Swede Johan Wiklund has finished the first legs of the journey from North Cape here in Norway to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, in his beautiful Moth. He first flew from the North Cape to his home airfield at Barkaby outside Stockholm. On September 1 he set out on the remainder of the journey. Follow him on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/FlyingCapetoCape , or on his home page, http://capetocape.net

He has just landed in Cremona, Italy, having flown from Klagenfurt in Austria. He will make his way down Italy, over to Malta, Egypt, Sudan and down the eastern side of the African continent. He's not using a GPS, as he wants the experience to be as close to the original 1929 expedition that is his inspiration as possible.

What an epic journey! So good to see people still doing things like this!

Good for him!

Great adventure. I hope that he doesn't run into any "human" problems going down the east side of Africa. All the other risks of flying plus craziness.

I know I can look it up, but semmern, what is the range of the Moth ? Can he jump the worst areas in a single leg ? That 930 NM between Khartoum and Entebbe looks pretty lonely. I couldn't find his proposed route.

Yeah, let's hope he avoids that sort of problems!

His route can be seen here: http://capetocape.net/route/

As for the range, the standard tank holds 86 litres, or about 23 USG. He has installed a ferry tank in the front cockpit. Don't know its capacity, but let's say it doubles his fuel capacity. Normal endurance for a Moth is about 2:45 plus a bit, maybe 3 hours to dry tanks, so I guess he will be able to do four-hour legs comfortably. Well, I say comfortably, he's in a Moth, not exactly known for its creature comforts Still-air cruise speed would be 75 to 80 kts.

Last year when I flew one of the Moths to an airshow in Trondheim, I had my closest shave so far. It was a really bumpy day, and on my first leg, the spring-loaded primer button on the carburettor of my plane fell off, allowing fuel, which is gravity-fed on the Moth, to flow past the carburettor and out through the overrun, in addition to what was being used by the engine. I took off with a full tank, and landed with only 7 litres left, after a flight of only 1h 15 min! We safety-wired the mechanism in place to stop the flow through the overrun, and primed the engine by squirting fuel from a small bottle directly into the carb. Fixed the problem until we got back home.

Thanks for the route. I see he is going to go more to the east from Khartoum. Bahia Dar, Jimma, Loiyangalani, ... That way he hits more established areas with airfields. Trade off is more mountains. If I were doing the flight, the leg of Crete to Mersa Matruh would be the one most worrying from a fuel and navigation standpoint. Fortunately lots of shipping; but long flights over water in the Moth would keep your interest level high.

I had a fuel issue doing a medium distance flight. When I fueled at my departure field for the flight home the rampie didn't get my right wing fuel cap secured on properly. Ihave the special Monarch caps rather than the standard Cessna caps. During run up, it came loose and fell off. As I flew, my tanks were running down very different than normal. The Cardinal has a Left, Right, and Both position for fuel feed. I usually have it in the Both and there is a bias to the right. So I use about 60% right and 40% left. This time it was almost solely Left. That was wrong and held my interest. Ran my left very low and I was ready to land at another field, but made home. After landing, during taxi and parking, I could see that there was some cross-leveling from the right to the left. I switched to Right only and everything was fine. Then Left, OK. After shutdown, I found that the right was missing it's cap. Seems that without the cap, the low pressure on the top of the right wing created enough vacuum on the open tank to prevent normal fuel flow. Called up to the departure FBO and told them. They drove the taxiway and found the cap at the run up point. Sent it to me. So now I will physically check the caps after every fueling. My home field rampies know this and why.

The things that almost kill us teach strong lessons.

Year, OG, that's a classic. I ALWAYS check the fuel caps myself, because sooner or later someone will screw it up for you.

You're lucky fuel wasn't sucked out of the tank by the low pressure above the wing. A friend of mine had that happen in his O-1 Bird Dog. No low fuel issues, but it's still money out the window.

Does your Cardinal have a fuel vent in one tank only, like the 172? The Skyhawk has a single vent behind the left strut that vents both tanks through a line in the roof. The air pressure in the left tank is somewhat higher as a result, which causes the fuel in the left tank to be used slightly faster than the right.

Both wings have vents. They are on the trailing edge in the slot between the aileron and the wingtip.