Yesterday the weather was not really that bad in Iqauit, as they forecasted in the morning, but this is reality up here north. Changes are very rapid and sometimes unexpected. Low pressure above Resolute Bay has moved southeast and the visiability has improved. This enables me a little bit to see where this predominantly Eskimo village is located. Domen sent me the weather information from his own sources, which lead to an easier decision.

In Resolutu the aircraft was safely stored in the hangar Ken Borek. The temperature in the hangar was below minus 20 but the aircraft was protected against wind and snow, which was constantly blowing. Andre Martineau was of great help to me, we warmed up the engine with Herman Nelson heater and then pushed it on fresh snow. I am very thankful to Ken Boorek for hospitality and assistance, and Samo, who arranged everything.
Some time after flying out of Resolute, the weather was nice, later it has spoiled and I was flying for about two hours in the clouds. Temperature was fortunately around 23 below zero, cold enough that there was no icing. In the second half of the flight it has cleared up, but shill low clouds all around, so there was no possibility to photograph.
Only about 100 miles from Iqaluite it has cleared to perfection and the sigths were fantastic. To my big surprise the sea in Iqaluit is still frozen.
At the airport guys from First Air found me; this were Jeff and Mark, then Cameron McGregor (Polar Pilots) and Daniel Gardener, which has spent part of his childhood in Slovenia and talk excellent our Slovene language. Apart from them also the team of journalists for television, radio, and newspapers. First we did the interviews, then we pushed the plane in a heated hangar of First Air. Finally the plane was warm, although the outside temperature was still minus 12. A new front with lot of icing is coming to Iqaluit, so for one more day I certainly stay here.

Matevž

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Včeraj vreme niti ni bilo tako slabo v Iqaluitu, kot so sprva napovedali zjutraj, ampak to je realnost tu zgoraj na severu. Spremembe so zelo hitre in včasih nepričakovane. Nizek pritisk iznad Resolut Baya se je pomaknil jugovzhodno in izboljšal vidljivost. Tako sem vsaj malo videl, kje to, pretežno eskimsko naselje sploh leži. Domen mi pošlje še vremenske podatke iz svojih virov, tako da je odločitev lažja.

V Resolutu je bilo letalo varno spravljeno v hangarju Ken Borek. Temperatura v hangarju je bila pod minus 20, vendar je bilo letalo zaščiteno pred vetrom in snegom, ki je neprestano naletaval. V veliko pomoč mi je bil Andre Martineau, da sva motor predhodno ogrela s Herman Nelson grelcem in ga potem porinila na svež sneg. Hvala Ken Booreku  za gostoljubje in pomoč ter Samu, ki je vse skupaj organiziral.

Nekaj časa po odletu iz Resoluta je bilo lepo vreme, potem se je pokvarilo in je bilo slabi dve uri letenja v oblakih. temperatura je bila k sreči okrog 23 pod ničlo, dovolj mrzlo da ni bilo zaledenitev. V drugi polovici
leta se je zjasnilo vedndar je spodaj ostala nizka oblačnost, tako da ni bilo možnosti za fotografiranje. Šele kakšnih 100 milj pred Iqaluitom se je popolnoma zjasnilo in prizori so bil resnično fantastični. Na moje veliko
presenečenje je tudi morje pri Iqaluitu še vedno globoko zamrznjeno.
Na letališču so me poiskali fantje od First Aira, Jeff in Mark, potem pa Cameron McGregor (Polar Pilots) in Daniel Gardener, ki je del otroštva preživel v Sloveniji in odlično govori po naše. Poleg njih še ekipa novinarjev televizija, radia in časopisa. Intervju, potem pa letalo porinemo v tokrat ogrevan hangar First Aira. Končno na toplem, čeprav je zunaj še vedno minus 12. V Iqaluit prihaja nova fronta z veliko zaledenitvami, tako da en dan gotovo ostajam še v Iqaluitu.

