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



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