Dangerous Flights | Episode 3: Fuel Critical | FD Real Show

it's aviation's final frontier cowboy pilots who deliver small used aircraft why is this thing not working across distances they were never meant to fly the most extreme type of flying you can do slow down every plane i fly in i expect is trying to kill me it's not a job for everyone heading home but there's always someone daring enough to take it on dude my stomach's turning a little bit and live to fly another day this has been a delivery from hell minimums minimums too low terrain this is my last stop i'm done kerry mcauley is where no fairy flier wants to be grounded in brazil with the clock ticking waiting on his co-pilot i'm gonna be meeting corey for the first time this morning supposed to be down here at 5 30 so we can get a good and early start but so far no cory [Music] carey's flown almost two-thirds of this trip with another pilot i would like to ditch in front of a cruise ship because we'd be in the hot tub with a margarita within the hour where do i shut off the gas [Laughter] but that pilot had to bail because of a schedule conflict i'm done this is the end of the line and for carrie the only thing worse is finding out the replacement is a guy he's never even met his boss you're gonna come all the way down here to take my spot i've done tons of trips like these all by myself and far more dangerous far more difficult to have someone come down here to help me just drives me nuts hey good morning let's be cory how are we doing pretty good pretty as company owner corey benson's priority is keeping customers on side by delivering on time and carrie's already one step ahead the airport closes at eight from eight to noon we're they're out here by eight and we're staying let's go around here on that side this flight is corey's chance to crack brazil one of the fastest growing small plane markets in the world i know carrie wanted to do this by himself but the first flight into a new country is so important for us if they're happy they may tell a couple people if they're pissed off they're going to tell the world and corey's client expects the plane at his brazilian ranch in less than 48 hours i'm gonna go check weather and file a flight plan if you want to get her untied um either go in the office right there or talk to the guy with the truck carrie and corey are still finding their feet as a team and it's costing them precious time oh we got to pay the landing fees too so yeah a scheduled airport closure leaves them less than an hour to get off the ground if we don't get out of here by eight o'clock we're stuck till probably tomorrow because by noon we won't have enough time to finish the legs we need to get done today today's plan is ambitious log more than 1800 kilometers over dense brazilian jungle where landing strips are scarce if it all goes bad all right we're all set it's a 10-hour day that puts them down just before sunset but only if their wheels up within minutes we got 30 minutes to get off the ground let's get this moment the plane they're delivering is a beechcraft bonanza carrie's brothered almost 5 000 kilometers with no mechanical problems [Music] until now we do not have time to dink around with this what the hell we got no power for the plane well if we can't get this started in a couple of minutes it means we're staying here for a while joe may go see if the fuel truck has a jumper corey and carrie now have 15 minutes before the runway closes no time to install a new battery why would i have totally dead we need to get jumps and get out of here can you jump us we're having a really difficult time communicating i'm not sure if they know what we need but we have less than 10 minutes to get the airplane jumped in off the ground he has no idea what i'm trying to say battery dead we need to plug in you got that yeah we gotta hurry though closing the runway time we got we really do only have a few minutes emergency troubleshooting goes with the territory but it's easier if you know the guy you're in deep with corey's usual go-to guy is a veteran pilot randy mcgee that light means we have 10 minutes left of fuel together cory and randy have been through hell all of that and high water but right now randy's on another mission in canada's far north he's here trying out for the fairy flight of a lifetime dave sir hey it's randy mcghee hey nice to finally meet you nice to meet you too the united nations needs this plane in africa to help save lives in south sudan the world's newest country the twin engine dornier is perfect for the job it carries twice the cargo of other turbo props and can nail a short runway paved or not ideal for the rough and tumble world of un relief missions you can land this thing fully loaded in 500 feet so you can get our stop pretty quick if you come in slow that's impressive randy's at the bottom of a steep learning curve i haven't seen anything like that he's never flown a dornier and he's got just two days to learn and even though he's racked up an impressive 10 000 plus hours of flying time the dornier will force him to up his game when i learned he was an airline pilot i had concerns randy flies a 767. i mean that's a big jet but if you even talk to randy how much does he actually fly