South of Here, East of There

Whoever out there who hasn't dreamed of chucking it all and heading south of the border, please stop lying now. Romantic visions of lazy days vacationing in piña colada land dance across the mental windscreen, especially at this time of the year when winter looms out there in the not-so-distant darkness. Republics such as Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Panama have beckoned to stateside tourists for years, and many fantastic destinations are no longer so far off the beaten path that vacationers pause to leave an updated will before departing. In fact, you can find as much, or as little, adventure down south as you want.

Most general aviation aircraft are capable of the trip to and throughout Central America, with enough range to make the distances between airports comfortable. And the infrastructure in most countries improves every year — although not every airport has fuel and maintenance services, this information is generally available and contingencies can be planned for. The only true barriers seem to be an overall lack of information about what to expect — paperwork, hassles, fees, and language concerns, to name the top questions in my mind.

I recently joined two demonstration pilots from Cessna Aircraft Co. as they delivered a new 2006 Grand Caravan to an owner in Chile. The premise was to see firsthand how the entry, exit, and overflight process in each country worked, with the associated fees and (reported) hassles. My portion of the journey included meeting pilots Kirby Ortega and Tyson Teeter in Toluca, Mexico, and flying with them through Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, to Panama City, Panama, a trip lasting nine days.

We landed at towered international airports in each country we visited — but with the exception of Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, we chose the GA reliever airports instead of the primary airline hubs. This saved money and time, but still provided us with a higher level of service than we might have seen at outlying airports.

One overall thing to keep in mind if you plan such a trip: Once you get away from the main airways, the availability of fuel, maintenance, and other ground support varies wildly. And just as you might carry a list of English-speaking doctors when you travel abroad, you might also construct a list of mechanics conversant with your make and model to refer to along the way. You can get some direction by contacting AOPA's Pilot Information Center (see " Step by Step to South," page 106).

Hola, Mexico!

Toluca is an industrial city about 45 miles west of Mexico City, and it's growing rapidly by inviting industry from the north — global automobile and pharmaceutical manufacturers line the highway into the city. Toluca International Airport sits at 8,466 feet msl, and its single runway, 15/33, is better than 13,700 feet long.

Toluca International is growing too. Several years ago, the powers that be became determined to discourage general aviation from using the primary airport in Mexico City (Lic. Benito Juarez International) by imposing astronomical fees on aircraft landing there plus additional fees for parking and departures(try $1,400 for a light single, according to the last reports posted; today GA is simply not allowed, according to Caribbean Sky Tours President Rick Gardner). So GA fled to Toluca.

Now increased commercial activity in the city has led to additional flights by low-cost airlines seeking to avoid the fees of the Mexico City airport. As the airline traffic grows, so does the drumbeat of increased hassles...for GA. Pilots already wait up to two hours for fuel at Toluca, and it will likely get worse. Operators at Toluca are already looking at points farther from Mexico City, down the road in Cuernavaca, in fact — a good hour and a half from the big city (not factoring in road congestion that, on a peaceful day, rivals that of the Los Angeles Basin in both volume and native driving habits).

Better handling

For those with a business need to travel by private aircraft (or the money to spend to make life easier), handlers come into play. To smooth the process, a logistics service, such as Universal Aviation & Weather Services, Baseops International, or Colt International, enlists handlers in each country, and at each airport, to act as intermediaries between the pilots and customs, air traffic control, and other government agencies. With a handler, life is easier, which is why specialists in AOPA's Pilot Information Center recommend their use for first-time travelers to points south.

Ortega, now chief pilot, piston engine flight operations, at Cessna and the senior pilot on our trip, has completed missions south of the border for roughly 25 years, and experience has taught him that having a handler helps greatly in getting things done efficiently — a must for business travel, and adhering to the schedule that, for example, a demo pilot must set. If you have time, you can save money by going through the motions yourself. It's definitely not impossible, but only if you're (key words) flexible and fluent in the local language.

Over Mexico

Teeter had filed our flight plan with the local Toluca dispatcher on Friday afternoon for our Saturday morning departure, and let the handling service know our plans so that it could arrange for someone to meet our flight when we landed at Guatemala City's Aurora International/Guatemala City Airport. When it came time to depart Saturday morning, we taxied to the customs (aduana in Spanish) ramp to clear Mexican customs (a nonevent) and then we picked up our IFR clearance to Guatemala City from ground, and back-taxied on Runway 15 (there is no parallel taxiway) for takeoff in between Copa Airlines and TACA Boeing 737s.

