Forrestel and McCready Fly to Iceland!

Serving as an inspiration to both young and mature pilots alike, two local aviators decided to climb aboard their single engine, jet powered Cessna 210 and fly over large portions of the treacherous North Atlantic Ocean across Greenland to Iceland!  Dick Forrestel, age 79 from Akron, and Roy McCready, age 75 from Clarence, departed the Akron, NY airport at noon on Tuesday, July 6 and returned safely eight days later.  Their route of flight took them, first, to St Catherines, Ontario to clear Canadian customs.  From there, they flew on a northeasterly heading for 4.5 hours to Labrador City, Newfoundland to  spend the night and refuel, then another 4.5 hours to Iqualuit in the Northwest Territory province of Nunivik where they spent another night.  The next leg was the hazardous 477 mile over-water crossing to Sondrestrom, Greenland, again for fuel and overnight stay.  Their last long over water leg (386 miles) brought them to their final destination at Reykjavik, Iceland.

There was nothing down there but icebergs and very cold water..
                                                                                           -  Roy McCready, Co-Pilot

"We were at 20,000 feet in the comfort of our pressurized cabin," said pilot and aircraft owner Dick Forrestel.  When asked if they feared a possible ditching in the North Atlantic, both pilots responded with typical bravado, Ahh . . . not really.  The odds of safe passage were overwhelmingly in our favor.

Both Forrestel and McCready agreed that having any survival equipment on board made little sense since the freezing waters of the North Atlantic makes life impossible after just several minutes in the water.  Even with a a survival suit and a raft, your survival time is less than it would take for search and rescue to find you.  While ditching was not highest on their list of concerns, navigation was.  Lacking a European database for their GPS, they relied on latitude and longitude coordinates to define their planned route of flight.  "This didn't always work too well," said Roy. "We had to sort of jog left and right in accordance with our continually changing current position to find our next waypoint."  VOR navigation was not available to us and ADF navigation did not prove too reliable."  It should be noted that aircraft crossing the North Atlantic must be in compliance with the Minimum Navigation Performance Standards (MNPS) for oceanic operations, which Dick's airplane was.

As for radio communications, they were in continuous contact with Arctic Radio on 126.7 and the various air traffic control facilities along the way, though they found the thick Danish accents of the controllers to be difficult to understand at times.

Can you guess what their greatest difficulty was?  Yup . . . a frozen relief tube!  It doesn't take too much imagination to figure out what a "relief tube" is and what it is used for.  Needless to say, they found the empty water bottles rolling around the floor to be quite useful.

When asked about the most surprising aspects about their visit to Iceland, both Dick and Roy replied in unison . . . "Prices!"  A draft beer was $10.  A Manhattan was $14!  Fuel prices varied widely along the trip from $1.14/liter ($4.32/gal) down to $.40/liter ($1.28/gal) in Iceland.  

"The local people we met at our various stops were wonderful," said Dick.  "We were surprised to learn that Greenland shuts down entirely on Sundays.  Nothing happens there that day, including airport operations, so we had to plan our return trip around that day."

Click on the thumbnail image to the left to see view the actual chart used by Dick and Roy on their flight from Akron to Iceland.

The entire trip covered 2,646 nautical miles, with one-half it over water and the other over extremely remote, sparsely populated regions.  Their adventuresome spirit, courage, and energy are an inspiration to men and women one-half their age.  But we can't let them take too much of the credit.  There is something about the challenges of aviation that keep all pilots young.  Perhaps it is the mental stimulation or the physical dexterity they must maintain to climb into and out little airplanes.  Regardless, I have provided flight training to a number of over-80 pilots and continue to be amazed that these octogenarians fly every bit as well as their 30 year old counter-parts . . .  perhaps better, given the wisdom factor!

Good going, Dick and Roy.  The only remaining question is . . . where are you to fly to next year?