Perdita Weeks and Stephen Hill are as nice human beings as you can imagine. I remember the end of the OG as kid, but being an extra on the new one was fun when I lived in Hawaii. “this was literally the plot of a Magnum p.i. The next weekend, he flew a Cessna 208 Caravan across the Pacific to Thailand. And Lopes didn’t wait long before his next ferry flight. Hanzawa’s company then removed the ferry tank, installed the rear seat, and had a student flying less than 24 hours later. In the end, Lopes successfully delivered the aircraft with 25 gallons of fuel to spare. But a plane could be flown to its destination far faster. Taking apart the plane, loading it on a ship, then putting it back together took as long as weeks, not accounting for any damage that may have occurred during shipping. As AV Buyer magazine writes, the industry for ferry flights was created in part because of how long it took to ship a plane someplace. Of course, one question is why do this and not have the plane shipped? As Browne explains, operators would rather have someone fly the plane rather than deal with taking the plane apart for shipping then putting it back together again. There are bottles for urination and should things go south, there’s a bucket! Though, considering the cramped space I’m not sure how Lopes would have pulled that off. Flight AwareĪs for using the bathroom? Well, it’s about as your imagination expected. And remember, he’s by himself, so that’s a long 18 hours by himself with that workload. That wasn’t required here as the new engine wasn’t expected to consume a lot of oil. In other aircraft, Lopes might also have to use a system to top up the engine’s oil. As Browne notes, the aircraft flew at 100 percent power for a number of hours before Lopes burned off enough fuel and began pulling back the power. In addition to that, he also had to work with his team on the ground to calculate the correct power setting for his fuel burn. At that same time he also checked his fuel levels to ensure there’s enough left to complete the flight. But it wasn’t as simple as pointing it in the direction of Hawaii then sending it.Įvery hour he had to report his position to air traffic control. It then took more weeks of just waiting for the winds to work in the flight’s favor.įrom there, Lopes just had to fly the flight. And the fuel system modifications had to get a one-time approval for the flight. Lopes took three weeks to rig the extra tank. Planning this took a ton of time, Browne explains. Lopes chose that route, and it appears that the extra tank feeds fuel through a line that goes into the wing root, out through a fairing, and into the wing tank through the tank’s drain. Or, the tank could be plumbed to pump fuel into the plane’s existing fuel system. One way would be to plumb the tank to feed the engine directly. It basically takes up any room that Lopes wasn’t using for himself.Īnd since that big box of fuel impacts the aircraft’s center of gravity, he reportedly couldn’t move it out of the way to give himself a little more seat recline.īrowne explains in his video that there are two ways to get that fuel to the engine. In Hanzawa’s video of the plane’s arrival you could see the tank. The tank was placed where the rear seat would be and it fills up the cabin. Lopes’ flight was possible thanks the addition of a fuel tank that gave the aircraft a total of about 210 gallons of fuel. Thus, he was a little surprised when his routine job spread around the net. Lopes has been doing it since 1988, and says that this isn’t even the first time that he’s taken a small plane nonstop over similar distances. He’s the kind of person that you call when you need your plane delivered from one destination to another. The answer comes from an interview that Lopes did with aviation YouTuber Juan Browne. This left some scratching their heads over how Lopes managed to do more than triple the distance without ending up in the Pacific. The 180 HP Lycoming IO-360-L2A under the cowling will burn that fuel in about 638 nautical miles (734 miles) when cruising at 45 percent power at 10,000 feet. A 172 Skyhawk like the one Lopes flew has up to 53 gallons of usable fuel. But one thing that a standard 172 doesn’t have is the range for a flight like this.
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