The last couple of days we have prepared ourselves and the aircraft for the longest leg of the whole expedition; the 2100 Nautical Miles from Hilo, Hawaii to Long Beach, California. Due to the length of this leg we need the right winds to be able to reach the destination with comfortable margins. We now have a time window where we can expect some 15 knots tailwind on average and the plan is to leave this afternoon on June 23.

Instead of going to Honolulu International we decided to fly to Kalealoa Airport just west of Honolulu to make all the preparations needed. Kalealoa is an old military airbase that belonged to US Navy before it was returned to the state of Hawaii some time ago. Nowadays a few private aircraft are based at the airport and the Hawaiian coast guard also operates from here. We were lucky to meet some of the local people here and we have got the warmest welcome from the very nice people at this great airport. Cliff, Sven and the others, thanks a lot for hangar space, great hospitality and all the help we got!

We have now put in a new oxygen system from Mountain High that we are looking forward to test during the next flight and during the rest of the expedition. This is a light weight on-demand system that suites our needs perfectly. Mountain High has done a great job to ship the system on a short notice. Thanks!

Written by Martin

Posted by: phil byrnes
hey guys, take-off from hilo looked great!! are u guys on-line in flight? it might be a way to pass time as u fly! hope to hear from u. phil in hilo