Around the World - Leg 6 - BIKF to EGPF

Saying farewell to Keflavik.

So after some enjoyable flight time around Iceland, we bid farewell to Keflavik as we look set to head over to Scotland. This leg was the most troublesome, taking me no less than four attempts! The first three were hampered due to a few issues with the Aerosoft CRJ700. The first issue we ran into was fuel consumption, the planned amount through Simbrief was eaten up well before we reached Stornoway, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out if this was user error or an issue with the plane. Headwinds were intense reaching at times 70 knots at our assigned FL370. (Which was almost impossible to reach on IAS climb for some reason.) The remaining attempts were foiled by the Autopilot doing disastrous 360 degree turns when reaching the Barku waypoint just beyond Shanwick Oceanic, having read online this is not an uncommon issue, I was consoled that this wasn't an isolated occurrence, yet it was still extremely frustrating.

Thankfully we finally made it on our 4th attempt as I loaded up extra fuel and I manually flew the final waypoint. We crossed into Scotland and had the company of Scottish Control who were patient and helpful!

Entering Scotland!

Weather was challenging as we got direct routing to our ERSO1G approach, poor visibility meant a night landing was going to be all the more challenging. We relied on the HUD to help bring us in on the ILS approach for Runway 05. Glasgow Airport (EGPF) is one of the busiest airports in the United Kingdom, but falls behind Edinburgh which retains the title as busiest airport in Scotland. EGPF was officially opened in 1966, it now serves a number of airlines including some smaller regional airlines. From Canada, it serves Air Canada Rouge, Air Transat, West Jet... and of course Canadian Xpress ;)

Our next planned leg was a toss up between Rotterdam and Luxembourg, but I opted for the former, and after two legs with challenging encounters with the CRJ700, we decided to switch to a more tried and true aircraft for our remaining legs around the world... but more on that in the next blog!