[Music] okay well welcome everybody uh to my very first podcast my video podcast on my channel and I don't know if a lot of you guys know this but I was an old fairy pilot International fairy pilot for many years it started in 1990 back then I used to work for a company called Orient air out of Sal St Paul and the infamous Pete Deus that was my first taste of fairy flying and it was pretty crazy and uh you know I was back before GPS so I've got enough I think I have eight Crossings with nothing but a compass and a stopwatch so back in the good old days and when I started flying when I went to go get a job I went up to to my potential boss's um table at his son's wedding and sitting with him was a bunch of old crusty old fairy Pilots who'd been flying around the world forever and it was pretty it was pretty uh I was pretty nervous walking up to that group of Pilots cuz these guys had been everywhere done everything and got their wein air t-shirt to prove it and one of those Pilots was Greg cotton and he's with us here today and Greg and I flew together for I don't know if we ever actually took a trip together I think we took yeah we took a couple maybe a couple of trips you were I started in 79 and I left the spring of 90 yeah so you start you were just finishing when I was just getting started so we overlapped a couple of months but um thanks for joining us here today and I want to hear some of these stories I'd always heard these great stories you've got a couple of really good ones I mean everybody that flew for Pete ended up with a lot of a lot of great stories those of us who live through yeah well there's that there's a lot of us didn't so uh well we lost a pilot a year for four years straight wow you know so how did you get started working for Pete I mean well I was I was at if in St Paul my my GI bill was about to run out so I was I guess let's let's back up just a little bit just give us a brief rundown of where you're from what was your path to orient air um well when I got out of the Navy he's a sub Submariner by the way so sub always crazy he's like let's get in a boat that they sink on purpose on purpose yeah so I spent a couple years on World War II diesel submarines and then my last year on a Polaris missile boat nuke missile boat which is like getting on a cruise ship after the World War II boats and when I got out I started flying and up at St Cloud aviation in fact I have their number one customer when St Cloud Aviation started I by just totally by chance they were they were getting a new FBO set up for the new airport this was at the old airport and I I got a private and started on a commercial then I got divorced and spent the 70s doing the 70s and didn't go near an airport for about 5 years and then I figured well prettyy man oh yeah seriously seriously some of that's a bit of a fog but the uh um I I realized that my GI bill was going to expire 10 years after I got out so I went to work for St Cloud Aviation working in the shop working on my commercial you know flying nights and weekends and finished up my commercial and uh instrument rating but I was running out of time so I went down to if in St Paul and got uh the uh worked on my flight instructor rating which I never took the check right I took the written but I didn't take the ride me too never did so but um finished my finished my multi- engine and at 5:30 in the evening and my GI Bill expired at midnight I mean I just slid in you know and but I got to talking to one of my instructors there and said I just had this idea that I didn't know fairing existed but I figured you know I saidwell ge can you stuff enough fuel into a typical Cessna 182 or something to be able to fly it to Europe and the instructor I had said well there's some there's some company in town that does that and it sounds like it's like something like Orient air or something like that so I looked him up in the phone book and I must have caught Pete on a good day cuz normally he just rare he just blow you up he just blow you off normally I just called him up out of the blue and I mean at this point I had about 500 hours a brand new instrument rating I'd never used a brand new commercial I'd never used I mean I had zero experience other than just what I'd accumulate ated over the years and the uh the um so I I got him on a good I must have got him on a good day because normally you just blow that kind of a call off I talked to him for a bit I went down to the office talked to him a bit there and he gave me a uh gave me a GNC Glo you know Global navigation chart he said you got an e6b and a and a protractor and he said Well here here's a blank flight flight plantform figure out how you you're going to get you know from Banger to Shannon or something so I went home and reviewed I hadn't used it in years you know how all E6 you know the little e6b and all that works and uh Phil worked out a flight plan went back talked to him some more and then he sent me out with John Powell um took a 185 SES you know anib to England and and Paul was getting paid like 800 bucks we weren't making a lot of money and I just I just he he was going to pay my meals and hotels and return airfare but I wasn't getting paid for that trip you were in the plane with Paul oh yeah I'm in the right seat I'm in the right seat and Paul's flying it so you know we went up up the northern route up