Matevž

Resolute Bay finally!! Cloudy morning turned into nice mostly sunny but cold day at -17. John, head of station, Bill and Jay helped me with preparation. We set a kind of tent over the engine and part of the cabin and heated with strong Herman Nelson heater. It was almost to hot so fuel expanded through carb vent hose. Battery was OK so engine came to life instantly. After long run I checked engine condition and found oil leak from the hose which connect turbo and intercooler. Via sat phone made a call to Leon at Pipistrel and he thought that this is only oil which expanded from turbo because of preheating. After I did several test runs to clean the oil, but still remain there. At such cold temperatures it is almost impossible to do some serious engine service, so decided to fly anyway as Leon's explanation seems to me realistic. Weather was nice most of the way except about 45 minutes in no visibility due ice crystals. The whole country is a very cold desert. A strange feeling being alone in the heart of white infinity. Resolute Bay is even colder 24 minus. Whitout Samo Cebul I would be in deep freeze with many problems to overcome. But guys at First Air were waiting for me, 200 litres of Avgas was in the wings in record time, Andre from Kan Borek was also there and invited me to their big green hangar. Samo send me two big boxes of food, heater, so I must only say one big THANK YOU.

Matevž

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Resoulute Bay, končno!! Oblačno jutro se je obrnilo v pretežno sončen, a hladen dan z -17°C. John, vodja postaje, Bill in Jay sta mi pomagala s pripravami. Čez motor in del kabine smo postavili neke vrste šotor in segreli z močnim Herman Nelson grelcem.

Bilo je skoraj prevroče, tako da se je gorivo razširilo skozi tesnila. Akumulatorji so bili ok, in motor je takoj vžgal. Po dolgem teku motorja, sem preveril pogoje in našel puščanje olja pri tesnilu med turbino in hladilnikom. Preko satelitskega telefona sem poklical Leona v Pipistrel, ki je bil mnenja, da je to le olje, ki je ekspandiralo iz tesnila zaradi pregrevanja.

Naredil sem nekaj testnih poletov, da se očisti olje, a je še vedno ostalo tam. Pri tako nizkih temperaturah je skoraj nemogoče narediti resen servis motorja, zato sem se odločil, da poletim vseeno, saj se mi je Leonova razlaga zdela realna. Vreme je bilo lepo ves čas, razen 45 min v pogojih brez vidljivosti zaradi ledenih kristalov.

Cela dežela je kot zelo hladna puščava. Kar nenavaden  je občutek biti sam v srčiki bele neskončnosti.

Resolute Bay je še hladnješi, minus 24 °C. Brez Sama Čebula bi bil povsem mrzel z mnogimi problemi, ki bi jih moral rešiti.

A fantje iz First Aira so me čakali, 200 litrov Avgas bencina je bilo v krilih v rekordnem času. Tam je bil tudi Andre iz Kan Boreka in mi je ponudil njihov hangar. Samo pa mi je poslal še dve veliki škatli hrane, grelec, tako da lahko samo rečem en velik HVALA.

Matevž

Short video about flying from Tromso to the Svalbard.
Enjoy !

GLFW Team

Morning was a lot better than yesterday. The temperature dropped below 15 minus again and wind became stronger up to 12 kts. It was unpleasantly cold. It seems that the "little one" survived snow fall, at least I hope so. I tried to clean-up all small openings on the airplane and made some additional protection. The station guys were removing the snow from the runway whole day and I realized, no way to take-off for today. Forecast for tomorrow is a bit better, so I hope we'll manage to push the engine in to life early in the morning. But like always in the Arctic: "You can never be 100% sure" Let us wait and see.

Matevz

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Jutro je bilo mnogo boljše kot včeraj. Temperatura se je ponovno spustila pod minus 15 in veter se je okrepil do 12 vozlov.  Bilo je neprijetno hladno. Zgleda, da je "ta mali" preživel snežno nevihto, no, vsaj upam, da je tako. Poskušal sem očistiti vse male odprtine na letalu in ga še dodatno zaščitil .Fantje so na postaji odstranjevali sneg s piste ves dan in spoznal sem, da danes še ne bom vzletel. Napoved za jutri je nekoliko boljša, tako da upam, da mi bo uspelo zagnati motor k življenju zgodaj zjuraj. A kot vedno v Arktiki: Nikoli ne moreš biti 100%. Dovolite, da počakamo in vidimo.

