s airshow; our own arrival lacked polish but we arrived and after parking at our assigned place with the rest of our group went off to our hotel about half an hour way in a minibus followed by beer, pizza and bed.
Tomorrow the show itself.
CYFB (Iqaluit) to CYGL (Grande Riviere) 732 nm in 2 hr 31 min
CYGL (Grande Riviere) to KANJ (Sault Ste Marie) 506 nm in 1 hr 59 min
KANJ (Sault Ste Marie) to KMCD (Mackinac Island) 39 nm in 0 hr 20 min
KMCD (Mackinac Island) to KOSH (Oshkosh) 208 nm in 1 hr 00 min