Presumably you need to establish HF contact to receive your oceanic clearance, am guessing once airborne?
No, we got the oceanic clearance while we were still on the ground in St. John‘s via VHF. but that was six years ago, maybe it has change in the meantime.
although for the usual Brexity reasons (?), it can not be shipped to the UK.
Surely any workaround is trivial. The chinks are routinely shipping illegal GSM boosters as “hifi equipment”.
@RV14 thank you for posting, although for the usual Brexity reasons (?), it can not be shipped to the UK.
Presumably you need to establish HF contact to receive your oceanic clearance, am guessing once airborne? Feeding out an HF through the storm window to achieve the correct length, and hopefully it isn’t bashing against the tailplane, must require some practice.
I think taking plenty of time and waiting out weather on the Northern VFR route is the safe route for puddle-jumpers, even if it is a big frozen puddle.
I think the biggest challenge for HF is the antenna. I’ve started looking into it and while I’ve seen some reports that a “long wire” style ADF antenna can work as an HF antenna (especially with modern digital tuners), there’s other reports that specifically poo-poo this. I know that modern digital radios are absolutely amazing, so I’m not worried about the weight of what I need to carry, but I’d really like to have a solution that doesn’t require me to feed a wire out of the storm window. Anyone who knows of any good resources on this, please share.
RV14 wrote:
which handheld radio and what kind of antenna
‘Handheld’ was, I think, a Boafeng – have to look that up, the pigtail original antenna was unusable in initial tests so we had a wire antenna fitted outside.
Sebastian_G wrote:
Thank you for the update. So I will start a new thread on HF solutions ;-)
Just to give some first hint, we tried two carry solutions on the trip – one a ‘manpack’, which did its job well and a Chinese handheld cracker, which was doing soso.
mike_miller wrote:
CYFB BGSF BIRK. And I strongly prefer this route
Very true but in winter the weather can be a real challenge in the north. I did one crossing on this route in December. It was so incredibly cold at CYFB that my PIC did have a series of technical problems with the aircraft. Then there was very little daylight etc. So for next winter my thoughts are that the Azores might be a bit longer over water but with much better weather on the ground and in flight.
UdoR wrote:
Looked it up: to Ilha das Flores LPFL about 1.050 nm.
Flores does not seem to have immigration so it would usually be CYYT – LPHR which is 1179NM. Not sure if LPHR does have AVGAS, we will not need any but if AVGAS is required the leg might even be longer to LPAZ at 1370NM.
UdoR wrote:
Taking the typical westerly winds into account that would be the northern route over Greenland to go there and a direct flight for return.
Those guys did take it a bit further not even stopping in Canada but they went from New York direct. On the return home they had to take the usual northern route ;-)
https://www.avweb.com/ownership/tbm-930-sets-new-york-to-paris-speed-record/
MichaLSA wrote:
Last November and no, HF mandatory, sat phone in lieu was not accepted.
Thank you for the update. So I will start a new thread on HF solutions ;-)
chflyer wrote:
There is no restriction on SEP per se.
Whoa. Didn’t know that. Crazy. Never thought about that option.
Taking the typical westerly winds into account that would be the northern route over Greenland to go there and a direct flight for return.
Now I leave the thread for the thread starter, my apologies for taking it over. I have something to think about 
