Midway Island

Good News!

The K4M team report that repairs on their aircraft have been successful. The plane is preparing for departure now and should be airborne before 10:00 PM EDST (0200z).

The good news follows a previous and less optimistic press release from Tom, N4XP, which said:

"The entire team is in Honolulu. On Thursday when the first members were to depart to Midway we were informed of a problem with the plane involving an oil leak. We were assured it was fixable.

"Friday several test flights were made that determined that the repairs were unsuccessful. We are frantically
searching for alternative means. We discovered yesterday that there are no available planes on the island that are either certified to fly to Midway or large enough for us. We are negotiating with a company in California for a jet as well.

"The plane we originally chartered is about to take off on a test flight to determine if the repairs made overnight were successful. The team is not giving up and exploring ALL options to make this happen.

"Fish and Wildlife is being very supportive of our efforts but in no way will they extend the end date of our operation
beyond the 19th due to the return of migratory species that have already begun to return early.

"We will update our website in 5 or 6 hours when the plane returns and is checked out. We are as frustrated as you."

On Sunday, a statement on the KH4 Web page stated,
"(0400z) We have just learned our aircraft is in the air testing repairs made in the past 24 hours. We are anxiously waiting the results."

For more details, updates, online log, frequencies and bios, go to: http://www.midway2009.com

QSL via online QSL Service, direct (Midway 2009, Box 333, Bethlehem, GA 30620-9989 USA) or LoTW.
See the above Web page for complete details

OPDX, KH4