As we climbed out to the southeast toward the Tequis VOR, near the city of Cuernavaca, we got out the oxygen masks — MEAs (minimum en route altitudes) in this part of the country often top 14,000 feet, and we were cleared to 17,000. The reasons for the MEAs popped up out of the landscape on both sides of us — el Nevado de Toluca, and other pointed peaks to the east. A patchwork of villages tucked into hanging valleys passed below, with smoke from a small wildfire throwing one into shadow.

The Caravan averaged about 126 knots groundspeed in our climb, but even when we leveled off, a positive deck angle remained, a reminder of our altitude. En route to Oaxaca, our next waypoint, we saw 155 knots over the ground, with 163 KTAS. The Pratt & Whitney PT6A-114A hummed along at normal cruise: 1,750 rpm, 1,300 foot-pounds of torque, 710 degrees inter-turbine temperature, and 270-pph fuel flow. Terraced farms passed below, separated by wide tracts of forested mountains.

Past Oaxaca, both the MEAs and the terrain below dropped off on our way to Ixtepec VOR, near the Ixtepec military base. We asked for lower, and came down to 13,000 feet, then 11,000 feet for the rest of the four-hour-plus trip, with true airspeeds in the 165-to-172-knot range. Crystal skies soared above, but now a scattered layer formed below: We approached the southern coast of Mexico. Now on a more easterly heading, we flew airways that paralleled the coast to Tapachula, our last waypoint in Mexico. We didn't take the more direct route from Tapachula to Guatemala City, because the coastal volcanoes force the MEA back up to the oxygen levels. There's only so much of the mask that you can stand.

Airspace

We talked with Merida Center, an en route air traffic control facility, and soon after switched over to Cenamer Control once past Tapachula on our way to San Jose, Guatemala. Communication was fine, though some controllers are easier to understand than others, and most speak Spanish to native pilots. Operating on an IFR flight plan and having a traffic advisory system on board make this more comfortable.

The Cenamer (shorthand for "Central America") air traffic control facility covers most of the airspace across Central America. We crossed the border and tracked out to the San Jose VOR, which sits on a point. By this time, we're on with Aurora Approach, which gave us a dogleg into Aurora International, and told us to expect the VOR/DME 3 for Runway 19. We never actually flew it; the layers broke up before we got much closer.

Antigua Guatemala

The visual into Guatemala City was stunning, with volcanoes to the west and the city stretched out in the lumpy valley below. We landed on 19 and taxied over to the customs ramp, near the commercial air terminal.

We were met by Carlos, our handler (sporting a white coral surfer-style necklace), who asked only for our pilot certificates (copies of them suffice), not our passports. As crew, we cleared customs easily and escaped arrival taxes levied on passengers — and it didn't matter that we were three pilots on board an airplane that requires only one; we could all be crew by virtue of these credentials. This held true in each country we visited in Central America. So if you plan a trip down south, bring your pilot certificate, even if you occupy a backseat during a given leg. You can save in the neighborhood of $20 per stop, depending on the country.

Guatemala is a hidden treasure in Central America, along with its neighbors Honduras (which has a newly installed government whose track record remains to be seen) and Nicaragua (which continues to grow in stability). Mountainous in its interior, with stunning lakes and great beaches on both the Caribbean and the Pacific sides, Guatemala also boasts extremely friendly people. At the international airport in Guatemala City, the Aeroclub de Guatemala bases its operations. The club boasts a 450-pilot membership (another 100 people are social members) and more than 200 aircraft.

I met with Aeroclub President Armando Asturias, AOPA 4206534, on a Monday afternoon at the club headquarters on the airport. He related the history of the club, founded in the 1930s, the members' activities to help with the Hurricane Stan disaster in October 2005, and the infrastructure they had built, including three airports in resort areas of the country. He offered the club's assistance to other AOPA members. For the most current information, contact the Aeroclub de Guatemala directly (502/2331-3185) or contact AOPA's Pilot Information Center. Air Station S.A. (Carlos' company) also offers special rates for AOPA members (502/2385-2640).

During our visit, most fees were still reasonable in Guatemala, though flights to various destinations within the country required a flight plan or permit. The DGAC (Dirección General de Aeronautica Civil), like our FAA, is still a government organization, although it does not have any direct source of revenue. Asturias emphasized how important it was to Guatemalan pilots to keep the DGAC from privatization, for many of the same reasons given in the United States in similar debates.

