To Panama!

Phil waving out of the Beech on take off from Pavas (photo by Jorge Solano)

To Panama!!

 

Photo by aviation photographer Daniel Umana, Costa Rica, Pavas airport

What a day, what a flight!

Phil, Daly and Michael

The Beech with tailwheel off the ground (photo by Jorge Solano)

A bit of a rush in the morning but at least it’s Sunday and the roads are clear. Meeting Michael and Daly and eventually manage to go through immigration, customs, refuel, pay all the various bills and get on the aeroplane.

The Beech G-BKGM ready for take off. photo by Daniel Umana

Mike has done a massive job in getting us permissions for Panama and link us up with his friends there. Now all we need is the weather to stay clear so that we can navigate ourselves along the mountain ridges inland and the coastline to the west.

the coast line of Costa Rica heading for Panama

Whilst sorting everything out at Pavas airport quite a number of guys come up to me saying: ‘are you Allie’? I answer in surprise. Turns out these are our fan club that watched us land yesterday and many have managed to find me through the internet and messenger. They are so keen to meet us and love the aeroplane.

our new friends taking photos of our take off

10.30: take off and heading out to the coast at an average cruise level of 7500ft. We follow the coast to our right hand side and the Pan-American Highway inland to our left. 

coming to the border of Panama

Then it’s Panama! A new country to visit for me and Flippie but not for Phil who has been working there twice 44 years ago.

Phil first came in ‘74 when he was doing some route planning for British Airways and subsequently he came back to work for Shorts. But what a change when you see the skyline of Panama City now in 2018!

quite some activity further inland

Flippie has to navigate us around some tall build up cu clouds whilst keeping on track. Not an easy task with our antiquated cockpit instrumentation.

the skyline of Panama city and our airport in view!

Skyscrapers and top-modern building developments everywhere.

I couldn’t believe my eyes!! If people call Costa Rica the Switzerland of Central America then that’s Monaco or Andorra.

Our approach coming low right over the famous Panama Canal at 2000ft was something else! 

The Panama canal

I just clicked away… big cruise- and container ships in the locks waiting for clearance…then the skyline coming closer and finally touch-down after 2.30hrs flight time.

From left: Allie, Mike, Flippie, Roberto, his wife and daughter (photo by Phil)

We were very kindly greeted by Robert Katz, the Sub-Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority in Panama and his family. Robert has paved the way for us to arrive here in the Beech and with the balloon and we are extremely grateful for his very kind assistance and help.

Flippie saying hello to young pilot Mike

We also meet young Mike, a friend and pilot trainee of Michael Castillo. After a short break at the smart FBO lounge and boosting our energy with a strong cup of coffee we are ready for take-off again. This time with Mike in the right seat and Flippie as the captain in the left hand seat.

Flippie and Mike on track

It must be 40 degrees in the cabin and we are glad to be off the ground. Climbing out we are banking right and flying a short distance back to Chame. 

myself (photo by Phil)

After 16mins we touch down at this little airstrip – a popular base for skydivers. Mike has arranged a vehicle and driver Juan for us.

one of the skydivers and the aeroplane at Chame

The area looks great for ballooning and we offload our goods into the skydiver’s tent. Ready for the morning. A short drive and we check into our hotel for the night. The ‘boys’ go the bar to quench their thirst with a few cold beers whilst I assess the area and find water, food and a nice restaurant for the evening.

one more photo looking back to the entrance of the Panama canal

It was an extraordinary day and we are now at the southern most point of our journey. Part of me feels sad that we can’t head further South from here as originally planned (onto Columbia and Ecuador) but we are running out of time and will have to start our long journey back up to the US after tomorrow.

Our aviation friends from Costa Rice send me lots of wonderful shots of the aeroplane and I spend many hours till late night sorting all my material. Somehow this whole trip still feels like a dream…

Let’s hope the final big dream of flying a balloon in Panama will come true tomorrow early morning!

Over Honduras and Nicaragua to Costa Rica

Overflying Honduras and Nicaragua!

catching sight of vulcano Momotombo in Nicaragua

The bird had not given up. A pre-flight inspection this morning before departure from Belize revealed another collection of twigs and wire cuttings. More clearing of FOD before we leave. 

surprise that the bird still has not given up trying to built his nest

despite the plastic bag, the bird came back!

