Return-Path: Sender: (Marvin Kaye) To: lml Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 10:36:58 -0400 Message-ID: X-Original-Return-Path: Received: from mail.rkymtnhi.com ([65.204.204.202] verified) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 4.0b6) with ESMTP id 1689214 for lml@lancaironline.net; Fri, 16 Aug 2002 10:22:37 -0400 Received: from rkymtnhi.com (204.131.47.39) by mail.rkymtnhi.com with ESMTP (Eudora Internet Mail Server 3.1b1) for ; Fri, 16 Aug 2002 08:22:35 -0600 X-Original-Message-ID: <3D5D0AD6.590072C8@rkymtnhi.com> X-Original-Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 08:23:18 -0600 From: Aircraft Technical Book Company X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Original-To: " (Lancair Mailing List)" Subject: Re: [LML] Re: crossing the pacific References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It's been done. Jon Johansen, an Australian did it 3 (THREE) times in an RV-4. Once eastbound, a 2nd time west bound, and a third time over the north pole. I met the guy during his third trip at a pancake fly-in in Greeley, CO. About 2 weeks earlier he had crossed the pole from Canada to Norway, flew down to England and then made a westbound Atlantic crossing. He was then just flying around America for a while before his trip back to Australia. He is an absolutely incredible guy doing mind numbing things in a single engine airplane. His plane was a stock 0-320 powered RV-6 equipped with a Lightspeed ignition and an MT prop. The only thing unique was all the extra fuel tanks. He had the standard tanks, plus wing tip tanks, plus a big tank occupying the back seat, and I think a 10 gallon header tank too. When I saw him, his plane had a huge crack in the canopy with the sides of the crack buckling about 1/8 inch. He said the crack occurred a couple hundred miles from the pole due to the extreme cold. He said he was a little nervous when it happened because he probably could not have survived the cold over the pole if the canopy completely failed. But it couldn't have phased him too much, as he let it go after landing in Norway and continued his trip with it, including the return north Atlantic crossing. I don't know if he had it fixed prior to the Pacific flight home. He wrote a book too, in english, about his first trip. Unfortunately its out of print. If you can find a copy from some RV guys, make sure to try to borrow it. Andy LML Bookstore http://buildersbooks.com/lancair >