I flew to Kauai from Kona to shoot a vertical photo assignment of a many acre piece of land on the western side of the island above Waimea. For almost two weeks a very high pressure system had sat north of Hawaii resulting in extremely strong trade winds blowing from the northeast and grounding me from flying inter island . Last week the winds finally died down enough for me to make the long flight to Kauai with a two day window of probable clear skies I needed to get my job done.
My plane usually flies at around 100 knots airspeed which if the winds are calm also means 100 knots groundspeed. As I leveled off at 8,500' over the Alenuihaha Channel between Hawaii and Maui my iPad told me that I was making 125 knots over the oceans surface! I had a screaming tailwind and as such make it to the west side of Kauai in two hours flat!
My job was to fly a course of ten tracks at 6,000 feet. But as I get there I find there are clouds at 3,000' and stern turbulence in the lee of Mt Waialeale (The wettest place on the earth by the way). I try two different versions of flying my tracks and after an hour give up, it's not going to work today. Three and a half hours of flying with nothing to show for it.
Fortunately I have very good friends on Kauai, the sister, bother in law and mother of my friend Scott Bickel, who picked me up at the Lihue airport after I tied 26Mike down and treated me to a wonderful dinner at their home. The next day Lindsay dropped me off at the airport early and I climbed out to the Waimea Canyon area to find clear blue skies above my target!
I began flying my waypoints flight showing on my iPad attached to the yoke. In order to capture the property below I need fly many exact tracks over the ground. When flying vertical assignments you have to fly real stick and rudder rules. You have to fly at the precisely right altitude, heading and airspeed on each leg, then perform a 180 and get lined up for the next leg. If you screw up one portion of one leg the whole job is boned and you don't get paid. I made over two dozen steep 180 degree turns and a handful of 360's while changing cards and getting repositioned .
After a good amount of time and a lot of challenging flying I completed my job over Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii and pointed the nose of Cherokee 26Mike southeast towards Hawaii. Here is the site I shot. over three hundred high resolution photos stitched together into one giant vertical photo!
I pushed my throttle forward and aimed my plane south towards the island of Hawaii. It became obvious as I leveled off at 9,500' that I had a vicious headwind ahead of me. Twenty five knots pushing my ass down from Kona was now thirty knots blowing boldly into my face.
I established my cruise altitude and settled in for the three hour crawl to Kona ahead of me. Using my iPad as a GPS navigational system I plotted my course and settled in for a long afternoon on the stick.
Some twenty miles west of Oahu the air traffic controller (ATC) voice told me to head direct to Honolulu Airport. I altered my course even though this would take me way off of my direct route home to Kona. As I began to approach the west Oahu coast of Waianae I could see that ATC pushing me off course and over Oahu might just be a good thing.
I looked out my window as a flew over Makaha and saw the entire Waianae coast clear and beautiful below me! I opened the window, grabbed my Nikon D800 and started shooting.
I continued my course towards Honolulu International Airport as instructed, and continued to shoot photos as I flew.
I was able to capture a six shot panorama of Pearl Harbor as I slipped by this amazing harbor.
"Cherokee 26Mike turn right heading 120 maintain altitude" says the ATC voice. OK I tell them and head to the south. But before I dip my wings south I shoot a series of photos of downtown Honolulu and Waikiki.
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu Airport
Here is what Diamond Head looks like from my office window.
The remainder of my flight home to Kona from Kauai was boring and tedious. I looked out my cockpit window as Kahoolawe crawled by. I felt as though I could step out of the cockpit and walk faster than we were flying. A 30 knot headwind will do that to you.
My flight to Kauai was a success. But I have to tell you though, it was a booger. Two hundred eighty plus miles away from home, vicious winds and clouds to deal with, ATC inadvertently helping out but not really. I ended up flying a total of 909 miles and spent nine hours forty minutes at the controls. Not a job for anyone scared of heights or small places!
When I left the ground in Kona I had no idea what was going to be the outcome. I could have gotten the shot the afternoon I hit Kauai and been done with it. Or I could have waited around a week waiting for the skies to clear enough for me to get the shots...you never know.
This flight worked out just fine. I got the vertical photos the client was looking for and managed to grab some cool shots of Oahu on the way home. I probably shouldn't mention it, but I was concerned about my fuel capacity and had calculated that if I hit Kahoolawe by two PM I should have had at least 30 minutes of fuel on board when I landed at Kona.
I came astride Kahoolawe at two PM exactly and decided to head home to Kona instead of diverting to Kahalui to fill up. As I headed over the channel my ground speed was 82 knots. But quite quickly it faded to 75 knots. I was creeping over one of the most dangerous ocean channels in the world and the wind slowing me down was increasing.
The ocean below was a white capped spread of rough blue sea blown sideways all the way to the horizon. I continued onward to Kona. I crawled through Pele's vog using my GPS to guide me to the ground beside Keahole Point. It was very good to be back home on Hawai'i.
Mahalo,
Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment