The Email
Stepping back in the story a few days.
We flew from Austin, Texas/KAUS to Santiago, Chile/SCEL on November 25-26. It was a long two days of flying, but all worked out fine arriving in Santiago late on November 26.
One of the two most complex logistical challenges of this trip was to get fuel and permission to make a fuel stop on our way from Easter Island/SCIP to Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia/NTAA. The non-stop distance from Easter Island to Papeete is almost 2,300 NM and there is typically a small headwind, so that is much farther than our unmodified plane can fly without a fuel stop.
Josh worked for many weeks with our Air Tahiti handler and the French Polynesian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to work out a fuel stop at Totegegie Island/NTGJ which farthest south airport in French Polynesia and the most equidistant between Easter Island to Papeete at 1,405 NM or about 61% of the non-stop distance. Totegegie Island also has an AFIS (Aerodrome Flight Information Service) service and instrument approaches which is rare for the outlying French Polynesian Islands.
But there were multiple logistical challenges to making the stop at Totegegie Island.
First, the French Polynesian customs and immigration service made it clear we could not stay on the island (actually, the nearby village of Rikitea) overnight as there are no customs or immigration officers on the island. However, they would allow a quick fuel stop with proper documentation provided in advance. We would have preferred to spend the night to break-up a long day of flying, but the duty and flight time for the entire trip from Easter Island to Papeete was within our limits and the weather is usually excellent along this route in December. So, we accepted the offer of a quick fuel stop at Totegegie and then continuing on to Papeete. So that problem was addressed.
The second challenge was the AFIS staff at Totegegie only speak French. At any airport classified as "international" the air traffic control staff must speak English, but Totegegie is not an international airport and thus English is not required. While AFIS is not a formal air traffic control operation, communication is required. Thus, the French Polynesian CAA requires a French speaker onboard any aircraft operating at Totegegie. None of us are fluent in French. Josh knows a little French and did some brushing-up on "aviation French," but the French Polynesian CAA required that he call them and demonstrate his Frencg language skills. Evidently just aviation French was not enough - they said they wanted a fluent Frencg speaker on-board. Ugh. We started a frantic search for a French speaker that could join us for the flight and had some pretty good options. Fortunately, the CAA folks finally relented and said they would develop some special procedures for us to use at Totegegie and would waive the French speaking required. Problem number two solved.
The final problem was fuel. Totegegie does not normally offer fuel service to transient aircraft. Air Tahiti operates a once-a-week flight there in an ATR-42 and keeps their on private fuel supply for that flight, but one must make special arrangements with them to gain access to that fuel. Fortunately, Air Tahiti agreed several weeks before we launched from Austin to sell us some of their fuel at Totegegie. Whew, another problem solved. Without fuel between Easter Island to Papeete/Tahiti the whole trip would not work. So, we confidently departed Austin on November 25 believing all the logistical hurdles had been cleared.
Then I checked my email in the van between the Aerocardal FBO and airport hotel after landing in Santiago late on November 26 and read this from our handler at Air Tahiti...
Our hearts sank. Without a fuel stop between Easter Island and Papeete the whole trip was a no-go. Waiting two weeks for fuel at Totegegie would have required a massive rearrangement of our schedule.
Tureia/NTGY
But, the handler offered the option of stopping at Tureia/NTGY for fuel. Would that work?
We had not even considered Tureia because it had no services at all (no AFIS), no instrument approaches, and was farther from Easter Island than Totegegie and thus less equidistant (1,642 NM to Tureia versus 1,405 NM for Totegegie. Could we even reach Tureia from Easter Island non-stop?
We quickly started "doing the numbers." It turns out that with light winds and operating at long range cruise power rather than maximum cruise power, we could reach Tureia with about two hours fuel reserve. We had three hours reserve planned for Easter Island, but Tureia has the advantage of a couple emergency diversion airports short of Tureia including our originally intended destination of Totegegie and Marutea Atoll/NTGS. If we had to divert to one of those airports we would be stuck there for a while waiting for a special delivery of barrels of fuel, but it would be safe.
However, reducing to long range range cruise power for the flight to Tureia would add about 45 minutes of flight time to an already long flight day. So we crunched the numbers closely and determined that we could - just barely - conduct the Easter Island-Tureia-Papeete/Tahiti within our flight and duty time limits for a crew of two pilots in all daylight operations and good weather (12 flight hours and 14 "duty" time hours).
After triple checking everything, Josh and I decided we could do the flight with adequate safety margins assuming we conducted the flight on a day with appropriate winds forecast (to assure adequate fuel reserve at Tureia) and good weather at Tureia and Papeete/Tahiti.
December 3 was our scheduled flight day from Easter Island to Papeete/Tahiti, so we started watching the wind and weather forecasts closely for that day while relaxing in Easter Island. If the forecasts looked good a day or two before or after December 3, we would change our schedule. However, long term forecasts (which can be unreliable) were looking good for December 3 during our stay on Easter Island. So, assuming no significant change in the forecasts, we planned to launch on the long Easter Island-Tureia-Papeete/Tahiti flight on Monday, December 3.
I'll pick-up with the story of the actual flight day in the next post.
