Date: Thursday, March 20, 2003, 3:55:15 AM Subject: Ken Walker: 1st Solo, Single-Engine, Trans-Pacific Crossing from the US to AU. Ken Walker's Story of the First, Solo, Single-Engine, Trans-Pacific Crossing from the US to AU. EAA 527, Santa Barbara Chapter Meeting Thursday, March 13, 2003 (These notes are by Alan K. Stebbens . If there are any errors or inaccuracies, don't blame Ken; they are the result of my sloppy handwriting or faulty recollection). Our March meeting speaker was Ken Walker, the first pilot to make a trans-Pacific single-engine airplane crossing from the west coast of North America to the east coast of Australia. Ken described how he came to make the trip in 1962. An order for a Piper Comanche was placed by the Royal Newcastle Flying Club, which, at the time, was the largest flying club in Australia, and had more airplanes in its fleet than the RAF. Ken ended up being responsible for the procurement of the airplane, and decided on a 1960 Comanche with only 200 hours. He didn't want a brand-new zero-time airplane, but sought one that had relatively low-time. The pilot that had been tasked to fly the plane to Australia ended up not being able to make the trip for personal reasons, so it came to Ken. He said that, at the time, he didn't fully appreciate the full danger of the making this kind of trip, especially back in the days before GPS-aided navigation. Ken had his survival gear on display to show us as he described it. Some of the items were: water cans, oxygen bottle, flares, an inflatable "back pack" life jacket, with a pouch containing a one-man life raft. He also carried a small hand-axe, kept under his seat, so that, in case of a crash, he had a tool that could be used to break open a window. For food on each leg, Ken only had three bananas, three Hershey bars, one thermos of coffee, and some bottles of water. He also brought a couple of empty plastic bottles for "relief". As a scouting project, one of the local school kids created a little survival kit for his trip in a metal band-aid box, painted white with "Survival Kit" painted in red lettering, and sealed with paraffin to keep its contents dry. Ken says that he has treasured that little kit, and has never opened it to this day. To carry fuel for this extended trip, extra fuel tanks were installed in the back and right seat. The back seat held 92 gallons, and the right seat tank carried 35 gallons. The Comanche also had the tip tanks which carried an extra 90 gallons. Ken said that the tip-tanks also provided STOL-like benefits on the plane's performance. So, with all the extra tanks filled up, the plane had 217 gallons, or 1302 lbs, or 762 lbs over the published gross weight limit. [in response to a later question, Ken and audience figured out that he was about 30% over gross.] But, given that the fuel was all over the COG (Center Of Gravity), Ken was not too concerned -- since he wouldn't be landing until the plane was well under max gross. Ken did say that if he ever did something like this again, he would put a dump valve on the extra fuel, something which had not done in preparation for this flight. If he had had a problem with full fuel, he would have had to fly circles a very long time before attempting a landing. He didn't know it at the time, but it turned out to be only the 3rd solo flight from the west coast of America to the east coast of Australia, and the very first solo, single-engine attempt. If he had been aware of that, Ken says that he might have reconsidered the trip. As part of his route planning, it was decided to depart from Oakland airport, since that was the airport closest to Honolulu from the west coast. So, after much preparation, Ken was ready to depart Oakland on his trans-Pacific flight, on April 20, 1962. The night before his departure, Ken didn't sleep very well -- getting only about 3 hours of sleep. During his preflight, Ken says that he *really*, really looked for something wrong, so he wouldn't have to fly the trip. He was starting to have some anxiety about the trip now that his departure was imminent. Unfortunately, the plane's preflight uncovered no problems, and so Ken soon found himself on the first leg to Honolulu, on his multi-leg flight to Maitland, AU. On most of the legs, Ken cruised at 6000 feet, at 163 kts, at 55% power, with a burn rate of 9.1 gals/hour. He said that he had learned leaning from Max Conrad: lean until RPM drops, pull carb heat, then lean some more. For communication over the Pacific, the Comanche had an HF radio, with both a static antenna, attached to the top of the amperage and one of the tip-tanks, and a motor-driven trailing antenna. During the first leg of the flight, to Honolulu, there were no problems, except once, when he was trying to stretch his legs and caught his cuffed pants leg on the throttle and pulled it out and upward, bending it in the process. Of course, the engine stopped -- since the throttle had been pulled out. But, before he could push the throttle back in -- he had to bend it back straight, which he did very carefully so he didn't break it. Meanwhile the plane is now descending in a glide. Ken got it bent back straight, and pushed back in and then was able to restart the engine. >From then on, Ken was very, very careful with his legs. He also realized how precarious his situation was: something as simple as a