A brief return to the apron to check a faulty fuel content indication and then off across Belize, Honduras & Nicaragua to Costa Rica. A long sector.

we covered nearly the entire length of this map today! 

having to fly at 11.000ft for nearly 4 hours due to high terrain

Phil got quite a bit of hands-on today whilst Flippie worked out the complex route between building storm-clouds. 

 Nicaragua - sadly absent from our list of ballooning destinations this trip - had two active volcanoes on display with plumes of steam rising to our 11,000ft cruising-level.. Huge lakes between the cones looked fascinating and reminded Phil of his flights over these self-same active volcanoes some 20 years before in a Cameron 145.

what a sight of this steaming active volcano from the Beech

plenty of massive crater lakes

The approach into San Jose was complicated by deteriorating weather with towering CB and a very busy international jet airport only a couple of miles from our destination at Tobias Bolanos secondary airport. 

A jet flying very close below us coming out of the Cocos International main airport

glad to have made it before the storm!

Dodging the big jets we arrived to be met by Flippie's long-standing seaplane pilot friend Mike Castillo who regaled us in the bar with stories of flying a Catalina flying boat from South Africa to California.

disembarking Betty on arrival in Costa Rica

 What a day - what a flight! We are all too trashed to go out anymore this evening and stay in our rooms working on the PC and catching up with emails. We both forgot to take our little bag with chargers so this computer sadly won't last too much longer and I will have to stop this blog for the night. I am still puzzled why the blog suddenly wants to use different type faces and different colours as I have changed nothing! If anybody could give some advice, that would be greatly appreciated.

flying over some stunning looking reefs off the shores from Belize

Flippie has by the way taken an incredible 'wild-life' (or shall we say 'bird-life'?) movie of that bird  -the actually turns out NOT to be a crow but a tiny little bird! He filmed this bird coming right back to Betty and flying into the engine to continue its efforts in building a nest there. It will be seriously disappointed to see Betty gone! I hope to be able to upload the video and some more soon to show you this incredible story!

Captain Flippie Vermeulen at the controls

One thing that I also have to mention at this point: the internet speed anywhere in Belize was the best I have ever experienced - it's way better than here at the rather sophisticated Radisson in Costa Rica which is surprising as the rest of Costa Rice is so much more modern than Belize!

Mr D has helped me writing some of the text today as it takes me nearly 2-3 hours each day to sort and download and back up my photographic material, then write the text, then upload it and check that everything works. Sorry if I can't do much more tonight due to low batteries...

Tomorrow we'll be heading for Panama - at least that's the plan!

Birds added to the 'Beech zoo'!!

……and a bird in the hand is better than one in your Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior

 

The amazingly creative birds nest in our right engine!!

So here comes story number two: Flippie sorts out our hired car and tries to extend the rental for one more day. Phil and I meet our kind airport assistant Pierre and security man called Nathan. Nathan manages to get us through passport control and security without too much hassle and we walk out to the Beech.

 

the repaired cowling bracket

It’s roasting hot and midday. Phil has to go back and load each single piece of the balloon onto the belt for scanning. One guy asks Phil whether the cylinders contain any gas. Phil has to admit quickly that ‘yes’ we have but that we carry a ‘dangerous goods certificate’. To that the security man just says: ‘that’s great! Thank you’!

 

security staff Nathan who helped to spot the nest

In the meantime Nathan and myself unlock the aeroplane and prepare the space to load the balloon. I want to see that recent repair of the right engine’s cowling bracket and walk around to the front. Flippie and the engineer had spent a couple of steaming hot hours to get it repaired and we are grateful that all is fixed but it dug another big hole into our pockets.

 

the entire nest collection spread out on our hostel table!

What we then saw was unbelievable and even Flippie in his 50 years of flying experience has hardly seen anything so cleverly collected and put together: a massive bird’s nest was artistically weaved into the upper part of our right engine!!! Incredible! And how lucky we that spotted this attempt now and not tomorrow when we want to depart early.

Phil arrives and we show him the conglomeration of stuff that this clever bird has collected: various thorny sticks, broken cable ties, metal straps and as the crowning glory – plastic fork – stuck over all this artwork! Indeed Flippie later guesses that the bird might have been a crow.

Well this nearly makes our Beech Zoo complete: from mice in the UK to snakes in Canada to crows in Belize! What next???