to Fisher Bay and across Greenland well we were going to go across Greenland but the weather on the cap sucked so we ended up in godthab and then down around naras arak and up to Iceland and then down to England but yeah that's that that I started that and then the next trip was Christmas of 79 and I'm out I'm going to fly with Pete this time and we're going to he's having trouble with the Canadians you know because if you're if you're going across the Atlantic in a uh in a single you have to stop at mon new Bruns get that waiver get the waiver and once you've done that three times they'll put you on the permanent waiver list well Pete had gotten caught cutting some Corners that's absolutely notorious I think he had what six or eight airplanes and the tail end guy in a tomahawk with a 60-gallon fuel tank in it cut the corner and hit Signal Hill in the middle of the night and Liv to tell about it he didn't even get hurt tore the Wings off I've seen pictures of it he tore the Wings off the thing the tank hardly moved and uh he wandered down the hill you know and found a the story was that all his $100 bills and expense money he used to Mark a breadcrumb trail nobody ever came back with their expense money if they crashed it was always lost in the crash yeah it's always floated away in the airplane or something in this case supposedly he he he Lo he uh left a bre left a trail of breadcrumbs back to the crash and he wanders down finds a road gets a ride back back and then opens his mouth to the to the local feds about all the corners Pete cut on this CU they've been making position reports for him on HF all night across the Atlantic cuz he didn't have HF well yeah we I think we had one HF among what six or seven airplanes oh wow this was right before I started and he he wanders off the hill and and tells the Tells mot about all this and so they pulled all the Pete's waivers for all all of Pete's Pilots we no longer had transatlantic waivers so you had to go up either all the way to frisher and around you didn't need it for that mhm but you couldn't go straight across so Pete had the brand idea we're going to take a 206 put a couple of 90 gallon tanks in it and fly the thing direct to Shannon Ireland from Banger main which is like 2400 nautical that's 2400 nautical miles as long as you don't land in Canada that inspection requirement doesn't doesn't and somewhere I've got a tape I've got the radio tape of this and um so we get out the Banger we wait on weather for a day or two Pete gets something he's got to do back here and I say well Pete just I can find shann in Ireland you know no problem it's East it's East yeah and I got a Tailwind so why don't you just go back to Min appas I'll take it over well you know nobody'd hire a $500 pilot send him off sure you know it's just it's just silly but uh you know I took off they called they they when I checked in with Canadian U air traffic they said well you have to stop in mon New Brunswick and I said no under Iko regulations if I'm not Landing I don't have to well we they made a few phone calls and came back and said well I guess you're right but they're not happy with You' and I mean I I went by just north of uh St John on the way out I went by St John's called them on their regular I called them on every regular frequency I called them on 1215 they wouldn't even talk to me they didn't answer it all so pissed and I mean theoretically I'm VFR I'm not IFR so I filed at 5,000 ft VFR to Shannon Ireland I get out over there and I'm making position reports anyway but I'm calling over flying airliners they can call back on AHF and I'm out in the middle and I bumped up to 9,000 you know it's the first time I ended up with cloud cover down low I bumped up to nine I'm out in the middle of nowhere MH I got a letter from NORAD or from the FAA you know claming NAD tracked me out here 176 miles out off the coast you know at 9,000 when I'm supposed to be at 5 I just said nope and I figured they weren't going to drag out all their NORAD radar tapes you know it's supposed to be secret cuz I mean I had transponder off and everything so their radar actually reads altitude too out there and I uh um I I talked I'm out in the middle somewhere and I I call one of the overflying airliners give them the position report the estimate for the next spot and he said well okay we've got that all he said what are you flying down at you know what are you flying down at 9,000 ft and I said a 206 and there's this pause he says a sess a 206 and I go yep and then there's a longer pause and he comes back with his best Captain voice saying don't you know it's a 4 engine ocean kid uh it was you know and I it all worked out I mean you know don't send a kid up in a crate like that uh my first one was with Pete but we weren't in the same plane I was in a duchess and I flew he was in a sooy uh to 6 and he lost his um vacuum pump halfway to Santa Maria and that and he was a little nervous cuz you know the first half of the trip was beautiful it was a gorgeous day and I'm thinking this is the easiest job in the world I we got this cool twin I didn't have much twin time at that point either and it was just gorgeous I'm sitting there eating my snacks and drinking soda and having a great time and P's like I lost my vacuum pump meet up with me over Flores I think it was what was the first and um cuz the second