N67°01,0 'W50°41,4' – north of the polar circle: today the northernmost point of our trip around the globe is our program of the day. For this route we fortunately again can rely on the proven weather briefing of the team DWD in Hamburg.
After an unforeseen delay in the morning has arisen, we taxi with 3 hours delay to holding point A of RW 17. The tower asks whether we really want to fly yet to Kangerlussuaq. With the planned flying time we could expect a "penalty" of the 1000 US $ for a 15 minutes late landing after the official opening hours (which is 16:45 o'clock local time in the week on that international airport!). We taxi back to the apron; negotiations with the airport in Kangerlussuaq. The "special fee" remains, however we get a discount down to "only" 675 US $.

The flight to BGSF, formerly Sondrestrom, is free of any problems. Even the radio communication to the radar controllers in Montreal Centre and later in Sondrestrom is flawless. For safety's sake we had asked again AIS in Langen to kindly support us with the transmission of our position reports via sat-phone, should we incur problems underway. The airport in Kangerlussuaq is a former American military base from the 40-s. Also today this airfield is still used partly by militarily.
Of course we had expected with the threatened "penalty" that we now would bump into a ground team that stayed only for our arrival to take place. Far from it: the airfield is operating like normal with several other aircraft movements. However, this does not lead to a further reduction of our "penalty" – we are informed tersely that here everybody has to pay who lands or starts outside of the normal business hours. This attitude seems to form basis for a very profitable business model here…

The fjord which leads to Kangerlussuaq is 170 km long so that the city lies close to the Greenland inland. There are only few places of this kind which are as suitable for starting day tours and expeditions to the Ice Cap. The „Everlasting Ice“ covers 80% of the biggest island in the world. The way to the Ice Cap leads along clear mountain lakes and through the middle of an arctic desert. On one of these tours we discover the wreck of a T33 from 1968. The tragic loss was caused by a malfunctioning airport lighting system in the night. The pilot remained uninjured while he used the catapult seat and left the completely “dry” plane in time.
In Kangerlussuaq life happens mainly around the airport. Now after an involuntary stay of additional two days (one because of weather, another to avoid another 1000$ penalty for a flight on Sunday) we are looking forward to visit the “big city” Reykjavik.