Greenlandair

[JDNSW]

My brother used to work in Greenland, and hence he keeps tabs on what happens there. He particularly has an interest in Greenlandair, the national carrier. When he was working there, it was the only civilian RPT airline operating (I seem to remember exclusively) S58s.

It has modernised over the years, especially as more airports have been built. But they now have a problem. With the current pandemic, the traffic in current circumstances is not enough to justify the cost of operating their only Atlantic capable aircraft, a single A330 - which is currently in Europe being maintained anyway. But they need the service, for example, to carry covid-19 tests for analysis.

So currently, they are operating from Nuuk to Copenhagen using a Dash-8, with a technical stop at Keflavik. Who knew a Dash-8 could carry a useful load on that sort of route?

[Hugh Jars]

JD, the Dash is pretty good on break-even costs. I flew the 100/200/300. The 200/300 is pretty good range and payload wise. The 200 goes to Lord Howe while carrying a mainland alternate. Not sure how it's configured nowadays, but when I was going to the rock we carried a life raft which reduced PAX to 32 (but we would often carry staff travellers in 2 of the blocked off seats.
The longest flight I ever did was Sydney to Cairns with a fuel stop in Roma. Did it easily [emoji1303]

[JDNSW]

Sydney -Cairns is about 1,000nm, Nuuk-Copenhagen is about 1900nm.

I have done a couple of longish flights - Port Moresby to Sydney in a Cessna 180 (and back a couple of weeks later), and Melbourne (Lilydale) to Edgar Range (near Broome) in a Beech 36. All involved an overnight stop plus an additional fuel stop.

[p38arover]

I have done a couple of longish flights - Port Moresby to Sydney in a Cessna 180

Hell's Bells!

[JDNSW]

Hell's Bells!

No problems*, customs at TI, refuel at Weipa, Normanton, Winton and Roma.

*Halfway between Weipa and Normanton the crackling in the headhones stopped and I became aware of a hot, burning smell. Hastily switched off the HF. Turned out to just be a cooked resistor.