half was going to be at night cuz this was like the day before New Year's this winter time and low IFR and heavy rain and I again when I started my very first low instrument approach was the night night before into St John's which was always crappy in St John's in the winter time I when you when you first get your instrument rating you don't go seeking out blizzards and 200t ceilings and quarter M you don't you you stay away from that stuff stuff I got my instrument rating but I'm not going to use it yeah but we flew formation all the way to Santa Maria that was that was a crazy that was a crazy night oh yeah yeah I uh Pete Jr once followed me lost a lost a generator coming out of um gabone lib rille M you know we go out over the co we go out past the coast and go straight South to avoid Angola which was having a war at the time with the South Africans he lost the generator shortly short after takeoff we've been having trouble with it and he followed me and I'm I'm in a part in Navia that little fixed gear those are cool yeah those cool but Pete hangs on to my tail cuz he he can't run his you know he's just got the battery and he needs to save that so he' check in with me about once an hour but he sat on my tail all the way I mean 16-hour leg right on my tail and he was afraid of losing track of me so I'd call him up and he's fine yep okay we get into uh wind Hoke Namibia and you could write your name on the oil residue on his leading edges he'd been he'd been right on my I mean right on my ass he lose I'm surprised he didn't die a carbon oxide poisoning back there I mean the whole all every Leading Edge was covered in oily residue that's funny you know like the belly of an airplane but he was right on my tail I couldn't see him of course it made me nervous if I known he was that close you know well that night when Pete was following me to Santa Maria you know I'm looking back over my shoulder and I see the the red and green position lights bobbing and weaving all over the place cuz I don't know if he'd ever been a good formation pilot but he was out of practice at that point and I was it actually worked out good cuz I was more afraid of him running into me than I was of what I was doing which is still flying over the Atlantic at night in terrible conditions yeah that night so they wouldn't let us when we got to Santa Mar he requested a um formation approach cuz it was pretty crappy it you know supposed to be like 400t or something they said nope you know you you can declare an emergency and we'll do that he well he didn't want to declare an emergency cuz you know what paperworks involved like nope so his brilliant idea was he was going to stay in place we were um he was high have me go in and shoot the approach the ILS and let and call him back and tell him what the base was and so I call him and I kind of was a ragged base and I said it was about 5 to 600 ft or something he goes okay and instead of shooting the approach he was 20 mi out he descended down to sea level at night over the ocean with no lights he said he just about hit the water cuz he fig he figured he'd get VFR and then scud run in at night over the ocean to Santa Maria which he did end of the runways a 300t cliff to the Sea yeah and uh he goes God damn m thought you said it was 67 in front of why why like I just want to hit the ocean yeah well I I said it was ragged and I didn't I didn't say what it was 20 mil out to sea I just said it was right out the end of the runway it changes but that was my first leg my o first ocean leg and I'm like holy crap what did I get myself into and it just the the whole the whole career has been just filled with stories like that it's addicting though it is you don't get you don't get an aviation Adventure like that anywhere else and you can't because we had something that's different I mean you can get your own plane and fly it around the world but it's different because you don't have the pressure to keep going yeah you know you can you can take your time if you want you know like n the weather's kind of crappy I'll stay another couple days in you know Rome or wherever I am and just enjoy the the food and the scenery and I'll go when I feel like it not when you're fairy flying you're expected to go unless you're pretty sure you're going to die and even then they expect to go take a look yeah so what are some of your craziest stories oh God there's so many um the biggest the biggest Saga was I had a 185 going to naobi and had endless trouble with it you know I get I get partway I go from Sous St Marita to uh um what's now at Calo at frisher Bay and ADF doesn't work I'm not getting anything on the ADF and you really need the ADF and especially going down to Nairobi it's almost all this is all way preg GPS way pre and pre and pre- lauran we we ran with lauran for three or four years before we started getting GPS when we start started getting GPS all the satellites weren't up yet so sometimes you didn't have coverage yeah they the first ones were not reliable no no I mean when you had a good signal they were great you know I actually pulled on into a formation for a little bit of time when I was in the cica with a 172 halfway to the azors which was UN you know undoable before I was kept comparing positions and I flew right up on his wing tip you know but you know that was 80 88 or 89 you know quite