'nose art'

We carefully try and pick out all the bits and pieces and collect them in our now empty crackers box in order to present the collection to Flippie who has been working on flight planning and the met for tomorrow’s long and challenging sector.

As we meet him in the terminal waiting hall, we show him the findings. Watch his reaction here:

Finally all back in the car we drive into Belize city via the small Belize city airstrip along the coast. Here is a Cherokee 6 on take off.

As my GPS tells me that this is our guesthouse and we pull into a very narrow and rather dodgy looking alley, We all look at each other in disbelief: this place looks more like a drug den or brothel than a decent guesthouse.

 

the view from our floor to the streets of Belize city

I knock at the door and Ivory – a young chap – opens. I ask whether this is really the place that we booked. And yes it is. The rooms look clean and fine and this is the place I booked last night. Ok. We are all too tired.. internet in fact is brilliant and there is an Indian laundry place and a beer shop around the corner. All we need for now.

 

downtown government house

Phil and I wander around the town a bit later that afternoon trying to find a clothes shop to buy new shirts as one has been lost and one got seriously dirty from dripping oil. But the streets don't fill us with much confidence:iIn fact most folks that we see are lying half dead by the road, junkies, homeless and very poor. But Belize city a hundred years ago must have been a beautiful town with several churches, a pretty harbour and some lovely wooden houses with Dutch style roofs. These days, it looks run down and not a place to wander alone – never mind a night!

 

Dutch style houses

We eventually find a decent looking restaurant weirdly called the ‘balloon pizzeria’ by the sea. But our evening is soon interrupted by a noisy bunch of Americans turning the music up to ear-bursting levels. We move outside and finish our drinks and meal talking about dodgy places on this planet. This certainly is one of them!

 

where on earth does that name come from?

We are now facing a lot of difficulties with our next few flying sectors as permissions, distances, clearances,  fuel consumption, altitude of terrain, points of official entry - all have to be taken into consideration.

Tomorrow will be a big challenge for Flippie flying the Beech right to the edge of the aeroplane’s capabilities. We will have to cross part of the Andes and fly up to 11,000ft. It will be pretty freezing in the cabin (down to 7 degrees Flippie is predicting!) – and as always in the Beech – noisy. Stopping anywhere in Honduras on the way to Costa Rica sadly doesn't work due to all those logistical problems and so we will have to do the entire way to San Jose in one go.

I am too tired now to proof-read this text and had troubles on the last posting with my type face. We will have an early start and I am dam knackered, so apologies for any misspellings or other ‘beauty’ errors!

Not quite VFR in Belize

Well, we did it!!

Happy to have Belize in the books!

But what a struggle again... having prepared everything in the best way possible yesterday we drove to the Running W Ranch at 5.15 in the morning. 

not really great weather for flying...

Winds were calm and it was just getting light. But what we saw wasn't great - or put it better: we actually didn't see anything. That was the problem! 

Thick fog all around the valley area with a vis less than a km! Oh no! That was the last thing we expected this morning.

preparing the balloon

Anyway, with the support of the very helpful ranchers Douglas and Amir and Flippie whom we had dragged out to help, we rigged the kit in no time. But then we had to wait. And wait. And wait… this fog wasn’t going to lift soon.

The Running W Beef farm from the balloon

We were kindly offered coffee in the workers’ cafeteria and discussed farming. After an hour and still no significant improvement, we decided to give it a go. As we took off though – remember we don’t have any test balloons – the wind was totally in the opposite direction we expected. Our hope was to fly across the road and land on a small airstrip. That was not going to happen as we went over Abdala’s house and headed for a vast forest area.

From the left: Allie, Douglas, Amir and Phil (photo taken by Flippie)

We quickly decided that would not be a good idea in poor visibility and with Phil handing over now to me, I dropped down to tree top level and found us a wind pushing us back to the farm house.

After only 15mins in the air, we called it a flight. Which it was, albeit a short one. But Belize will be written in our logbooks, for Phil country nr 116, and for me 87.

The inflated balloon shortly before take off

A lot of effort again and cost, but hey, another experience and we met some lovely people! Thank you Abdala, Amir, Douglas and Flippie for your help!

It was time to pack our stuff and drive the two hours back to the airport and load the balloon into the aeroplane. And that is yet another – long – story!