201er's Mooney Expedition

[201er]

Actually it was a headwind. You must have missed where I turned around to back taxi.

[201er]

Bonaire is one of my favorite places to vacation and of course scuba dive.  I keep wanting to fly my plane there, but its a long trip from Austin TX, 1975nm direct!    

Do it! Just keep in mind that Bonaire is unreliable for gas. Go to Aruba or Curacao for that!

[bonal]

Actually it was a headwind. You must have missed where I turned around to back taxi.

Yep, I had to step away from my desk missed that part.  I saw the sock and thought geez thats quite the tail wind your ground speed must have been over a hundred

[201er]

Day 7 of the trip came in two segments. First we flew from Bonaire to Margarita Island. Due to Venezuela visa complications we made it just a day trip so we could utilize a simpler transit visa. We crossed mountainous terrain on the western side of the island before getting a slam dunk final approach.

 

Let me say that all throughout the trip it was difficult understanding controllers and they often deviated from standard protocol, but some of the most incompetent air traffic controllers were from Venezuela. The airport wasn't busy at all but they still couldn't manage to give me simple/accurate directions. First the slam dunk approach on final, then they told me to taxi to the wrong part of the airport and then after shutdown wanted me to move the plane somewhere else.

 

 

Departing Venezuela was also a bit challenging. A lot of bureaucracy ensued in preparation to leave the country and they wasted a lot of our time. I strongly tried to avoid flying at night over water and into foreign airports but this time there wasn't much choice. The goal was to arrive into Trinidad right at sunset but because of the time wasted on pointless paperwork, we watched the sun set half way on the route. Trinidad was one of the more major airports of the trip so I was less concerned than on some of the other more remote ones. Because of some cloud cover, I opted to make an ILS onto the long well-lit runway.

 

[carusoam]

Spectacular precision flying/landing in the dark in far away places!

Nicely done Mike,

-a-

[201er]

Day 8 was from Trinidad to St Vincent. The takeoff and early part of the direct IFR flight were uneventful. We bypassed Grenada by filing direct GPS. We watched the sun set over Grenada as we continued on track. However, approaching the Grenadines, the cloud deck forced me lower. Since St. Vincent does not have an instrument approach, I elected to proceed VFR below the clouds. They pushed us lower and lower so we had to dodge around the island mountain tops of the Grenadines. And with lowered visibility, St. Vincent was still not in sight. With the sun setting, it was getting darker and darker when we finally spotted the island. In twilight, I made am upwind landing on the sloping runway. There was no chance for a go around because of quickly rising terrain. It was dark by the time we taxied off the runway. This was one of the toughest legs of the journey and there weren't many alternative options as night was setting in. My only backup plan was to climb IFR and return to Trinidad.

 

[Piloto]

All real nice videos. Thanks for posting them. On your way back to the US you should consider landing at San Juan, PR. (TJIG). They have two great FBOs with same services as in the US. From TJIG you can drive 10 minutes to the Old San Juan and see the oldest city under US flag established under Spanish rule in 1500. Juan Ponce de Leon was the governor of PR when he discovered Florida. A lot history. Because PR is US territory you can fly non-stop from the island to anywhere into the US without the need for US customs. TJIG-KFXE is 900nm. If you fly above 12,000ft you will be in VHF radio contact with San Juan Oceanic and then Miami Oceanic without ever contacting Bahama Radio. A555 airway is the most popular direct route. In PR I use the smart phone for weather even inflight (no XM coverage). But once you pass GTK en route to FL you can get XM weather (satellite). Great flying this time of the year 99.9% VFR.

 

José 

[201er]

Day 9 took us from St. Vincent to the neighboring island of St. Lucia. It was a downhill tailwind takeoff because of rapidly sloping terrain the other way. Dodged a few rain showers but ended up landing through one. One end of the long runway was dry while the other was being rained on. Just our luck, we had to park on the side that was getting rain. They drove up one of those tractors with luggage cart that they use for airliners to take our bags to the baggage claim lol

 

[Marauder]

They drove up one of those tractors with luggage cart that they use for airliners to take our bags to the baggage claim lol

 

 

That's because you're special! BTW -- did you hear KMQS (Chester County) is charging landing  and/or ramp fees? Trying to get Lloyd to confirm.

[carusoam]

I heard a deep voice in the background. It was God-like....

Said something like.... Washed 'em for ya!

I like the warm island videos better than the arctic circle ones...

Best regards,

[201er]

That's because you're special! BTW -- did you hear KMQS (Chester County) is charging landing  and/or ramp fees? Trying to get Lloyd to confirm.