On to Tegu

We packed up the Caravan after two full days in Guatemala City and were ready to go — except for our flight plan to our next stop, Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Teeter had filed it with our handler, but Carlos was delayed in showing up with it properly blessed. Can't depart for Tegucigalpa without it, or without the necessary permits forwarded to Managua for the second leg of our flight from Honduras over Nicaragua to San Jose, Costa Rica. Once we had the right papeles (papers), we fired up and took off for Tegu (an endearment for the city, and the airport in particular, among pilots) with a tailwind at 13,000 feet. The mountainous countryside rolled under us, never lower than 4,000 to 5,000 feet msl, and often stretching to nearly 9,000 feet.

We crossed into Honduran airspace and prepared for the approach into Toncontin International Airport. The controller gave us the VOR/DME 2 approach, and told us to expect a landing on Runway 2 with about 10 knots of direct crosswind. Now the sport began.

The city of Tegucigalpa sits in a bowl — it's 3,294 feet msl at the airport — ringed by terrain reaching to nearly 8,000 feet. Runway 2 slopes downhill at 1.06 degrees and is about 6,100 feet long with a displaced threshold reducing it further, and a steep hill sits right on its approach end. This causes aircraft (Cessnas and Boeings alike) to drop below the surrounding terrain at some points as they carve into base and final. In fact, the approach used to be even more intense before part of the hill was shaved off, and when the Pan-American Highway ran just outside a fence only meters from the end of the runway.

We landed for a demo-flight appointment with several lieutenants from the Honduran air force in time for the daily airline show: a Continental 737, followed by a Copa Airlines 737, and topped off by the American Boeing 757 flight from Miami. No doubt, that's a captain's landing.

We cleared customs by the commercial ramp by showing our pilot certificates, and then taxied down to visit the local Cessna dealer. One note: We escaped many parking fees by staying with company dealers at each stop; these fees vary by airport but were reported as usually around $10 per night for a light aircraft.

The way to San Jose

For the flight plan to leave Tegu and go on to San Jose, Costa Rica, we made two visits on the airport with local pilot and Arnoldo Arqueta, AOPA 3973507. The first stop was at a bright baby-blue building, which also housed Cenamer control for that region, to pay the $46 "protection" fee (essentially this is for air traffic control services, not a mob-style security fee), and the $13 landing fee. Then we visited another office in the terminal building (an ever-expanding mass currently painted salmon pink) to check on our flight plan, which had already been approved.

Our flight to San Jose took almost two hours at 11,000 feet — and the last two hours of sunlight. This was important, because we hoped to land at the airport at Tobias Bolanos International — Pavas, as it is locally known. Pavas is a day-VFR-only airport and a primary GA airport in the area. If we were late, we would land at San Jose's main airport, Juan Santamaria International. We made it, going from the ILS/DME 7 approach into Santamaria with a "circle to land Runway 9 at Pavas" instruction. After acquiring the visual on Pavas, with its undulating runway, we sidestepped onto final just as the light faded.

We were greeted by another handler who rolled us into customs while an airport employee sprayed the interior of the Caravan and its cargo pod with insecticide. That's standard procedure in Costa Rica, as in other Latin American countries. For this service, there's another small fee.

A little misunderstanding

Anytime two people communicate using a language foreign to one of them, you can bet on details getting lost in the translation. You may think you have your flight plan all squared away, but a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle differences exist between the processes you're used to and those you need to follow when out of the country. Case in point: Our IFR flight plan from San Jose to the next stop on our trip, Panama City, included our request for a VFR departure so that we wouldn't have to comply with the instrument departure and its stout climb gradients out of Pavas to the east-southeast.

But when we called for our clearance, Pavas Ground had our VFR flight plan all ready for us. The subtle tip-off, once we looked at the flight plan itself? The presence of the mountain pass in the routing, which wouldn't be included on any IFR flight plan. In the interest of getting things going, we accepted the change of plan and took off over the spine of the Talamanca Mountains toward the Atlantic coast, following the route we'd entered in the Garmin GNS 530 — with the terrain page up on the multifunction display and our eyes peeled. The terrain gradient required about a 700-fpm climb from Pavas to comfortably clear the pass.

