Trip to Svalbard

[dmt]

Just back from a trip in our 980 to ENSB Svalbard, at 78 degrees north, which is to the east of Greenland about 500 miles from the North Pole. These are amazing traveling machines: with power pulled back to 240 kts TAS fuel flow was low enough (~370 pph) on our direct leg from Reykjavik to Svalbard (1100nm) that we had adequate reserves to land in Tromso Norway if there was a problem at the Svalbard airport. Longest leg was 1340 nm from Goose Bay (CYYR) to Reykjavik (BIRK), overflying Greenland (we had a tailwind). Lot of HF radio use for position reports. Best visual was on the return, flying over the Greenland ice cap to land in Narsarsuaq (this website would not allow a short video attachment....). 

[donv]

That is awesome! I went to Svalbard 20 years ago in a Falcon 50, still remember it well.

Did you stay long?

[dmt]

We were on a boat for 4 days with some polar bear scientists, and had one more day in Longyearbevin. Lot of tourists, and a huge number of satellite domes on the plateau (see pic) allegedly all for civil use for polar orbit birds.....

Amazing place! Down to 1 coal mine. what did you do there?

[donv]

We dropped the owner of the airplane off so she could take a boat trip around Svalbard, and we picked her up a few weeks later. I believe we spent one night each time in Longyearban (how do you spell it?), but really didn't have time to do more than walk around and get some rest.

[Adam Frisch]

Awesome trip! Awesome airplanes. If you have any more photos you can share of her on tarmac etc, that would be lovely.

LongyearByen. Byen means village in Norwegian and I think the english part, the Longyear is named after an old American investor/founder.

A fun fact that few people know is that the Svalbard-treaty allows anyone to settle there as long as they are of good character and can support themselves. There are actually quite a few middle eastern refugees who got their asylum applications rejected in other European countries who have settled on Svalbard. There was a great little documentary on it a few years back.

Another fun fact is that you can open carry weapons there without a license - which is very unusual in Europe. It's basically the new frontier.