Matevž

We have really bad weather today here in Eureka. No visibility and snow whole day and now the wind is picking up. This is the worse situation as the snow finds its way in the smallest opening and block propellor, flaperons,
commands. So we try to cover at least the wings. The temperature rise to pleasant minus 10 degrees. So far at least 10 cm of fresh snow.

Matevž

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Trenutno je res slabo vreme tukaj v Eureki. Nobene vidljivosti, sneži ves dan in veter dobiva na moči. To je najslabša možna situacija, saj sneg najde pot v najmanjše odprtine in blokira propeler, komande... Zato smo poskušali pokriti vsaj krila. Temperatura se je dvignila na prijetnih minus 10 stopnij. Do sedaj je vsaj 10 cm svežega snega.

Matevž

It is already my third day in Eureka. The weather is changing very rapidly, but is still not acceptable for flying with such a small plane. In the morning I talked to meteorologist in North Bay and he says there is a center of cyclone stopped near Eureka and became “stationary”, which means, it will not move anywhere. It is the same all the way to Resolute, the cloud base is somewhere about 800 feet, the visibility is bellow 1 km, snow is blowing, white out.  

It seems to be the same weather tomorrow; possible also on Saturday, but on Sunday it should be getting better. The temperature in Resolute is at the moment -23°C with about 20 knots of wind and turbulence.  It is quite unpleasantness all this. I was also warned that at such a low temperature and humidity over 90% piston engines do not work well and there I a huge danger of freezing the carborator also during flight.  It seems this is also the reason for irregular activity of engine while landing to Eureka.

The engine hasn’t been started yet, as there is snowing outside and is no visibility at all. The crew at the weather station is super friendly and willing to help. Outside there is plenty of footprints of muskoxen, polar hare and foxes and also polar wolfs. Unfortunately, till now I have seen only 1 wolf, and this one also from a very large distance.  Polar bears are  relatively occasional guests up here. It is already May but it doesn’t seem like snow and ice are going to melt on the sea.

Matevž

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Tretji dan v Eureki. Vreme se spreminja zelo hitro, kljub vsemu pa je
neprimerno za letenje s tako majhnim letalom. Danes zjutraj sem govoril z meteorologom v North Bay in pravi, da se je v bližini Eureke ustavil center ciklona in postal "stationary", se pravi, da
se ne bo premaknil nikamor. Vse do Resoluta je enako, baza oblakov je nekje na 800 čevljev, vidljivost pod 1 km, sneg piha na polno, vse je belo.  Menda bo tudi jutri podobno vreme, mogoče tudi v soboto, v nedeljo pa naj bi se začelo počasi boljšati. Temperatuta v Resolutu je trenutno -23 st z približno 20 vozli vetra in turbulencami. Precej neugodno vse skupaj. Poleg tega so me opozorili, da batni motorji pri tako nizkih temperaturah in relativni vlagi nad 90% ne delujejo dobro in je velika nevarnost zamrznitve vpljinjačev tudi med letom. Zgleda, da je bil to tudi razlog za neenakomerno delovanje motorja med spustom v Eureko. Motorja še nismo zagnali, ker trenutno zunaj sneži in se ne vidi nikamor. Posadka, ki je trenutno na tej vremenski postaji, je super prijazna in pripravljena pomagati. Zunaj je polno sledi od muškatnega goveda, polarnih zajcev in lisic ter polarnih volkov. Žal pa sem videl do sedaj le enega volka, pa še tega zelo od daleč. Severni medvedi pa so tu zgoraj bolj občasni gostje. Čeprav je že maj, se prav nič ne kaže, dase bo letos sneg in led na morju stopil.