late in the game um but in this case the ADF just wasn't working so I go back and I landed somewhere up on this St Lawrence Seaway up there got somebody to work on it a little bit still still wasn't working right so I went all the way back down to U um Portland Maine to get the avionic shop there to look at it and Pete shipped out a K8 6 the the little all-in-one a ADF mhm doesn't need a long wire it just needs the antenna and it's got its own indicator right on it and hung that under the dash so I got a spare ADF and that got me that got me going but meanwhile I'm spending expense cash we didn't carry any plastic in those days it was all cash right so I'm burning through cash you know between Fuel and motels and all of this and so now I can do this and I get to I get into Europe I go up the northern route I go down through Europe end up in Athens and Pete's trying to get me overflight to uh uh the Sudan and he couldn't So eventually and now I'm running short on cash so I figured oh what the hell I'll just go for it and so I took off landed in luxar Egypt got gas got myself down to about 20 English pounds and a $10 bill was all the cash I had left by the time I filled the tank and I fig well I just got to make it to Nairobi and by that time I I get in call up for clearance and they say oh no you overtime parking another 10 bucks so my last $10 bill went to overtime parking in lukar and I take off and shortly after takeoff alternator quits oh jeez you know I'm not going back what am I going to do sit in lukar with not no dollars no PL no credit cards nothing all hell with it and just kept on going called when I got very shortly I get down toward uh the Sudan and call cartoon Center and they say oh you got be overflight number six yeah I just read him a bunch of random numbers I think I read him my license number or something you know I just read him some numbers and they muttered around a bit oh no that's not correct you know oh I gave him another set of random numbers oh no that's not correct I'm having trouble hearing you uh you're breaking up it's become real common on cell phones you want to get off the phone going through a tunnel right now yeah and so I just shut everything off I figured you know most of those third countries even if they've got an Air Force they don't they're they're scared to fly at Night by and large M and all that and they're not going to come looking for me and how are they going to find me anyway and so I tooled on South and I mean I had before I left Athens i' got a couple of Jerry plastic Jerry cans for extra gas but I've got a hand pump them into the fairy tanks pop the cap on the fairy tank once it burns down and pump inlight pump extra 10 Gall into the tanks you know and breathe the fumes for a while and now you didn't have your alternator so were you still using the autopilot when you're pumping the gas or you kind of like Ste a little bit pump a little bit no autopilot on that thing oh yeah and it was so out of trim that I had a a regular GI you know pistol belt with a bunch of compartments on it I had a little elt and flares and all that junk I had that hanging on the right Horn of the right of the right that's your ear on trim Myer on Tri to hold to hold the thing more or less level you know so it's just it's totally handf flowing and so I mean I I fly you know at night it comes it gets it gets daytime again I go through that whole day and I can listen to loar V loar NDB it's a big it's probably the strongest in Africa and you know you can hear it hundreds of miles away so I flip the master on get the thing to point correct my course cuz I had no weather reports for down there get you know get aimed there and figure out just ignore the winds and you know get my heading and I'd be you know turn the turn the battery off again I it gets to be night again I go damn you know I got to stay VFR you know because I'm how do you fly IFR you know how much flashlight have I got you know cuz the instruments work m you know navigation doesn't so I got you know so what I'm doing is just pick you know get my heading corrected set the DG because it's not a remote Compass you got to every once in a while reset the DG to the compass and every and then I'd pick a star you know whatever star I'm aimed at on the right course and just keep on motoring well I got to stay VFR to do that so I start getting clouds and those clouds down toward the equator are wet oh yeah and Inter tropical Convergence Zone is pretty nasty area yeah and even over the desert you know it was it was they're still wet and and mount Kenya is out there somewhere in Northern Kenya so I'm I'm worried about that that goes up 14,000 ft or something and so I'm I'm cruising along and pretty soon I'm at 177,000 FT now of course there's no Oxygen in that airplane I'm at 17,000 I'm usually good for 15,000 I can sit up there for hours just get a headache but at 17 I'm no I've been up for a day and a half and I'm stressed and so I'm I'm sitting at 17 and I'm punching every once in a while a punch of cloud top and I get ice every time I do it and eventually I flew into one of those clouds and I'm just ass over tea kettle just out of control you know I try nothing I figured I'd hit it either I'm close to mount Kenya or you know something's gone wrong and you're also flying by a flashlight at this point yeah at this point well I