Ohio to Australia: Phenom 100 Ferry Flight

Dear Friends,

It has been a few days since I returned home from one of the most amazing trips of my 9,000+ hour career. Every once in a while I have to “pinch myself” to believe that I had this opportunity of a lifetime.

I believe that most of us aviators chose to take that first flight lesson not thinking about a career in aviation or the flexibility that an aircraft can provide, but rather we did it for the adventure, the challenge, and the pleasure of flying.

This trip that I am about to describe was all about the adventure, the challenge, and the flying. It took Captain Edwin Sahakian and me 19 stops and about 10 days to fly an Embraer Phenom 100 from Ohio to Australia.

Our journey started weeks before the first takeoff. As one can probably imagine, 19 stops in 12 countries is not an easy task, and the amount of paperwork involved is overwhelming. After departing the US, every single landing requires some kind of permit, approval and/or previous arrangements. Most of these requirements are date-specific, meaning, for example, that our over flight permit for North Korea was good for the 12^th but unacceptable for the 13^th. Even though we were not in a hurry to get to our destination, we had to keep a very firm schedule to make sure that our permits were good for the trip.

Unfortunately, Murphy’s Law presented itself right on the very first leg. Upon our landing in Winipeg, Canada the hydraulic system gave up on us. After a pleasant ferry flight to Portland and excellent service coordinated by Embraer, we were quickly back in the skies.

From Portland all the way to Australia, our bird performed magnificently. There was not a single issue with the aircraft.

Our first stop after Portland was Juneau, Alaska. Unfortunately, we had to fly at night due to the fact that we were behind schedule. We couldn’t see much, but the scenery that we saw was beautiful. I can only imagine the beautiful scenery we would have seen had the flight been during the day.

After a quick turn in Juneau we proceed to Anchorage. Signature Flight Support has a great facility there. We chose to sleep in the crew room to save the time of getting to a hotel in order to get us back on the schedule with an early departure from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.

When we arrived in Nome, I started to realize what I got myself into. Canada, Portland, Anchorage were no big deal, just like any other flight, but when you look at the map and draw a line from Northern Alaska to Northeast Russia, it hits you. We were about to depart for one of the most remote areas on the planet. And for guys and gals like me that lived during the Cold War era, flying over and landing in Russia is just something that I never thought I would do. In the back of my mind I was always worrying about a MIG on my tail.

The MIG never came and we had a nice flight to Anadyr, in the Northeastern-most reaches of Siberia. Welcome to altitudes in meters and distances in kilometers. We received a fairly confusing clearance for an ILS approach, but we were able to perform a safe landing with almost 100 ft to spare before CAT I minimums. The runway in Anadyr hasn’t seen maintenance since Gorbachev was in charge but we managed to take it to the ramp with all tires inflated. As we turned off of the runway, a huge Antonov was revving up those Prattskis getting ready to go. We were in Russia all right!!

Here are the highlights of our trip:

Route: Dayton, OH - Winnipeg, Canada – Great Falls, MT – Portland, OR – Juneau, AK – Anchorage, AK – Nome, AK – Anadyr, Russia – Magadan, Russia – Yuzho, Russia – Seoul, South Korea – Taipei, Taiwan – Hong Kong – Danang, Vietnam – Koh Samui, Thailand – Singapore – Bali, Indonesia – Darwin, Australia – Mont Isa, Australia – Sydney, Australia

Incredible sightseeing: The glaciers in Alaska are absolutely beautiful, with different tones of white and blue, their strange shapes and massive size.

Russia: difficult to explain, but it looks like they are running 20 years behind, from the hotel to the airport vehicles, almost everything is outdated. It was great to see the Russian officials wearing their uniforms. It felt like I just stepped into a Cold War movie.

Korea: Just like Russia, it was a little “funny” to fly through North Korean airspace and talk to a North Korean at Pyongyang Center; I kept checking my “6” for a MIG that never came.

Seoul was great; I have lots of memories from Seoul from the time that I used to fly MD-11s there almost 12 years ago. If Russia is 20 years behind the US, South Korea is 20 years ahead.

Hong Kong: We were able to spend a couple days in HK. It was another “pinch me to believe this is real life” moment. Wow!!, we are landing at Hong Kong International Airport, with only 747s and 777s in sight everywhere and here we come with our MTOW of little more than 10.000lbs. We had beautiful weather, a beautiful approach, and finally a couple days to relax and enjoy. We were officially back on schedule.

Vietnam: I knew that was a MIG coming!!! We landed in Danang on our way to drop our passengers in Thailand. After the warm welcome from the local authorities we watched a pair of MIGs landing just a few minutes after us. I am not sure if it was a good idea for an American on an American registered aircraft to be taking pictures of military MIGs in Vietnam but I couldn’t resist… Great stop, great people, and great pictures.

Thailand: I dropped the passengers in Koh Samui, a beautiful island on the East Coast of Thailand. With this landing, I became the first pilot to fly around the World on a Phenom 100. On a previous trip I flew from Los Angeles to Bangkok on an Eastbound route. Celebration followed with Don Perignon and pictures.

Singapore: Setelar airport is under construction, closing everyday at 18:00 local. If you arrive there a minute late, you will not be authorized to land and must proceed to the international airport where the landing fees and headaches are 3x more than Setelar. From the time that we reached our cruise altitude until talking to Singapore Approach, every single controller asked me what my estimate to destination was. It was actually 17:56, a whole 4 minutes to spare. After a few weather deviations, vectors for traffic and a last minute runway change, touchdown was at exactly 18:00L. I got a nice “attaboy” from the controller.

Bali: I enjoyed clear weather all the way from Singapore to Bali. Although I enjoyed having Captain Sahakian along for the flight, he had to get off in HK, and the passengers got off in Thailand, so I was alone on this beautiful flight. There were islands and volcanoes for as far as the eye could see. Upon landing in Bali, the local military approached the aircraft requesting my landing permit. I replied explaining to the officer that all documents were taken care of by our handler. Unfortunately, our handler forgot to send the permit to the local authority so I found myself detained on the local military base due to lack of proper documentation. I asked the officer what would be the consequences of not having a landing permit and he gently explained to me that the aircraft would be impounded and I would be transferred for the local jailhouse. After about 1 hour and a couple phone calls, the proper documents arrived and I was on my way to more comfortable accommodations. I had half a day to enjoy the local beach, food, and beverage.

Australia: Not much excitement to report in Australia besides the personal feeling of accomplishment. If was great to land and say: “Mission Accomplished”. It was a shame that I arrived late at night and taxied into the darkest ramp I have ever seen. It was so dark that I had to use landing lights for taxi. No pictures and no champagne.

Final thoughts: For a trip of this magnitude, the keys to success are experience, research, and preparation. There are many things that can go wrong, especially in the paperwork area. You just need one little mistake to be delayed for a few days or even spend the night in a jailhouse. It is also important to research opportunities to make the trip cost effective. We had quotes from $500 to $3,000 for the exact same service. Prices can vary drastically from one location to another and from one vendor to another at the same location.

I know that most jet owner/operators are busy individuals running a successful business, but if you have a passion for flying and adventure you must plan to take some time off and fly a trip overseas. I can guarantee you, it will be the experience of a lifetime.

Marcio Lucchese

jetAVIVA Acceptance and Delivery Manager