Matevž

Eureka! Weather on Svalbard was good in the morning, but forecast was snow in the afternoon. The low system north of Svalbard gradually disappeared so the way toward North Pole looked quite good. The problem was Canada. Low system was coming north to Resolute, but forecast was still acceptable. The decision was not easy. Over Svalbard was clear, but without GPS coverage I was a bit uncertain where I should go. After 20 minutes GPS came back and lined my way North.  Most of the time I flew FL100, except when I was avoiding cloud layers. Open water soon became ice with pools, rivers. To my surprise the air was worming towards the North. Over Svalbard it was about 19 below, but wormed up to -9 over the pole. Right on the top was clear and I was able to look down on disappearing ice. When I reached the pole I made another two Round the world flights and after headed south or according to GPS to the west towards Resolute bay. Strong tail wind of 35 kts gave me ground speed of 180 km/h. But further south it gradually disappeared. For almost two hours I flew in the clouds and felt very lonely like being lost in the space. The temperature dropped again to minus 18 °C so I was not afraid of ice. Than weather improved again and remained clear all the way down to Elesmere island. Then I got a call from Domen that weather at Resolute deteriorates faster than expected. Icing, strong turbulence, and wind blowing snow, low clouds; there is no way to land there. Eureka was my alternate although this is not an airport of entry. But safety first everything else can be solved one way or another. It is still winter up here, frozen sea, snowy mountains. I overflew runway low level to checked conditions and after landed on snowy gravel airstrip. Eureka is actually a weather station with 8 people and some military which are coming here only during the summer. Two guys brought fuel drums to fix the little one safely to the snowy ground and took me "downtown" to the weather station where I was warmly greeted. Thanks a lot also to my friend Samo from Yellowknife, Polar Pilot Bert Rose from Iqaluit and many others. It looks the weather at Resolute is really bad, as two Ken Borak pilots also diverted to Eureka with Twin Otter. Bad weather is moving north to Eureka so might stay here for a day or two. My only concern is my little one lonely outside on freezing cold wind and many wolfs hanging around. The batteries will die for sure. Greetings from 80 deg. north.

Matevž

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Eureka! Vreme na Svalbardu je bilo zjutraj še dobro, a je bila že za popoldan napoved sneženja.  Nizka fronta severno od Svalbarda je počasi izginjala, tako da je polet proti severnemu polu zgledal kar dobro. Problem je bila Kanada. Nizka fronta se je pomikala severno do Resoluta, a napoved je bila še sprejemljiva. Odločitev ni bila lahka. Čez Svalbard je bilo jasno, a brez pokritja GPS, tako da sem bil precej negotov, kam naj grem. Po 20 minutah se je signal vrnil, tako da sem poravnal proti Severu. Večji del poti sem letel na FL100, razen kadar se je bilo potrebno izogniti oblakom.

Odprto morje je kmalo postalo led z “bazenčki”, rekami. Presenečeno sem ugotovil, da je zrak toplejši proti severu. Nad Svalbardom je bilo -19°C, a se je segrelo do -9°C nad polom. Povsem nad vrhom je bilo jasno in lahko sem gledal dol, kako izginja led.  Ko sem dosegel pol, sem naredil še dva kroga, nato pa se nameril proti jugu oz. po koordinatah GPS zahodno proti Resolute bayu. Močan veter v rep z močjo 35 vozlov mi je dajal hitrosti 180 km/h. A je južneje počasi pojenjal. Skoraj 2 uri sem letel v oblakih in se počutil osamljeno kot da sem izgubljen v vesolju. Temperatura se je spustila do -18°C, torej ni bilo več strahu za led. Vreme se je ponovno izboljšalo in ostalo jasno vso pot do Elesmere Island. Kmalu potem me pokliče Domen, da se je vreme v Resolutu poslabšalo hitreje kot je bilo za pričakovat. Zmrzovanje, močne turbulence, močan snežni vihar, nizka oblačnost… ni variante, da bi pristal tam. Eureka je bila moja alternacija, čeprav to ni vstopno letališče. A najprej varnost, vse ostalo se lahko reši tako ali drugače.

