Pilots

Everyone at Soire Field in Nashua, New Hampshire, knows Ed Carlson. He greets you like a long-lost friend the first time you meet. Carlson maintains that the secret of success in aviation lies in building personal relationships. Clearly he's invested a lot of time and energy in relationships across the United States and on the other side of the Atlantic in 30 years as a ferry pilot. Currently, he's distributing his wealth of experience to novices who want to brave the ocean crossing.

Born in Stowe, Vermont, in the middle of World War II, Carlson knew that he wanted to fly by the time he was 3 years old. Like many of his contemporaries, he got started as a student pilot by hanging out at the local airport and working for his flying. After early training and student cross-countries in the Green Mountains of Vermont, he qualified for his private pilot certificate at age 17 and progressed to commercial pilot with an instructor rating by the time he went to college in California.

When you ask how he became interested in international flying, he responds: "Drugs!" Beaming with delight as you struggle to come up with the next question, he insists "It's true" and goes on to explain how, in 1964, he became a volunteer pilot for the Flying Doctors of America. Every six weeks or so, he ferried physicians with their equipment and supplies from Sacramento to Mexicali, where they offered much-needed medical service to the rural poor. Sometimes the return flights carried patients needing burn treatment in the United States. Carlson, who speaks Spanish, was also able to act as an interpreter.

One day at the flying club he encountered a pilot preparing to ferry a Cessna 310 to Europe. Always ready for an adventure, Carlson asked if he could go along. "Sure," was the response. "Meet me back here in two hours." With no passport on hand, not even Ed Carlson could take up that offer, but he was ready the next time. A few weeks later he was in the right seat on his first ocean crossing to Switzerland. After three more transatlantic flights in 1964 and 1965, his companion tossed him the keys of a Cessna 401 and declared, "You're ready for solo." Carlson now has more than 200 crossings in his logbook. Round trips and return ferry flights are rare, so he's flown westbound only 18 times.

Carlson is as intimately familiar with the short legs on the northern route through Frobisher Bay and across the Greenland icecap as he is with the more popular hops from Goose Bay to Narsarsuaq in Greenland and on to Reykjavik, Iceland. He has gained a healthy respect for the weather, knowing that it is the secret to staying safe over the Atlantic. Anticipating weather changes and being prepared to turn around when instrument conditions threaten the approaches up the fjords to the airports on the Greenland coast are the keys to safe crossings. "I've turned around seven times. I'm all yellow back here," says Carlson as he rubs the back of his neck and grins.

One such turnaround had nothing to do with weather. He was two hours out from Goose Bay and settling down to a routine flight in a new Bonanza, when an "angel" started to nag him. "I just got this feeling I should turn back," he says. Even though there was apparently nothing wrong, he respected the feeling and returned to Goose Bay. Oil began to splatter gently onto the windshield on downwind. By the time he landed, the rain from a broken seal was serious.

Incidents like this have convinced Carlson, who likes to chat with pilots anyway, that it's a good idea to stay in touch with someone when you're out over the stormy ocean alone, with only the drone of a single engine for company. International regulations require periodic position reports from pilots on instrument flight plans during the long overwater legs. Commercial airliners will relay these, and the crews enjoy exchanges with the slower fliers far below. Carlson likes to talk to someone about every 30 minutes, for company and security. As he warms to the topic of position reports and timing, he proudly displays his "Official North Atlantic Watch." It's not the elaborate chronograph you expect — there's Mickey Mouse on the face.

The smallest aircraft that he's ferried to Europe was a Cessna 172. He had to wait in both Greenland and Iceland for the en route weather to improve and was several days late to meet his date. Carlson acknowledges that he prefers the security of twins now that he's getting older. The worst experience he can remember was a violent encounter with clear air turbulence over central London.

Five years ago Carlson moved back to New England from California. He's reunited with an old high school sweetheart — the date who waited patiently for the Cessna 172 to arrive in London. He's using relationships built over the years on both sides of the Atlantic to develop a business in New Hampshire dealing in airplanes, parts, and equipment. And he's finding new friends in the students who take his Atlantic orientation course.

In one day Carlson teaches weather, flight planning, survival procedures, emergency equipment, and fuel requirements. His training will shortly be approved as a substitute for the mandatory precrossing inspection by the Canadians in Moncton, New Brunswick.

For Carlson's students, the Atlantic crossing is the ultimate adventure, the flight they've always dreamed of making. All are required to send him a postcard from Europe.