Day 3-5 Spirit of Douglas Journey Sector 2

Behind the scenes with the people who keep the Spirit flying

‍

Stay flexible and love your aircraft

The planned air-to-air flight and location film shoot in Athens had to be called off at the last minute. So we have two unexpected full days on the ground in Athens. An opportunity for our mechanic Tyler Liedtke and team to provide a little bit more tender loving care to Spirit of Douglas. A chance for the film unit to consolidate the footage they’ve secured and for the flight crew to look around Athens.

It’s good to remain flexible as life throws challenges at us. If nothing else, this journey is reinforcing that we all need to stay adaptable.

Tyler is an Airframe and Powerplan certified Mechanic and he’s an integral member of the team. The work to keep Spirit of Douglas running is often done behind the scenes, but Tyler’s skills, passion and knowledge of this aircraft provides huge confidence to the crew.

There’s always some task to be done on an 84 year old aircraft. In Athens, Tyler made an adjustment to the automatic mixture control to reduce fuel burn in flight, changed the ignition vibrator on the left engine, conducted the obligatory oils and fuel top-up, lav service and engine inspection. Jenny, Nick C and Curt all volunteered to assist and the local ground crews made for an interested crowd of onlookers. One even worked on DC3s and radial engines back in the day for the Greek Air Force.

Today saw an early start. On a cold and blustery Athens winter morning, there was airport-accredited media at the aircraft for an interview. What followed was our departure and flight in windy conditions to Crete. Curt and Jenny flew us over the city of Athens with incredible views over Piraeus and the Myrtoan Sea. Flying over the island of Milos, the bumps continued until we landed safely in Chania, Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean. Emerging to views of hills covered with snow and a strong breeze, today’s flight was a little lively. That said, it’s good to be in Crete, the largest and most populous of the Greek islands.