the aircraft well not really you push a button it sort of does its magic right to jump into something like this now where you actually hands the feed back to old school what you used to do if you haven't done it for a long time anyone's gonna get rusty aircraft flight manual here your standing operating procedures the uh company operations manual is there looks pretty bad man it is a lot of it's a little out of reading there is but uh you're an airline pilot man you can figure it out it's like a fire hose in the mouth it's a lot of information and you got to take it in as quickly as you can get it we'll give randy as much assistance as we can but he's gonna have to pick up the ball and run with it himself i've got nine other airplanes i'm worrying about all over the world sorry after you guys are all done for the day done for the day yeah i'm feeling the pressure on everything i got to learn it's a lot and it's a big responsibility it's a big step up for the dornier 2. its latest posting was hauling passengers and cargo around canada's north but for its new war zone tour of duty the dornier got a nose-to-tail upgrade un branding the latest in navigation systems and a brand new coat of armor the main gears got clamshell doors that clip up and seal it right in we have a kevlar coating on the belly so this is bulletproof basically so we've got all our markings on united nations under this wing and on the top of the left wing they're very specific on where they wanted me there's also a he went under the belly that hopefully means don't shoot i wonder if that gives us much protection at all though i guess for those who can read and don't have a problem with the u.n the last part of this trip we're going into a really unstable part of the world there's a lot of areas that we want to avoid over flying and definitely don't want to land in this is your basic layout we got our normal checklist here all right so where's the autopilot at we don't have autopilot so there's no autopilot on this plane so we're gonna hand fly this thing like 9000 miles i didn't know that on top of having to learn all the emergency procedures normal procedures and everything else now i've got to be going back reverting back to my old flying and having to concentrate on just flying the airplane i don't think i've flown a plane like this without an autopilot or flight director since 10 15 years ago it's just a different style of fly this is all hands and feet so you do get lazy i mean i flew for the airlines and yeah you lose your not your hands and feet flying and here it's all we do we don't have all the pilots so you know we're landing on some you know sometimes a 1500 foot ice trip so you're really flying the bus you know they're all saying you can make you know hundreds of errors but you just can't make any mistakes now if you can't do the job then he's not going it's as simple as that for ferry pilot randy mcgehee it's all or nothing his rare shot at delivering a united nations plane to africa all comes down to these next few minutes randy's never flown a dornier let's do it now this airplane lands and flies will be just a little different if you want to have that finesse in good hands but it's not always that easy power set airspeed's alive both sides you have two good engines to ace this test randy has to respond to every tilt and roll of the plane it's all about having the perfect touch you're playing just back around that rolls quick i'm actually not used to that that's cool yeah very responsive it took a ferrari i was expecting to be a little more stable to be honest the dornier is old-school flying all hands and feet no autopilot randy puts the dornier through its paces turns climbs and some of the scarier stuff if you want to run a stall or something or just call stall max power [Music] file max power set climbing right out of it pretty good yeah you don't need to pitch for it at all just power right through it go way overpower this airplane itself all right sweet well for no autopilot you're doing pretty good man ov we're talking about no flight directors i'm like i'm actually have to start flying again not having any issues with this thing for all the airline pilots he's terrible he's terrible i was expecting him to be rusty especially on his altitude control he was nailing his altitude even in a steep turn i'm looking and he's got it just on the rails going around the corner randy's hand flying is impressive but the most challenging part is just ahead the dornier was built for balance heavy cargo in the rear and passenger bags in the specially designed nose putting that nose down gently takes a skillful hand the nose is going to want to drop out on you so you got to really catch it okay don't let this go bang just feel it the nose will come down let it just show the drop by itself and then just check it back hard all right i'll try man and use as much as you want so you can figure out where the wheels are all right plus 15 looking good i'm looking sweet very nice sir i was outstanding brother thanks man i was working for it though i was working for it randy's earned his seat on the dornier but more than 8 000 kilometers south randy's colleague corey benson is still stuck on the ground cory and senior pilot