You serious? Even for going to the restaurant? Haven't been in a while but if they do that, I won't go there again! That's ridiculous.

[Marauder]

You serious? Even for going to the restaurant? Haven't been in a while but if they do that, I won't go there again! That's ridiculous.

I heard it today. Was getting ready for an IPC when the line guy mentioned it. Was going to take my CFII buddy, aka the guy who makes me suffer, to lunch there.

Got some snow today!

[201er]

Just had a chance to edit some more videos from the trip. We continue with St. Lucia to Martinique:

We took off VFR from Martinique and flew up the western coast of St. Lucia. We proceeded to fly between two volcanoes and it was really bumpy. There were rain showers and rainbows all over the place. We were greeted by French accents into the French Territory of Martinique. They sent a baggage tractor to get our stuff lol

[201er]

Next day we continued north to the neighboring island of Dominica. A left turn out from the runway, we opted to overfly Martinique because the terrain was reasonably flat. Not the case with Dominica. Steep slopes and jagged mountains kept us over the water on the eastern side. Landing in Dominica was intense and one of the most challenging approaches of the entire trip.

Strong winds from the ocean forced me to land downhill toward the water. This meant a left hand traffic pattern into rising terrain and a downhill final and landing! To make matters worse, major sun glare made it difficult to see the rising terrain. I gauged the terrain before beginning the pattern and stayed as high as I could. Then on final, I alternated slips to bring it down and land before overshooting into the sea. The strong headwind helped me to establish a steep descent.

Dominica is home to the endangered Imperial Amazon. It is the only country to have a parrot on its flag.

 

[chrisk]

11 hours ago, 201er said:

Next day we continued north to the neighboring island of Dominica. A left turn out from the runway, we opted to overfly Martinique because the terrain was reasonably flat. Not the case with Dominica. Steep slopes and jagged mountains kept us over the water on the eastern side. Landing in Dominica was intense and one of the most challenging approaches of the entire trip.

Strong winds from the ocean forced me to land downhill toward the water. This meant a left hand traffic pattern into rising terrain and a downhill final and landing! To make matters worse, major sun glare made it difficult to see the rising terrain. I gauged the terrain before beginning the pattern and stayed as high as I could. Then on final, I alternated slips to bring it down and land before overshooting into the sea. The strong headwind helped me to establish a steep descent.

Dominica is home to the endangered Imperial Amazon. It is the only country to have a parrot on its flag.

 

Loved the slip!

[201er]

Almost done sharing my Caribbean journey.

We spent an additional full day on Dominica. This was the first non-flying day of the entire trip. We were always flying onward to another island for all the days prior. But in Dominica we scheduled a day of rest and a day to catch up on our schedule if we had encountered delays. We went parrot watching in Dominica and got to see some of their beautiful Amazon parrots in the wild.

Rest was important; the next two days were to travel over 2000nm to get back home. On Wednesday December 11th, we took off from Dominica and flew 760nm in 5 hours to Turks and Caicos. We landed on Providenciales. This was more so for fuel than for sightseeing. There was no avgas on Dominica so the last fueling was in Martinique. Although we had just enough fuel to make it to the Bahamas, it just wasn't worth running that far over water on borderline reserves.

We over flew Puerto Rico and talked to some US controllers before going back to regional centers. Puerto Rico charged me a damn overflight fee! Keep that in mind in case you are flying back from the Caribbean. Even though you are a US citizen with a US based aircraft, if you overfly but don't land, they'll charge you.

We landed in Providenciales and spent a few hours sightseeing. We visited a Conch farm and had lunch.

After lunch and a fuel up, we got back in and continued another 2 hours to the Bahamas for the night. We were now talking to Miami center and the map started showing up on my ipad. It felt almost like being back. We landed in Nassau and spent the night. Briefly, we visited the pirate museum and the city center before continuing back to the US.

 

[Hank]

Boo Puerto Rico!

Does the Dominican Republic also charge overflight fees? U.S. Or British Virgin Isles? What other options are there to avoid PR fees? Not that I'm planning to go that way any time soon, but the idea just torques me off!

[ArtVandelay]

I'm curious about stop in Providenciales, did you have to go thru full customs procedures, what fees did they charge?

[hindsight2020]

5 hours ago, Hank said:

Boo Puerto Rico!

Does the Dominican Republic also charge overflight fees? U.S. Or British Virgin Isles? What other options are there to avoid PR fees? Not that I'm planning to go that way any time soon, but the idea just torques me off!

