Garratt and Foy exhaustively researched their options
and made informed decisions. They sought advice from
other EarthRounders, contacted friends who lived in
other countries, crunched performance numbers, consulted weather data (thanks to Universal Weather in
Houston, Texas), charted their route, applied for overflight and landing permits—and made a point to keep
the flight plan within their own personal boundaries of
calculated and acceptable risk.
Fuel capacity was paramount for flying endurance
legs, so two 60-gallon tanks, custom fit for a Mooney,
were installed behind the front seats.
N220FC was approved for a 15 percent overgross by the FAA, and all
told, they had a fuel capacity of 195
gallons. “We figured we would burn
7. 9 gph for the first half of each leg,
and then 7. 3 gph for the second half,”
explains Garratt, “and that gave us
26 hours’ endurance, or 3,500 nm
distance, with no wind. That was a bit iffy with a 3,300-
mile leg, but I looked at the weather charts and every leg
had tail winds, except for our first leg across the southern United States. So it looked like it was doable and we
would be comfortable.
“The weather in December is benign, and that’s when
we chose to go around,” says Garratt, “and I checked
Google Earth for every single runway at the airports we
were going to use, to look at the terrain, elevation, how it
rose at the end of the runway, and where the population
and congested areas were in relation to the airport.”
Every square inch of the Mooney’s available space was
used; gear was strategically stored in locations as appropriately accessible as possible during flight. Provisions
included charts, food and water, oxygen and oximeter,
“Once you’re touched by ALS,
you want to work to raise
donations to find a cure….”
— CarolAnn Garratt
tool kit, Winslow life raft, Iridium satellite phone (with
e-mail capability), HF radio, antenna and permits, and
a Garmin 496. Each of the pilots had room for a toothbrush in her top pocket.
Oxygen was essential, but how did they carry enough
to last for eight days? By limiting its use—the non-flying
pilot at night received no oxygen. They stayed hydrated by
sipping water from spill-proof CamelBak pouches, which
were stored atop the cabin fuel tanks. For sustenance,
they each had two food bars and two pieces of fruit for
each leg. “We ate PowerBar Crunch bars, which are high
protein and low carbohydrate. I ate
them throughout the trip,” declares
Garratt with a winsome smile. “I don’t
eat them any more. They were perfect
for the trip, because you don’t want to
take too much in because you don’t
want too much coming out.”
To ensure that her Mooney and
its 200-hp Lycoming engine was in
optimal condition for the intensive flight, Garratt and her
A&P mechanic with an inspection authorization, Arthur
Miller, performed an annual inspection in June 2008. “I
had 750 hours on the engine, and that’s a pretty reliable
time in the engine’s life. So we pulled the accessories,
including the alternator, vacuum pump, fuel boost pump,
and magnetos. I either had them overhauled or replaced,
so that all the equipment on the engine and the instruments would have at least 100 hours on them before the
trip. That gave us reliability by reducing early failures, so
we reduced the risk to a minimum.” Garratt and Foy also
flew several long flights together prior to December, just
to make sure that all the final details were okay. Their
thoroughness yielded hefty dividends; they had no equipment failures during the trip.