turned the I turned the master back on I want I want lights on the panel but I mean nothing I couldn't get the thing straightened out and I figured well this is it you know I'm going to smack a mountain here and it's going to come out of the clouds here you know at some point I had I flipped the landing light on and just nothing but Cloud then my foggy brain and you know I'm not only tired but I'm hypoxic my foggy brain goes wait a minute there's no turbulence anymore this is just rotation this is just a spin so I mashed opposite Rudder and it flew right out so now I'm down about 15 you know and I'm still in Cloud but you know on the horizon is all tumbled so it's kind of floating around and waiting for it it finally settled down you know and all that and I go oh okay I'll stay here I'll stay here in this in the soup you know and I got down to uh I got down within range eventually of Nairobi 3: in the morning morning called him up and you know called him up and they cleared me to descend and I said no it's my gas gate my my faires are empty now and my gas gauges are pretty close to empty too I figure I'm not descending until I I'm on Final somewhere and I finally you know I finally did an approach and broke out landed at jumo kinata the main airport because I got to clear Customs hit the hotel and since I'm at the hotel I didn't really demand money up front in those days I just they just get your passport and I went back out to the airport in the morning and my gauges are reading zero and I can't see anything in the caps but I got to go over to uh the general aviation airport you know it's and you don't have yeah I don't don't have any money to buy gas so I I still had in the back behind the tanks I still had about you know three four gallons and a 5 gallon can that I couldn't get to before I had some hairbrained idea of Landing out there and but you know it would have cost me that much gas just to go down and land in the desert somewhere and pour this three gallons of gas in which was a really dumb thing to do and I poured that I poured that in one side and and got over there you know you got to wonder what a customer thinks when you bring an airplane in from a long trip and Bone Drive I mean just just some of the some of the more knuckleheaded things yeah so how how long was the leg the night that night leg I'd have to look well guess but 14 probably probably 16 18 hours cuz you know I had I had the 90 plus the 90 and the wings M that gives you pretty close to 24 hours of gas and I use all of it plus the 10 gallons I had in the Jerry cans um 18 hour leg is a long leg it's a long leg especially hand flowing without the generator for most of it it's just it's just crazy well the thing is when I got there I sold them my I sold somebody my buck knife I when went through a lot of those too sold him my headset which is typical you know cuz I can buy them cheap in the States they're expensive there and sold him the GP the the ADF and they wrote me a check for the ADF but I figured when I get back to London I'm going to meet Pete in London he's he's bring he's he's bringing a I think a 340 over to England and I got to bring this 185 the the anib I got to bring that back from England back to States and so I get up to London and now I've got some cash I check into the hotel I go down to the bank the next day cash that check now I've got some cash and Pete shows up with some more cash a couple of days later I get in this 185 the tanks were still in the guy's hanger so I ranked it I had all the stuff from the you know the 185 I he pulled the tanks out of the hanger I tanked this thing and brought it back and and uh over Greenland the engine starts running real rough and I'm playing with mixture I'm playing with mags and can't get it to smooth out I get into frisher Bay and I got two bad cylinders it's all this is all in one trip this is you know you didn't bring that many back I brought maybe three airplanes back in the whole time almost it just never seems to work out that you get one deliver one and then pick one up bring it back Pete and I did that once with a couple of senas and then a 310 back yeah I did I did that twice this this this flight and I brought a 402 back um some sometime later and didn't you get into you know getting back to Africa which is always exciting cuz I I had almost the exact experience you know I lost my alternator over the Sahara going down from agader Morocco down to Aban Ivor Coast you know s a sandstorm behind me so I couldn't turn around lost my alternator so8 and a half hours by flashlight yeah going down there and then again the all the way across going to Nairobi again cuz I I went the other way but going across the Congo no overflight permit just turned transponder off and SC run it but um didn't you you know the intertropical Convergence Zone I ran into some serious thunderstorms at night got kicked around a lot and while that was happening I was thinking about a story that you told about didn't you blow out an alternate or altimer or something or no the um I had a cesna 414 and it was it was an early model so it only had 6350 lb gross weight well that airplane had all the long range tanks and everything and the the cell tanks and all that JB Air Conditioning which has a big electric motor in the compressor up in the engine up in the nose compartment so you can run the air