carrie mcauley have one dead battery and a runway about to close others scramble to beat the deadline corey and carrie's chances of getting a jump start for their beachcraft bonanza are slipping away i don't know i think they're broke down too oh maybe he's gonna pull the battery yeah this is too close somehow despite a serious language barrier the locals have figured out the foreigners need a boost oh we're just gonna swap them or no okay i see they've pulled a working battery to jolt the bonanza out of its coma oh because it is eight o'clock right now where he says a good co-pilot is like a relief pitcher always ready to take over the game gary with this being the first time that uh we've flown together what do you want me doing how do you want uh the cockpit etiquette to work out you know i do have quite a bit more experience i yes you know i'd like to be the captain but i always work as a team and carrie needs to know what kind of a teammate corey's going to be within the first minute we got to get it figured out we don't have time to get to know each other and and time to figure out how each other flies you really never know what another pilot's gonna be like until you fly with them i need a guy that's gonna you know keep us cool be good in emergency a good way to find out what your co-pilot's made of is to see how he handles an unexpected adrenaline rush like buzzing the amazon at treetop level okay let's drop her down here a little bit and uh do a little eon [Music] [Laughter] yeah baby too much fun this is awesome oh man i love this stuff who gets to do this who gets to buzz the amazon first thing in the morning so i think he just wanted to make sure that i'm not going to be some wimp pilot because this is definitely not the job for for a whippy pilot uh he passed the flying colors he was digging it we were having a ball a couple of kids in a candy store was what we were oh this is fun all right let's get back to work we got places to go good that you came down to help out though i'm so happy i'm here this is awesome in this tiny airborne clubhouse cory's passed the initiation far north of the equator in canada's northwest territories randy mcgee's also made the cut we're ready to hit the skies i can't wait to get airborne you know the veteran pilot has mastered the dornie's systems earning a place in the cockpit on a demanding united nations flight the pressure's on us we got to get the plane over there it's a risky trip from the far north they'll cross the rough north atlantic then over continental europe into the heart of africa more than 12 and a half thousand kilometers randy's used to being called captain but on this flight he'll answer to dave matheson ready to go yeah i'm ready let's do this take off runway one zero let's take off one zero 202. all right brother you have control what's that for uh [Music] the first leg stretches nearly 2 300 kilometers to the remote northern community of iqaluit well we're not kansas anymore man there is nothing around here but tundra and water 15 miles i've got some type of light ahead but that could be anything right now got it yeah sit down it's kind of blurry still some clag in the way i don't even worry about it though i just flies in numbers they're putting down for the night to refuel the plane and themselves all right warm for a callow at this time of year huh warm is minus 20. to avoid a mammoth de-icing job the plane must be towed indoors delivering planes is the ultimate in no frills flying where you're not just the pilot you're also the ground crew it's the pain in the ass because it's freezing out there you're tired from the flight you know you have an early morning and we're having to do our own work the joys of arctic travel [Music] what little sleep they get here they'll need in front of them is a 10 000 kilometer marathon with the finish line in a combat zone by the next day sleep is a distant memory it's been long hours of jockeying this united nations dornier on its trip to africa hey i want to see greenland here it looks cool early yeah it's not cloud over it now with the one-quarter mark they're approaching greenland yeah once we cross these rocks that glacier and then it's hitting the bay there that'd be cool randy sees a photo op but after hours of butt numbing boredom dave sees a slalom course minimums minimums it's just for fun still skimming this ice field requires absolute precision here the nimble dornier shows what it's made of quick and responsive so is dave who honed skills like this competing in aerobatics the most fun i can do in an airplane really is aerobatics that's a real test you know it takes a lot of discipline a lot of practice a lot of training dave has great hands he can manipulate that airplane and make it do whatever he wants a lot of respect for that with the icebergs in their rear view it's back to the business of rationing fuel for the long trip ahead are we there yet it's gonna be a long trip for you my friend in the lower latitudes above brazil corey benson is learning that the co in co-pilot is short for cooperate usually it's helpful that you know one of us is doing the navigating so you know if you wanna okay looking up frequencies and uh stuff like that okay gotcha generally when we're on