Story of theTHC 020
Let's recap (transcripts from the official dESPair com channel):
"Somewhere by the end of September I found myself stuck in Aalborg with a PC-12 that was grounded by the Danish authorities for not being v53x compliant. I had to find another set of wings for geting to Norway.
I run into this shady character, Mr. Ibrahim he called himself (lebanese, I believe), who was willing to rent me a plane for the trip. As it turned out later I was able to get this Britten-Norman BN-2B-26 Islander, which looked more like a 'rent-a-wreck', and that for a not so small amount of
cash."
"Anyway, as you may recall, the plane was flyable and it took via Kristiansand - ENCN to Sandefjord - ENTO. By that time I already had missed quite some flying fun in Norway, but I will do that on a later ocasion. Well, at least I was in time for the flight to Sweden; ENTO to ESGG - Goteborg via Trollhattan (ESGT). The Islander was still doing fine, rugged as she is, though I had to do some maintenance on the way."
"I tried to contact Mr. Ibrahim from Sweden but I couldn't get hold of him. It looked he had just disapeared. As the next flight was to be from Goteborg back to Denmark (to Tirstrup EKAH), I decided to make a stop over at Aalborg. See if I can turn in the Islander and get my deposit back, and eventually some sort of payment for the maintenance I did.
I flew from ESGG via Laeso - EKLS to EKYT. Upon arriving in Aalborg they informed that Mr. Ibrahim had been taken away by Customs and Police officials. He definately must have been into some fishy business.
OK, no deposit, no refund for my work, just the old Islander. I managed to get the authorities to believe that I purchased the aircraft; as I said earlier, the price rate for this rental was quite hefty...
Well, guess I'm now the lucky owner of an old battered BN-2 Islander.
Just took a few days off to refurbishing the Islander, even got a new coat of paint, and make it ready for the trip to Tirstrup, Anholt and Kastrup.
Still not able to eliminate the 'elevator flutter', in fact the only 'problem' with this birdie, so I'll just keep flying it like this."
"Had the chance to earn some money on my way to Kastrup, took some passengers to diferent locations.
The first batch of passengers, on the flight from EKYT to EKAH, will most probably never want to fly again with me :-( I took 9 passengers and baggage on this flight, that's MTOW for the Islander. No problem there, but while on the approach to Tirstrup I got some windshear (I guess) and almost buried the plane in front of the runway -barel managed to pick-up and land 'normally'-.
I was looking quite pale at that moment; go and imagine how the passangers were looking..."
"Next we're flying from Kastrup to Helgoland, I understand.
Think I'll do that in two legs; first to EKYT and then onwards to Helgoland."
Finally, prior to departure for Helgoland and the Archipelago Esperides, the Basic Bee received an extensive overhaul at Aalborg - EKYT:
- Bringing her up to BN2B-20 standards by trading the 260 hp Lycoming O-540 engines (BN2B-26) for 300 hp IO-540 engines (Lycoming, factory rebuilt)
- Addition of long range (wingtip) tanks, Britten-Norman option.
- Sprayed over in dESPair livery
- Special modifications by AeroPedro, structure strenghtening, making it posible to fit a set of amphibious floats, when/if needed.
Captain Brick