conditioning without the engines running on the ground mhm that and had the luxury interior if you filled up all the if you filled up the tanks just before you tank it if you fill up all the fuel tanks I had to lose use 40 or 50 lbs just to fly it solo legally I mean it's a useless airplane without flying it well overweight or you had to fly half fuel all the time well I put I forget 180 200 gallons in it and you know plus all the usual junk and it flew okay but I got to [Music] um let's see yeah I I I flew down to um Santa Maria down to funall and then funall across the Ivory Coast across North Africa and it's at night you leave funchal about midnight the way it works you come down from Santa Maria to funchal which is about 6 hours where's funchal it's south of the Azor is about 6 hours okay um it's outside the can it's oh by the canaries yeah it's west of the canaries yeah okay I remember that and you fly right over the the canaries on the way on the way through Morocco and the uh so I I get out there and about the time I hit the coast of Africa manifold pressure falls on the left engine so I bring the throttle further up and pretty sudden it stops and I'm only making about 50% power so I bring the power up on the right engine and I'm still motoring along fine the gaug oil pressure and everything's good and I got nowhere to go or am I going to go back to the I I suppose I could have gone back to the uh what I should have done is really is gone back to the canaries and then deal with that you hate turning around though yeah oh and just don't want to do it and so you know all night I'm motoring along and I'm running short to get to Aban I'm running short of gas I'm about to run out of gas by the time I hit aajan so I land in buak it's about 160 Mi north of aajan nobody speaks speaks English it's all French I literally got the last 50 gallons of abgas that was on the field pumped it in there that's enough to get me get me down there and I figured well I'll just pop the cowling and see what I can see I figure it's a stuck waste gate and you know just not making power but everything else seemed to be good except that when the sun came up the what should have tipped me off is the whole back of the wing behind the left engine is it blew and when the cylinder the the cylinder broken and usually they come right off but in this case the exhaust and intake manifold bolts there's like eight little quarter inch bolts holding that cylinder in place usually pretty Rusty too exhaust and usually when a cylinder when a cylinder head comes off they usually go right through the cowling you know and then you engine keeps running but you you lose oil you see you got about 10 minutes till you got to shut it down and that airplane wouldn't have flowing with as heavy as it was on one engine you know until I was much lighter sure and but I don't I didn't find this out until after I landed but all night that well I pulled the cowling off that engine at buuk pulled the cowling off the engine and looked it over I could figure I could see anything it's probably internal but no I find a couple of broken fins then I find that oh I can look down between the cylinder head and the barrel of the of the of the cylinder I can see about there's about an eighth of an in gap and that the line that the spraying fuel continuously into the into the injection Port had broken off and it's spraying raw fuel into the open cylinder with the spark plugs going then it that's blowing back through the oil cooler across the red hot turbocharger plumbing and out the the cell vents which is why it was all blue back there as the Dy and the gas and I figured if I if I was if I'd been thinking right and here again I'd been up up all night if I'd been thinking right I at least would have taken a vice grips and crimped that fuel line off but I figured Pete's old thing well it flew in it'll fly out right so cough with it like that I put the cowling back on it oh my God I go I figure well I figure if I can get off the ground if I can get off the ground you know I mean I was seriously foggy at that point I figured if I can get off the ground and get to you know get to 500,000 ft even if I got to shut down that left engine you know I can you know I can make it on one light and back down to aishan where I at least I can get thing worked on and I go out to take off I bring the power up and I can't steer because I'm making almost no power on the on the left engine and you know so I got to I leave the left engine fully thin I bring the right Engine Back Where I got it you know enough where I can keep the thing on the runway and as course as I speed up the rudder control gets better by the time I lift off I'm full power on the right engine and you know maybe 50% on the left and got down there and that's a technique They Don't Really teach in multi-engine school yeah if you're if your left engine has a cylinder that's literally detached from the case and it only making 50% power make sure you only use 50% power on the right engine okay I'll I'll note that one of those yeah that's like seeing some China Airline come in in come in on three engines this they did this they came into I think Frankfurt with three engines and they taken off that way as it turns out because they had the fan strapped it was all beat up they had the fan strapped with cargo straps so it wouldn't