Page 16 - JULY 20 TNT

Eastern shore of Greenland.
in the DA62. In what was to be our final leg of this day, we flew to Iceland in just 2.3 hours and burned only 40 gallons of Jet-A while cruising at 184 KTAS. Those are some pretty remark- able numbers when considering the comfort, speed and efficiency. And, those numbers were not abnormal. We saw cruise speeds of 180 to 185 KTAS along the entire route to Florida and averaged 9 gph on each engine, or 18 gph total along the entire flight.
We landed in the middle of the day in Iceland, but the sun was already dipping to the horizon. The sun is short-lived in latitudes this far north in the wintertime, and we only had 5 to 6 hours of sunlight in the day. The weather in Greenland precluded a de- parture, so we ended up with a two- leg day, and lots of time in Iceland to explore. The next day the winds would not allow us to land in Greenland with acceptable reserves, so we ended up staying in Iceland for two nights, with a full day in between to explore. There are few places I’d rather explore more than Iceland.
Deanna’s Perspective: I always joke that Joe gets “stuck” in all the cool places on his trips, while I manage to get delayed in places where there is little to see without getting very creative. Although he was settling into his normal “non-flying day” routine of answering emails, returning calls and the never-ending administrative duties of his business, we decided to take advantage of the rare layover and explore an area known as the “Golden Circle.” While we ran out of daylight before we made it around even an abbreviated tour, it was neat to see the variety of land- scapes that portion of Iceland had to offer, including mountains, nature preserva- tion, farmlands, waterfalls and barren, rocky shorelines.
14 • TWIN & TURBINE / July 2020
We finally were able to leave Ice- land for Kangerlussuaq, Greenland (BGSF) in the darkness of the next morning, and the sun greeted us about an hour into the trip. There’s not much to see over the chilly wa- ters of the North Atlantic, but there is A LOT to see on the eastern coast of Greenland. On this day, east Greenland had high clouds that bathed the snow- covered mountains in what seemed to be an eternal sunset. The “golden hour,” as many photographers call it, is when the colors are soft and perfect for photography.
Well, picture a scene of immense, unspoiled natural beauty bathed in such lighting, and let that scene roll along for nearly a full hour. It was splendid. We f lew about 1,500 feet over the Greenland icecap and then landed in the “golden hour” light at BGSF. It was one of the more memo- rable flights of my career. We capped off the f light with a walk to the diner in the airline terminal at BGSF, where we had a muskox burger for lunch. Only in Greenland.
Deanna’s Perspective: “You want me to eat what...?”
By now, I was completely comfort- able in the DA62. It is certainly not a hard airplane to fly and has wonderful flight characteristics. I was completely familiar with the G1000 avionics suite and had grown to appreciate the nuanc- es of the airplane, especially the con- trol of the engines and deicing systems. More importantly, I had become very comfortable with the performance. I was able to push the range and allow a lesser reserve than the super conser- vative reserve I applied to the earlier portions of the trip.
We f lew from BGSF to CYFB (Iqaluit, Canada) to CYWK (Wabush, Canada) and finally ended up in the good ole United States in Bangor, Maine (KBGR). This was by far the longest day of our journey and good weather dominat- ed the trip except for the nighttime approach and landing at Bangor. We landed there in driving rain, harsh winds and terrible visibility. The per- formance of the DA62 was impressive as we had covered lots of inhospita- ble ground and inhospitable weather in one day.
No matter what country you come from, it is always nice to be back on “home turf.” I always treasure the feel- ing of returning to American soil. But despite being in the destination coun- try, we still had a long way to go. Maine is far from Florida, and the next day was to be filled with us flying down the Appalachian Mountains.
Ironically, I recently purchased a nearly-new Cirrus SR22T (G6) and I was to pick up this airplane at the Cirrus Completion Center at the McGhee Tyson Airport (KTYS) in Knoxville, Tennessee. The weather was splendid throughout our f light to KTYS and I fully enjoyed the view of the Appalachians. But, my part of this long ferry was coming to an end, with Deanna completing the delivery of the DA62 to its final destination (KFXE) in Florida.
In all, we flew just over 30 hours in the DA62, which was about the same time in the air that we would have expected of the much longer trip in the much faster King Air. But, this trip was at a much lower altitude with some views that can only be seen from that vantage point. Along the way, I gained a serious appreciation for the perfor- mance, comfort and style of the DA62. It is one fine aircraft that I’d happily
f ly anywhere on earth –
literally.
Joe Casey is an FAA-DPE and an ATP, CFI, CFII (A/H), MEI, CFIG, CFIH, as well as a retired U.S. Army UH60 standardization instruc-tor/ examiner. An active instructor in the PA46 and King Air markets, he has accumulated 14,300-plus hours of flight time, with more than 5,200 dual-given as a flight instructor. Contact Joe at joe@flycasey.com or 903.721.9549.