May 2012 - Amelia Earhart

Okay, I'm a bit surprised that we haven't taken this on before (Although Monk and Salina have had us fly around the South Pacific). While I certainly can appreciate Tony's sentiment of flying "appropriate" twins and the navigational challenge even intrigues me a bit, I have made a committment this year to fly only EMBs. In passing I have wondered about what I would do if I were asked to cross the vast Pacific (no ETOPs rating and all) and I guess now I will find out!
First, I would like to point out that I am already in Santa Barbara, CA and so starting in Lae and then flying BACK to Oakland .... I'm not doing that.
Second, the range listed for the E190LR is 2,250 miles. I've played around with this thing enough that I know (weather permitting) I can load in two crew and their food (400 pounds) and full fuel tanks and manage to eek out 2,400 miles with no gas for a go-around.
Third, I don't know about you lot but 5+ hours crammed into 2x2 seating with 90 of your closest strangers does not sound like a good time to me.  Just because a plane CAN fly a certain distance doesn't mean that it SHOULD fly that distance. Therefore, I've been planning all my flights for under 2,000 miles.
With the RNP flight planner opened I plotted a track from Santa Barbara to Honolulu = 2,150. I could conceivably make that.
Honolulu to Kwajalain = 2,150. I could make that too.
Kwajalain to Lae = 1,575. Yep.
It was all set then. The Air Astana FA and I would ..... I mean, I would, solo as in alone, fly the E190LR across the Pacific to PNG!

I loaded up the "Air Santa Barbara" EMB-190 with 250 pounds payload and 99% fuel. I departed at 05:30 local time and headed across "nothin' but water." Once near Oahu I was cleared to land on the Reef Runway. I requested, and was granted runway 26R where I landed smoothly and taxied to parking. I shut down at 08:10 with 2,750 pounds of gas left.
I waited 2+ hours before switching into a retro Pan American livery. I loaded the same 250 pounds with 100% fuel (longer taxi) and headed back to 26R for departure.
I arrived to runway 09 at 13:20 local time. I spent nearly 24 hours touring the historic island before switching into an "Asia Pacific" livery for the final leg into northern PNG.
The weather was nice and clear though a bit on the cool side. I arrived into Lae at 15:30 local time. During my descent into northern PNG I noted several nice-looking spots along the way, some places in Indonesia and the Bismarck Islands that seemed worth checking out (pict6)so near the end of the month I flew on to the following locations:
Tokua
Momote
Wewak
Biak
Manado
Davao