Let's temper the PR bashing for a moment. This is not a "Puerto Rico" problem, because this is not a "Puerto Rico fee". This is an FAA problem. This is no different than if you used FAA services from the Bahamas on your way to the Dominican Republic. They don't call them Bahamas fees or DR fees. They're still FAA fees. They (the FAA) would charge you overflight for the leg to the DR because you would have used American ATC/responsible-for airspace without making the US either your point of departure or your point of arrival. Hence "overflight".

The solution to the OP's dilemma? Simple. Land in PR. Doing so will ensure that every flight from Dominica to CONUS either had the US as a point of origin, or point of landing. All waived. No PR bashing required.

Like Piloto alluded to before: from FXE it's only 850NM to Aguadilla and 900 to Isla Grande; if you can stretch it that far on a Mooney you can file domestic and give CBP the finger. I'm eyeballing Comanches just for that reason, looking into the future.

Of course this is all academic because the OP should have had no range problems stopping in PR from Dominica, if Nassau was the RON destination for that day.  Stopping in Provo $$$ probably cost him money over stopping in PR, where he would have avoided the overflight fee on top of the Provo fees.

 

2 hours ago, teejayevans said:

I'm curious about stop in Providenciales, did you have to go thru full customs procedures, what fees did they charge?

Indeed. I'm curious as well. I've started to gather info for my own proposed TX-FL-PR bucket list trip next year to go see my folks. Provo is the logical choice for my range limitations (in order to make San Juan w/ just one stop), but so far I hear it's on the order of 250USD in fees just to make a simple fuel stop there. I've looked into MYIG but it's spartan, remote and fuel availability is the spottiest of all Bahama ports of entry. Not the place I want to have a mechanical problem or otherwise get stuck in, especially compared to Provo or Exuma. I rather eat the fees than get stuck in Inagua. I want the convenience of resorts, credit card acceptance and wifi if I'm getting stuck. This is supposed to be fun after all.

[carusoam]

Speaking of PR,

How are we on flying over or into Cuba lately?

My vision was to overfly Cuba on the way to Puerto Rico and other islands.

The Pants-Productions videos are inspiring, awesome, wicked cool, and...

Best regards,

-a-

[chrisk]

17 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

Let's temper the PR bashing for a moment. This is not a "Puerto Rico" problem, because this is not a "Puerto Rico fee". This is an FAA problem. This is no different than if you used FAA services from the Bahamas on your way to the Dominican Republic. They don't call them Bahamas fees or DR fees. They're still FAA fees. They (the FAA) would charge you overflight for the leg to the DR because you would have used American ATC/responsible-for airspace without making the US either your point of departure or your point of arrival. Hence "overflight".

The solution to the OP's dilemma? Simple. Land in PR. Doing so will ensure that every flight from Dominica to CONUS either had the US as a point of origin, or point of landing. All waived. No PR bashing required.

Like Piloto alluded to before: from FXE it's only 850NM to Aguadilla and 900 to Isla Grande; if you can stretch it that far on a Mooney you can file domestic and give CBP the finger. I'm eyeballing Comanches just for that reason, looking into the future.

Of course this is all academic because the OP should have had no range problems stopping in PR from Dominica, if Nassau was the RON destination for that day.  Stopping in Provo $$$ probably cost him money over stopping in PR, where he would have avoided the overflight fee on top of the Provo fees.

 

Indeed. I'm curious as well. I've started to gather info for my own proposed TX-FL-PR bucket list trip next year to go see my folks. Provo is the logical choice for my range limitations (in order to make San Juan w/ just one stop), but so far I hear it's on the order of 250USD in fees just to make a simple fuel stop there. I've looked into MYIG but it's spartan, remote and fuel availability is the spottiest of all Bahama ports of entry. Not the place I want to have a mechanical problem or otherwise get stuck in, especially compared to Provo or Exuma. I rather eat the fees than get stuck in Inagua. I want the convenience of resorts, credit card acceptance and wifi if I'm getting stuck. This is supposed to be fun after all.

Yes, the problem is indeed the US government.  And from what  understand, you generally don't have to pay the overflight fee,as there is a monthly limit before they make you pay.   --Effectively making it a non-issue.  That said, I have heard the fees are going up to where it will be a problem.  This will either kill aviation in the region, or folks will quit talking to ATC..... 

As for stops, I would have spent a day in the DR.  I hear they are GA friendly.

[201er]

For those of you who haven't had a chance to see the videos from my first Caribbean Mooney trip, I created a playlist with all of the videos in order:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeLIAFPzFak&list=PLUpuAnvsj4dNuTlkoNNZHWpN8_dOD9Mnr

Here is a thread about my 2016 Caribbean Mooney Adventure #2.

http://mooneyspace.com/topic/18129-201ers-caribbean-adventure-2

 

Edited March 27, 2016 by 201er