Ferry Flights - 1982 Cessna Citation II SP
1982 Cessna Citation II SP, starting a long ferry from Monterey/ Mexico to Pretoria / South Africa. 9800 Nautical Miles with no Hf radio or CPDLC—restricted even on the Spruce route, the FL 270… lots of fuel usage! Also, there is no 8.3 spacing on the VHF (massive problems flying through European Airspace). But it did have Transponder ADSB in and out.
After the first leg from Monterrey to Laredo/Texas, horizontal Gyro failure. No help in Laredo or San Antonio, after flying to Chicago at FL 180 VFR, with huge fuel consumption at that altitude, we got it fixed.
Buying an old aircraft for $650k with no proper pilot’s flight inspection (which we can do) is ultimately an expensive exercise.
After flying through the northeastern USA and Canada, we had left engine and wing de-icing failures, partial radio failures, Nav. Equipment failures, and 20 other minor failures. We did manage to get her to South Africa. The owner ran out of money during the initial sale and still owns us $15k$. So, we advise potential owners to let us help before a purchase, but our advice falls mostly on deaf ears.
Loaded up with liferaft ...
all sorts of other equipment needed for an epic Flight like this. Old equipment not capable of any sort of international flight. I relied entirely on my Foreflight iPad. This was the replacement for faulty horizontal gyro in 1982, today’s aircraft … or since the early 90’s, have digital units, one 10’s of the size and weight.
Badly adjusted main wheel and oleo, this aircraft will cost the owner more than double what he paid for. Just on getting it properly air worthy into the new registration with some updates. I could have saved this owner 100’s of thousands $, if we inspected the plane prior to purchase.
But I always get the aircraft somehow safely to its destination, also with a few grey hairs and feeling sorry for the purchaser, but nobody wants to ask an actual pilot’s opinion.
11'000 Nautical Miles ... 20'400 km.
The aircraft was originally flown at 41’000 feet in the early ’80s, however. I managed barely 35000 feet due to old engines and a 310 knots true airspeed. That in an empty aircraft! William’s engine retrofitted equipped Citations had been done since the early 90’s, a fantastic performance enhancer.