other ferry flights we switch back and forth but he definitely likes to to be the captain he's in the left seat and that's the way it is they push into the heart of brazil and at the end of 1800 kilometers the beechcraft bonanza is ready for a fuel-up kerry likes to drive but in an emergency he might have to hand over the reigns which is why he needs to see corey in action as i recall that's the runway that you come over a hill and a a road and a fence as you touch down the whole runway is downhill so it's kind of tough to land on you need to have your speed under control you don't want to be going any faster than 75 hey the max this is corey's chance to show carrie that he's more than just a passenger new traffic bonanza zero three mike turning left downwind one three grand i think it's a quartering tailwind from the left a little high dump full flaps with a tailwind and a sloping runway cory needs to keep a lid on his speed okay gas three grand undercarriage make sure props pumps you're really fast you're 90 95. cory's coming in too hot and too high what's your speed at this speed and altitude he'll overshoot the runway okay let's hang it hard right kerry calls off the landing so you're thinking it's best to come in the other way yeah what wins best but we got to be on the numbers and stuff okay let's uh get some power back though we're doing 110 now here you got it all right slower up here we're doing 100 it's going to be a right crosswind looking better this time doing 90 but you're more on the glide path here cory's got the situation under control but carrie's still riding him get out watch your speed 85 80 75 [Music] at the last second [Music] carrie cuts the power and takes control of the plane flaps coming up i got the brakes i have a point nice you got the door unless it's life or death seizing control from another pilot is bad form yeah sorry about that power thing i shouldn't have done that i got a little carried away airspeed was fine everything was fine and and he went and just chopped the throttle you don't reach over and take control unless there's a danger which there definitely wasn't any dangers i kind of screwed up his landing by cutting his power a little bit here but you know flying from the right seat is tough this runway's got a big hill on it and uh yeah it's no big deal corey may be kerry's boss but in the cockpit the guy with the most experience is top dog period why is the power still on yeah let's let's get out to the battery quick so this morning the plane needed a jump start now a reverse problem they can't power down battery will drain in no time it's like pulling the keys from your car ignition to find the radio still on you want to hand me my knife kerry suspects a critical electrical wire is somehow stuck oh did that do it something went like because i turned on the master and i turned it off but everything's still lit up try it again everything's still lit up huh well that's not good beats the hell out of me handing over damaged goods is bad for business especially when you're trying to break into a hot new market like brazil the first thing that's going to go through the new owner's mind is something that our pilots or that we did and we definitely don't want that ah it's a new one on me yeah i've never seen that before there's not much time to solve this mystery the owner wants his plane in less than 24 hours [Music] now in egypt randy and dave are facing trouble of their own super dave how's it going bro good man i you sleep really great actually how about you i've been up since one crunching numbers in four days they've come 9 700 kilometers but it's the last three thousand that they're really worried about flying over war-ravaged south sudan flight planners have us take in uh six hours and 37 minutes and we have seven hours of fuel 23 minutes reserved which is not enough that's not gonna work even with a full tank their assigned flight plan from egypt to south sudan leaves them barely enough gas to finish the trip pilots call it fuel critical so if we get any kind of a headwind basically we won't make it so i've been racking my brain all night trying to figure out how to make it work if we can get any kind of a tailwind it'll increase it to probably 40 to 45 minutes of fuel which is perfect but the headwind will we won't make it what other options do we have a check didn't even land a cartoon it's not an option they said don't bother it takes 48 hours to get permission and it's sketchy yeah it's not my first option we don't have any other place to go though huh there's no friendly place to land between here and there it's almost 1200 miles when we start up we need a media taxi and also an immediate turn on course yeah otherwise they could vector ourselves 100 miles before they get us on course we don't have so hopefully they play ball from the moment they switch on their engines they're eating into their already slim fuel reserve all right man it feels critical we need to take off as soon as possible 202 requesting position we're ready to take off but the guy in the control tower has other ideas meanwhile it's early morning in brazil and corey benson and carrie mcauley are troubleshooting hours later they're no further ahead here's the starter [Music] make