Še vedno je tukaj zima, zmrznjeno morje, zasnežene gore. Najprej sem preletel pisto dokaj nizko, da sem preveril pogoje, šele nato pristal na zasneženi makedamski letalski pisti. Eureka je v resnici vremenska postaja z 8 ljudmi in nekaj vojske prihaja sem le med poletjem. 2 fanta sta prinesla sode za gorivo, da smo pritrdili “ta mal’ga” varno na snežna tla, nato pa sta me odpeljala v “center mesta” do vremenske postaje, kjer sem bil toplo sprejet.

Velik hvala prijatelju Samu iz Yellowknifa, pilotu Polar Bear Bert Rose-u iz Iqaluita in številnim drugim.

Izgleda, da je vreme v Resolutu res slabo, saj sta dva pilota Ken Borak zavila v Eureko s Twin Otterjem.  Slabo vreme se pomika severno do Eureke, tako da bom verjetno ostal tukaj kak dan ali dva. Edina moja skrb je “ta mal”sam zunaj na ledenem mrzlem vetru in številni voklovi, ki krožijo okoli. Baterije bodo zagotovo odpovedale. Pozdrav iz 80 stopinj severno.

Matevž

In the morning Matevž has decided and flew towards North and successfully overflown North Pole, but due to bad weather in Resolute Bay he landed in Eureka.  He is well, a bit isolated and far away from every civilization, literally at the "end of the world". The plane is not in hangar but tided down and safe. We would like to thank for all the support and help to Samo Cebul from Yellowknife, for fast contacts and urgent help in Eureka. 

To proceed further, Matevž will need to wait till weather improves. But we should be happy and proud today. Congratulations, Matevž.

GLWF team

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Zjutraj se je Matevž vendarle odločil in poletel proti severu ter uspešno preletel severni pol, nato pa je zaradi slabega vremena v Resolute Bayu pristal v Eureki. Z njim je vse dobro, sicer je precej sam in daleč proč od vsake civilizacije, tako rekoč skoraj dobesedno "na koncu sveta". Avion je tudi pritrjen, čeprav ni v hangarju. Za vso pomoč se ekipa GLWF zahvaljuje tudi Samo Čebulu iz Yellowknifa, ki je kontaktiral in posredoval pri hitri organizaciji v Eureki.

Za nadaljevanje poti bo potrebno počakat, dokler se ne izboljša vreme!
Ampak lahko smo veseli in ponosni! Bravo, Matevž!

Ekipa GLWF

Hi everybody,
after the last flight to Island Svalbard, which is located north of mainland Europe, about midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, Matevz decided to take-off today and overfly North Pole with expected landing at Resolute Canada. In case of bad weather at the airport Resolute, the alternate is Eureka airport.

Svalbard, North Pole, North Canada and Greenland is the meeting place for cold polar air from the north and mild, wet sea air from the south, creating low pressure and changing weather and fast winds, particularly in the winter.

The flight is about 15 hours long and Matevz will fly about 3100 km (1625 NM).

GLWF team

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Pozdravljeni, 

po zadnjem poletu na Svalbard, ki se nahaja severno od celinske Evrope, na pol poti me Norveško in severnim polom, se je Matevž odločil za polet in prelet severnega pola s predvidenim postankom v kanadskem Resolute-u. V primeru slabega vremena na letališču Resolute, bo alternacija letališče Eureka.

Svalbard, severni pol, severna Kanada in Grenlandija predstavljajo stičišče hladnega polarnega zraka s severa, ter milejšega, mokrega morskega zraka iz juga, kar ustvarja nizek pritisk in spreminjanje vremena, pa tudi hitre vetrove, še posebej pozimi.

Polet je dolg 15 ur, Matevž pa bo preletel okoli 3100 kms (1625 milj).

ekipa GLWF