The Dash

   CarolAnn and Carol are counting the days to their departure from Orlando International and around the world.  Departure is set for December 2nd at 9pm.
   Arriving at their first stop in San Diego at 9:30am on December 3rd, they will have a one and a half hour turnaround before heading off to Lihue, Hawaii with a midnight arrival. You can follow the pair across the US and Pacific on their website, www.alsworldflight.com 

Preparing for Departure

CarolAnn and Carol did some very successful flight testing recently. With the FAA sign off, they carried enough fuel and luggage to put them at their maximum limit and flew for 7 hours to calculate fuel burn and airspeed when in this configuration. These numbers are needed to refine the calculations of distance and time on the very long legs across the Pacific, Africa and the Atlantic.
   Considering the over gross weight configuration, the aircraft, with Carol at the controls, did a normal rotate and climb at slightly above the normal takeoff speeds. They climbed out at 600 feet per minute and continued up to 11,000 feet on the way to Key West. The actual destination was in Virginia, but they had to go south to burn off fuel prior to heading north.
  On the return leg, Carol got some practice with the HF radio, HF e-mail, and satellite phone as well as logging all the instrument and gage readings every hour. Both CarolAnn and Carol need to be comfortable with all the equipment in both seats as they will be swapping positions each leg. Recently, Carol  also participated in an FAA survival course in Oklahoma City. She got dunked and turned and still managed to extract herself from the mock cockpit. The experience was extremely valuable.
   The weather is normally benign in late November, December and January. But, believe it or not there a cyclone has recently been re-ported over India and two tropical storms over the western Pacific. This is unusual. We all hope it’s the last of the season and will settle down over the next few weeks.