sure not to burn this battery down their plane is sucking power and not even the mechanic knows why i'm hearing the clunk so something's working something's happening but it's not happening fast enough right now the only way to turn off the power to the plane is to pull the plug on the battery it ain't perfect definitely unhooking the battery every time you shut the plane off is not uh an ideal situation but especially delivering it to the neon right now let's get out and disconnect that's gonna kill me if i gotta say it's got one little quirk you gotta disconnect the battery every time you shut the plane out it's a safety feature though safety it's an anti-theft device the plane's owner is expecting delivery in just a couple of hours i'm gonna call the owner real quick um just give him an update just gonna send the owner an email i tried to call him on his numbers and couldn't get through i think he's a little anxious to get his airplane delivering a temperamental plane is better than no plane at all corey decides to push on right after a quick refuel huh it turned off the master switch when they turned it off while the power went off so everything's cold huh yeah cool we fixed it you gotta love it when a plan comes together when something breaks and then it fixes itself for me that's the scariest part because you never know when it's gonna break again but it is gonna break again and it's generally at the very worst place when it stops working again this is looking really good we got guys giving us gas the master switch is working again we got a beautiful day and only two hours left to go for golden baby we're not even gonna be late that's like the first time hey hey kerry we're not in the air yet huh we're not there yet we're not there yet that's true [Music] in egypt randy mcgehee and dave matheson are wasting fuel desperate to get off the ground 202 lineup via charlie runway one seven accept sure accept it yeah accept it they're sent to the far side of the airport to await permission to take off another gas guzzling delay we're trying to take off and get out of here quick and he's not helping us their flight plan leaves them only 23 minutes of reserve fuel every second on the ground will cost them in the air clear let me take out finish of 212 from here in november vlr 2002 all right buddy you ready hot shot i'll say let's get going finally they get clearance to take off their plane a dornier is a strong climber but in the desert the air temperature is 40 degrees celsius the plane's engines are having to work harder burning through the gas so hot man our performance is we're getting killed worse the guys in the control tower have assigned them a flight plan that looks more like a cow trail dave radio's air traffic control asking for a more direct route to save on fuel it's your summit 202. is there any chance you could approve us direct golf oscar papa delta alpha just because we were fuel critical on this lecture and it would help us out a lot be nice to us buddy please uh after contact with sky radar you can take this clearance uh air traffic control has ordered them to climb to 11 000 feet contact another control tower and try 45 degrees off our track it's nice when you're sitting on the ground air conditioning you're not up here worrying about running out of fuel you know 30 minutes later they're an airspace controlled by another tower good one one morning request present position direct golf oscar papa delta alpha fuel critical i can't give you a permission to overfly direct to this point all i can do is use translation request denied again that's why it won't turn us i mean he probably can't even work with sudan airspace you know randy and dave will get one last shot at shaving time off this trip but not until the halfway point and with just 23 minutes of spare fuel to begin with halfway could come too late in the skies above brazil this beachcraft bonanza is trouble-free after some earlier power problems it's a lot more mellow in the cockpit as well what the hell is that a cork meet hula girl little girl was with me on all my fairy trips when i was uh when i was a young lad and uh she's kind of like my good luck charm so i always bring her with on all my trips unfortunately you break your leg one day hula girl had an accident pretty interesting there buddy yeah well we've all got our quirks you gotta have somebody to talk to on the long flights oh that is funny carrie prefers flying solo and he's been adjusting to a co-pilot who's also the boss but after tens of thousands of kilometers with hula girl kerry's beginning to appreciate the live audience [Music] have you had any emergencies carrie well yeah lost an engine in 182 holland jumpers lost an engine in a cleaner hauling jumpers lost my alternator at night over the sahara ferry flying was lost over the jungle in the middle of africa ferry flying lost my fairy tank fuel pressure system in the middle of the atlantic at night while ferry flying yeah so i've had some emergencies i've had a couple wow should read my book do you really have a book yeah i'm almost done oh this is going to be like a whole new chapter now i know i can't decide if i'm going to add this to it or you have a second book you know oh my god he's like my