rotate they had to change three engines before the Germans had let him leave well like you say yeah if it landed like that way it should take off again yeah they don't teach that technique though you know yeah but um yeah that and so it took about 10 days Pete Pete and a couple other guys were coming over at the same time so um matat who' done done the overhaul back two years earlier but only about 90 hours earlier had been sitting matat covered it they sent they sent a cylinder and a bunch of induction plumbing and stuff it was a ram conversion they sent all the parts and Pete brought them over and the French put them on for the French mechanics put them on for me there in because it's all the all the technical jobs in Ivory Coast are all expats yep yep you know there's very few locals you know doing any of that so it was all it was all French mechanics and so I kind of hung out with the French guys you know for 10 days waiting on the the airp manager French too cuz he wanted to throw me in jail the night I well we never cleared customs in there at all we go into Aban and well here's the here's here's the other thing with third world countries we would usually go in there right at dawn we didn't want to pay for the light so you time your you time your flight for getting in for getting into Aban right at dawn yeah and uh so we time it for getting in right right at dawn we wanted to get to gabone which is 6 hours away right before dark so we didn't have to pay for the lights there so we get in there at dawn we just taxi over to the the AOC Club gas up eat breakfast at the AOC Club restaurant and get back in the airplane and fly 6 hours out over the water to libal to gabone and get there before dark and then spend 24 hours there and then leave right before dark going south and we didn't clear Customs at either of those airports gabone you just taxi in gas up walk across the road to the hotel yeah we never cleared customs pay Landing fees all at $13 or whatever it was but we wouldn't we wouldn't uh we wouldn't clear Customs at all but you when during that 10 days I'm staying at this hotel in town little grass Huts out on on the beach you know air conditioning and all but you know kind of a cute little place but I go over to the A club for breakfast and one day in the middle of that 10 days I went to the A club for breakfast and that omelet was just a little off and I had the worst food poisoning for two days I was going to I thought I was going to die but where do you you know where do you go in Aban right you know I mean I but and worst food poisoning I've ever had and you know if that had happened what our normal thing wasn't to stay there our normal thing was to eat breakfast there and then we spent 6 hours in the airplane out over the water oo that would have been a you would had to burn the airplane when I got to when I got to oh man I'm in the bathroom I'm in the bathroom and luckily the sink was close to the toilet I was in terrible shape I had a co-pilot coming out of we he got food poisoning in Pakistan we're going um to UAE um fera and he he had he had the Buns of Steel he clamped it down all the way I think it was only about a five or six hour leg but he made it and when he when I I dragged him to the bathroom and it was coming out of both ends and he made sounds that I could not believe a human could make but good for him man he he made it all the way he was just concentrating so hard like no no just hold on man hold on and we hate the same thing so how many times did you get sick fairy flying I never got sick just that one time and luckily I was in the middle of a 10day stay there other than that no I mean some guys get sick a lot now that's food poison that's that's kind of different a lot of guys would get sick from the water or just the local bugs and whatever yeah I never I never did I was pretty good at that I can't remember who Pete was talking about oh in in the egg truck Pete had this great story in the egg truck this is this was when they lost their overseas things this is when they had the guy in the tomahawk hit the hill mhm and the rest of them are headed out over the water and one of the guys says you know Peach you gota you know keep an eye on me here you know you know I gotta I gotta take a crap in the airplane not something I ever did in 92 trips you know I did it twice I I I I never did I had I you know my my my my system just shuts down when I start a fairy trip M usually but yeah but but in this case he said you got to watch me and he wobbles around and all that the little window on the side opens up and this chunk of paper comes out gets the tail leaves this big brown smear on the tail and uh and he says you know oh you're and he says pach you're going to have to navigate navigate for me with poo you know cuz you know he apparently wiped his ass with the with the map with the GNC and threw it out the window you know then we looking for a raincloud to wash the crap off the tail I had to do that and I was prepared I was always ready I had like two grocery bags and a lot of paper towels and I had to do it once leaving AG or leaving s for agader and I did my business which is pretty tough in the plane it's kind of a weird yoga pose but I got it all done I had it nice and sealed in a really great plastic bag and not tight I was pretty proud of myself like there did that I