In 2006, I flew a 980 from Japan to the US for maintenance. I thought some of you guys might be interested in this... It's the same airplane that was recently for sale for a low price.
A friend of mine, retired United 747 Captain, called me up and asked if I wanted to do the trip. He had been contracted to do it, but had some conflict come up, and more or less had everything set up. I can't remember how much notice I had, but I'm thinking a week or two, at most.
So, I showed up in Tokyo, met by a representative of the airplane owner (I think). There was some hassle around the appropriate paperwork for the airplane, but we eventually sorted that out. The airplane was based at a small airport in Tokyo, Chofu. Interesting side note-- the airport had a 10,000 pound weight limit, and this 980 had an STC limiting max takeoff weight to 9,999 pounds... not a big deal, but amusing.
Anyway, the Japanese guy who was supposed to fly with me showed up. He had been around the pattern in the airplane once, and that was the extent of his Commander experience. He had spent quite a bit of time studying the AFM, though. I think he was selected for the trip because he spoke the best english of anyone there, which wasn't really saying much.
The airplane has a camera door, but no interior otherwise. Pretty ancient avionics as well, but I had a handheld GPS with an Asia/Pacific database, so we had that going for us. Otherwise, the airplane seemed fine-- I don't recall any significant squawks or issues, remarkably enough.
For reasons which are still unclear to me, we had to fly the airplane to Sendai, in Northern Japan, for some sort of paperwork, and we spent the night there. Then we went to Sapporo to get fuel before departing for Russia. Everyone said you can't do a tech stop in Sapporo, but I guess in a Japanese-registered airplane, it wasn't an issue. No one said anything to me, anyway.
From Sapporo, we went to Petropavlovsk, Russia. The Japanese guy assured me that he knew all about the metric altimetry and QFE that the Russians use. As soon as we got into Russian airspace, it was obvious that he had no idea what was going on. None. The good news is that Petro is more or less at sea level (solving any potential QFE issues), and we did have a meters/feet conversion chart... and we were only assigned a few altitudes on the descent anyway. Aside from a few moments of panic (what altitude should we be at?), it was no problem... and the weather was clear anyway, not that it mattered to the Russians, who had us do a full procedure ILS.
Petro was interesting. The people at the airport were great-- a beautiful lady from Russian customs met us, stamped our paperwork, spoke flawless english, and couldn't be nicer. Another beautiful lady from the FBO helped us with our arrangements-- again, flawless english, very sophisticated.
We spent the night in Petro, and that was where it got more interesting. We stayed at the Hotel Petropavlovsk, which was about a 30 minute drive from the airport through trash strewn streets and dilapidated apartment buildings. No sign of any sort of nice neighborhoods in sight. There was a "nightclub" next to the hotel which I would suggest remaining clear of-- I certainly did.
We had a great dinner, and then the waitress (who claimed to speak no english) tried to convince us that we had to pay in Rubles. Of course, we had no rubles. Can't we just charge it to the room? Nyet. Pay in dollars? Nyet. Use credit card? Nyet. Rubles. Rubles only. Use ATM in lobby... right, like I'm putting my ATM card in a standalone Russian ATM in a run down hotel lobby... not happening. Finally, they decided to take dollars.
The next morning, we headed out for the airport... to be continued.