life doesn't stop i can't finish the damn book just keep it after more than 8 700 kilometers over stormy seas and dense jungle the bonanza is now within sight of the new owner's ranch all right how's my mixture is good gas is good all eyes will be on them the landing needs to be perfect but the runway is far from it that's definitely not a international airport runway it could be a little challenging hey remember here carrie no pressure but uh the owner is watching you ah oh good at least i got that going for me no pressure no [Music] above the african desert landing is the last thing randy and dave want to do right now we're fuel critical on this leg to make juba is there any possibility we could get direct they alert air traffic control as they approach sudan it's a war zone putting down here could get them kidnapped or worse we just did one hour we burned 656 pounds i'll get back to that in a second short on gas randy and dave have been asking for a more direct flight path twice denied they have one last chance sir no copy from cartoon at all could you relay they can't raise air traffic control on the radio awesome we're in hostile airspace and we can't talk to anybody after several attempts finally they make contact any chance for direct romeo alpha bravo alpha kilo we are fuel critical i say again we will be fuel critical it is imperative we get a straighter line than this that means go ask your boss dip head come on baby give it to us thanks for no help what a dick and he knows we feel critical you know he could give it to us and we're a united nations flight we're not there to bomb anybody out of options they're banking on a smooth flight with no surprises and in fairy flying that's asking for a miracle 85. above brazil corey benson knows there's a lot riding on these next few seconds it's his first delivery into the brazilian market his red carpet moment but the runway is a dirt patch roller coaster oh he's got a fence flaps coming up well done well done what an interest that was a little more nerve-wracking than i was anticipating that was sporty excellent wow this is beautiful here hi how are you very nice to meet you this is beautiful here yeah you did it beautiful good trip phenomenal first time to get to see it yeah first time i touch it very good i like this not enough that's that's my willow girly i think you brought some gifts for a minute no no let's toast huh hey to the new plane congratulations cheers cheers this is probably the best welcome that i've ever had delivering airplanes these people have just been so incredibly generous and excited and you know this is a passion of his that's one of the fun parts about delivering some of these smaller planes he's going to be using this him and his wife and his family coming to the ranch just like what we did here and it was just a great welcome oh we're going to be like that [Music] over africa a run of bad luck has finally turned around for randy mcgehee and dave matheson 195 we picked up a couple knobs not great but i'll take it they started this flight with just 23 minutes of fuel to spare what pilots call fuel critical but mother nature's thrown them a bone a tailwind that lets them ease up on the throttle and use less fuel everything that helps try to squeeze 200 knots out of this thing we can 197. to bleed every ounce of mileage from the dornier randy and dave need to work this plane super efficiently we look like we're trimmed out perfect so our drags is low profile as possible we got up as cool as we can gives us cool engines less fuel flow off our engine second better range and endurance i can't think of anything else i can do right now we really gotta start calculating that fuel we're already losing our tailwind speeds dropped to 193. damn it that's not what we want to see damn it we're down down to 300 pounds of reserve right now but that's doing direct that's not with all this work let's go on even with every fuel saving trick in the book the detours ordered by air traffic control have been sucking the gas 300 pounds of fuel left which means we have 15 minutes 15 minutes of spare fuel leaves them no margin for error we've lost another three knots already since you started this fuel calculation everything's trending against us right now we're losing time we're losing airspeed we're burning more fuel it's not looking real good and the view out their front windscreen is worse look at this [Music] in africa storms can be sudden and fierce randy's about to get his first taste we can't go around that we're gonna have to pick our way through it the plane is too low on fuel to dodge this storm they have to hit it head-on dude [Music] you

Channel: FD Real

Views: 174,635

Keywords: Free Documentary, Reality Shows, Reality TV Shows, Show (TV Genre), Documentaries, Factual Entertainment, Factual Television, non-fiction, Best factual series, FD Real, FD Real Show, Dangerous Flights, World's Most Dangerous Flights, Most Dangerous Flights, Cory Bengtzen, Ferry Flight, Ferry Flights, Trans Global Flight, airport, aviation, airplane, small aircraft, Cowboy Pilot, pilot, Daredevil Pilot, Barnstorming, Flying, Dangerous Flights Season 1

Id: xcw6qPsX_5w

Length: 44min 45sec (2685 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021