didn't have to be you know in horrible Agony for8 hours and it was at 2:10 it was the night before I lost the the the alternator that night so and it's middle of middle of the day on the way there and I opened up the side window and I figured okay I'm just going to Chuck it right out and I tossed it out and the plastic hit the the the window latch and tore the bag open and it sprayed all over the side of this I'm like oh no I was so happy then she go from from really happy to really sad really fast and when I got to agader it was caked on and for the next the next three days I would whenever I had I had old credit card and I was just scraping these little brown flecks off this beautiful paint job and like oh jeez that's I've got a 100 Crossings 100 and some how did you end up with 92 yeah um did you ever have any navigation problems over the over the ocean seeing we didn't have GPS the only one only time I ever had a serious difficulty it wasn't even that difficult but it's either that 310 or the 340 I was taken to taken to Australia or New Zealand um I decided to go into taroa I'd never been in there before and go you know out upon a Lulu across Johnston Island and we were using um we didn't have GPS yet we had luran and lauran would work intermittently out to Hawaii and it work really well until you got to Johnston Island and one of the one of the chain stations was on Johnston so you're right on the extended so as soon as I passed over Johnston I had a signal but it it wouldn't it if you're on a baseline extension between two stations on the on that luran chain if you were on a line out that way um it was unreliable I mean really unreliable sure um unusable so as soon as I passed I had good navigation to Johnstone went right over the top of Johnstone Island and after that it's just compassing a clock sort of stuff and when I'm heading for I'm heading for taroa and there's no I forget what there wasn't much of a beacon on there but they had for some reason they had DME and I'm just compassing a clock and tar was not big it's about a mile wide yeah I don't know maybe 10 miles long easy to miss easy to miss and I'm motoring along and I'm not worried yet but you know you know and back of your mind is a little something uh okay and I'm not picking up anything I'm not picking up you know ADF or VR at all what I what popped up it just I I was tuned to the VR frequency but I wasn't getting the VR at all I got the DME I go oh okay you know I'm I don't know what I was 80 100 miles out you know and I figured okay how do I home on a DME so I'm on more or less heading for the Island so I started turning and by the time I figured when I get to 90° to taroa my ground speed is going to fall to zero and then you know then if I go a little past it'll start picking up again because I'm moving away and so I figured out that heading and just went 90 degre to that and that got me that got me to taroa and I land at taroa and the runway runs from the beach to the beach you know it's about 4 5,000 foot of Runway and that it's a slight they got a slight crown on it but it literally goes from the beach to the beach on the other side and they got Runway lights but somebody stole the balles and it had been a couple of years they hadn't had Runway lights and I get in there and I you I pulled in fueled it's a little little airport pulled in and fueled and by the time I finished fueling the sun went down you know so I was almost got had to go in there at night which would have been tough I could have seen the island but I couldn't see the runway right you know and I didn't know where it and you still have to land cuz there's not where else you're going to go yeah it's that or the water and I uh uh you know went to you know it got dark and when it gets dark down near the equator there's no Twilight like there is here with the big sun angle that sun goes down it's it's literally dark 10 minutes later after Sunset just boom dark Sunset comes up the same way just goes from virtually nothing to here's the sun um you know so yeah but you know I got in there probably half hour before the sun went down in the nick time yeah oh gez but you know it's cool cool place you know those little is I tried to do different Islands but that that's an amazing navigation hack you know I mean that's like people these days have no idea what we used to have to do to figure stuff like that out like follow the magenta line all right Greg thanks for coming out really appreciate it um I'm sure the folk F at home are sitting there with their jaws on the floor not believing a word we've said we we just completely made everything up cuz we're just full of it but uh no that too this stuff actually happened we we really did it back then you know broke all the RS everyone every one of them I've got a file called FAA violation attempt well the statute of the limitations has run out so they really can't get us anymore but but if you guys want to hear some more about these stories uh check out my book fairy pilot it's about my time back in the back in the 90s back when dinosaurs dinosaurs roam the Earth and flew the North Atlantic and single engine airplanes or my book fair are dangerous flights which is more of the same so again Greg thanks for coming out we'll get back together when Junior comes up here and we'll tell some more stories till then keep your speed up