broken throttle could have sunk him in the middle of the Pacific. Ken made Honolulu without further incident, taking about 15.5 hours. His original plan was to spend three days recovering in Honolulu before continuing on. However, two separate events occurred to delay his departure. On his first attempted departure from Honolulu, Ken smelled a faint odor of gasoline as he was taxiing to departure. Looking at his back-seat tank, he saw that the fuel valve as not quite right, and he reached back to close it fully, to see if that were the cause of the leak. As he closed it, the value came fully out of the tank, followed by a large stream of fuel -- spraying fuel all over the interior of the plane. He immediately shut down the plane, popped the door and jumped out. Of course, the airport tower noticed this, and pretty soon, an airport car came driving up to find out what was wrong. The plane was towed back to a service hanger, the defective tank pulled, along with the seats and most of the interior, and all of it given a good cleaning to remove the gasoline odor. After reinstalling the newly freshened interior and reinstalling the tank with its fuel valve reinstalled, Ken decided to take a test flight before attempting another departure. He's not sure why he decided to do this, but he's glad he did. During the test flight, the motor that deployed the HF trailing antenna failed. Because it was Friday, it was another four days before that motor could be replaced. It *was* Honolulu, so he didn't suffer the waiting too much. The next leg of Ken's trip was from Honolulu to Canton Island. The weather briefer in Hawaii told him of the "Inter-tropical weather front", a kind of standing storm system that lies north and east of the islands around Canton Island. The storm system was way too high for him to go over, so his only option is to "scud run" down low, at about 500 feet. It rained very hard, and there was turbulence -- the combination of which caused his air vents to actually leak water. Flying low, in rain and turbulence, Ken was very busy and focused -- which was good because he might otherwise have been really scared. After passing through the rain and bumpy air, Ken saw a seagull just sitting in the middle of the ocean, with nothing else around. He wondered for a moment if that meant there was land around, but then recalled reading somewhere that seagulls will often take a rest in the water before continuing on in the long overseas flights. When he saw the seagull sitting in the middle of the ocean, all by himself, Ken recalled thinking to himself: "What are you doing out here all by yourself?" A few seconds later, Ken realized that if the seagull could talk, he might have said the same thing about him! For navigation, Ken used his ADF -- over the ocean, the radio signals go quite far -- for example, he was able to receive the Honolulu ADF almost all the way from Oakland. Navigating for 8 to 10 hours across the ocean was a very big concern of Ken's. He recalled a story about a some kind of troop carrier plane that, during World War II, had tried to fly to an overseas island near China only to miss their destination. With no fuel and having no other place to land, they had to put down in the water. No one was hurt in the water landing, but of the thirty or so people originally on board the plane, only about five survived the week or so in the water before they were rescued. Having that story in mind, Ken was very concerned about being able to find the small Canton Island. After about 10 hours, the water started changing color from a deep dark green to a lighter shade, and he knew the island was close. When he finally got sight of the island, Ken was so relieved and happy to see it that he just barreled in a max speed, turned a 90-degree bank to final and landed "hot". As he turned the very steep corner to final, the tower: "are you flying sideways?" To which, he answered. "yep!". Ken rested for a day, refueled, and then departed for the next waypoint on his trip: Fiji Island. During the previous two legs, and during this one to Fiji, Ken had been making position reports about every 30 minutes over the. On the flight to Honolulu, there were so many airliners listening in and then wanting to chat with him, wanting to know how it was going, etc., that Ken said the airspace felt so "crowded", it was like he was driving on the Hollywood Freeway. On the Fiji Island leg, however, his HF radio transmitter went out, so he was unable to make his regular position reports. Ken could still receive on the HF but couldn't transmit. About three days before Ken landed at Canton Island, a "Connie" had crashed at sea on the way there. So, Pacific ATC were very concerned about Ken's "absence" on his position reports. They even tried talking to airliners flying overhead his general area, to see if they might raise him. Ken heard a pilot of one of these planes, a C124, say that he thought he saw something shiny on the surface of the ocean, so he made the C124 do a slow, steep descending turn down to get a closer look and possibly find the Comanche. Getting down low, the pilot said that whatever he saw was now not there, so they weren't sure if it was Ken's Comanche or not. Ken could hear the ATC and the C124 pilot talking on the HF but they couldn't hear him. He had been trying his VHF radio but he was still too far away for anyone to hear him. Finally, Fiji Island picked up his VHF radio signal, and, after about 8 hours from Canton Island, Ken landed at Fiji with relief to all involved. After resting a day, Fiji Tower would not let Ken depart unless the Comanche's HF radio was fixed. It took a week to get the right parts and get it fixed. A week in Fiji Island was not exactly a terrible thing to have happen to him. Finally, Ken departed Fiji with a working HF radio, and flew across New Caledonia, and then across the International Dateline. As a lark, Ken flew a couple of circles back and forth across the International Dateline just so he could say that he spent two "days" flying. About six hours from Fiji, Ken thought he saw land and got excited. But, as he did a quick calculation, he realized that, unless his Comanche had somehow gotten rocket powered, there was no way it could have been doing 300 kts. So, he figured that it was an optical illusion and, little while later, became more visible as a low cloud layer. A little while later, the fixed antenna broken lose from the wing-tip mount, and the antenna cable, which was still attached by the other end to the top of the fuselage, was whipping in the wind and beating on the plane's skin, making lots of noise. He later found out that it didn't do any damage, but during the flight it was very worrisome to him. Finally, after about 10 hours from Fiji Island, Ken caught site of the Australian coast, and then flew right into Brisbane. The Australian Piper representatives were waiting for him as he came to a stop and shutdown his engine. As he opened his door, they frantically waved and shouted at him to stop -- that before he could get out, he had to be "debugged". "Debugging" consisted of being handed an aerosol can and being told to spray every part of the cockpit interior and himself and sitting still for another 10 minutes or so. After 10 hours in the plane, sitting for 10 more minutes, breathing this sickly insect repellent, was probably the hardest thing for him to do on the entire trip. In order to depart Brisbane, Ken had to first fill out this very long, detailed flight plan. The flight briefer "suggested" a couple of changes, which Ken did. After getting it all right, the briefer than went over it with him a final time. During the final briefing, the fellow looked around a bit, and then quietly said to Ken, "Now, listen here: just fly at this heading and you'll reach the coast, and then you can fly along the coast a bit and enjoy a really spectacular view of the beaches and cliffs." So, after making Ken do the flight plan a certain way, the briefer then ignores it completely and gives Ken a completely different set of suggestions so he do some sightseeing. Ken departed Brisbane, and before reaching Maitland -- his final destination -- a couple of the Flying Club Cessna 182's had flown out to meet and escort him in to the Maitland Aerodrome. As he approached the C182s, their speed differential was such that he had to shoot past them and do a slowing 360-degree turn to match their speed. Having slowed down to match their speed, Ken's Comanche was escorted to the airport. Ken was put up in a hotel owned by one of the Flying Club members. After freshening up, he was taken to a very fine dinner, and then was interviewed by local Maitland TV. It was at this point that Ken finally learned that what he had done was a first (and a third): a 1st solo single-engine crossing from the US to AU, and a 3rd solo of any kind engine from the US to AU. He was feted by several of the Flying Club members, treated to a dinner meeting with the RAF pilots, gave many talks, and invited to play golf on some private links (Ken said that he reaffirmed the common view back then that the Yanks don't play golf very well, notwithstanding Palmer or Nicklaus) Finally, it was time to head home. Ken was given a first class ticket on a Quantas flight to the US. As he boarded and was about to sit down, one of the flight attendants came back and asked for "Captain Walker". It took a moment to realize that it was he who was being called. So, he went forward to meet the pilots of the DC8. The Captain of the DC8 introduced himself as Captain Gray and his co-pilot, Ray Simms, and then asked Mr. Simms to go have a seat elsewhere, while he had a chat with Captain Walker, and would Captain Walker please have a sit in the co-pilot seat? Ken said that, back then, most of the Quantas pilots were also RAF pilots, and that this Captain Gray had been in the meeting with the RAF pilots. Ken and Captain Gray were having quite a discussion when the flight engineer came forward to tell the Captain that the flight attendants weren't clearing the cabin because the passenger count was off by one -- they were missing one passenger. Captain Gray let the flight engineer know that the "missing" passenger was, in fact, sitting as the co-pilot for this flight! So, Ken got to fly right seat in the DC8 for the entire flight back to Los Angeles. Several questions were asked of Ken, the answers to which I've included as part of the narrative above [for instance, all the flight times were in response to my questions]. One final question: "what happened to the Comanche"? Ken said that he didn't know, but that he last heard of it being in Perth. Ken Walker now lives in Santa Barbara, California.