It was my leg, and I leveled at 11,500 feet, and stayed on with Coco Approach (another local term, for San Jose International's approach control) until we lost it in the static. At that point, we continued position reports with each airport or ATC facility we passed within range: Limon, Bocas del Toro, and finally, Panama's approach control. The controllers took our flight-plan information and gave us whatever updated METAR they had at the time for Panama City's Marcos A. Gelabert International. The route took us over the water (the Atlantic side, or northern coast) for a stretch, but, at that altitude, not outside of glide range to shore. I deviated around some white puffies on the way down, and stayed along the coast until I could cut inland at 2,500 feet, comfortably below the cloud bases.

We flew over Lago Gatun, a large freshwater lake that feeds the Panama Canal. Ships lined up to ply the river leading into the main locks, and the land turned brilliant green below. Panama Approach worked us into Marcos Gelabert visually, and I crossed near the Bridge of the Americas and then slipped between two hills on final. Welcome to Panama. This airport, close to downtown Panama City, is actually the former Albrook Air Force Base, which was run by the U.S. military while it oversaw operation of the canal.

We cleared customs on the main ramp near the terminal, and the official wanted to see our certificates and my passport, for the all-important entry stamp. Since I would leave the next day on a commercial flight back to the States, I needed that stamp to clarify my entrance into Panama — you can't go home unless you can prove when (and how) you came in.

E-mail the author at [email protected].

Links to additional information about flying in Central America may be found on AOPA Online.

Step By Step to South

Ready to head south? Your planning should begin as early as possible, to give you time to consider multiple alternatives should your initial plan be amended by airport closures or restrictions, unforecast weather, maintenance concerns, or shifting bureaucratic hurdles.

Here's the general process by which you can expect to conduct a flight into Mexico, derived from AOPA's Pilot Information Center's dedicated Web pages on the topic. Similar procedures will be followed for flights into other Central American countries; please check in with the Pilot Information Center on specific, up-to-date instructions on how to fly to a particular country.

Proof of citizenship. Carry proof of citizenship for each person on board, a passport or birth certificate; check the country's requirements for details.

Aircraft documents. These must include airworthiness certificate, registration (no temporary registrations, or "pink slips," allowed), operating limitations, radio station license, and weight and balance information. Your insurance must specify that you are covered in Mexico (not just the latitudes that include that country), and give proof of third-party liability coverage. According to Rick Gardner of Caribbean Sky Tours, most U.S. aircraft insurance policies offer $1 million in liability coverage, well above the current Mexican limits, but it pays to double-check. You also must have a $25 annual aircraft decal from U.S. Customs.

Pilot credentials. You need your pilot certificate, medical certificate, and radiotelephone operator's permit (obtainable via a Federal Communications Commission Web site).

Entry into Mexico. You will need to notify customs via radio (when you're within range of the airport of entry) or via telephone. You must be on an IFR or defense-VFR flight plan, with "ADCUS" in the remarks section (be advised that this notation alone does not advise customs of your arrival — you still must do it by radio or telephone).

Flying in Mexico. At all times when flying in Mexico, you must be on a flight plan, and you should keep a hard copy of that flight plan with you. VFR night operations are not permitted; if you fly IFR at night, be sure to call ahead to the airport to ensure it will be open when you arrive. Air traffic control fees are included in the fuel bill for piston aircraft, and that fuel bill is often payable only in cash.

Departing Mexico. Mexican regulations stipulate that you need to depart Mexico from an actual airport of entry. You will surrender your tourist visa when you leave.

Returning to the United States. Although procedures vary at airports of entry, you will need to advise U.S. Customs in advance of your estimated time of arrival, usually not less than one hour prior to arrival and not more than 23 hours prior. You must be on a flight plan, just like when you left the United States. Your first landing must be at the first airport of entry you encounter after crossing the border. And you're advised to stay in the airplane until cleared to get out by a customs official. At the end of 2006, U.S. law goes into effect requiring that U.S. citizens have a valid U.S. passport to get back into the country.

Additional information is available on the Caribbean Sky Tours Web site. The owners offer expert advice on flying in Mexico. — JKB

Fighting Off Privatization

Compared to to many nontowered airports in the United States where there is free ramp space, a courtesy shuttle to the hotel, and precision approaches that permit pilots to land in all weather, the challenges of GA flying in other parts of the world are somewhat onerous. In fact, if the same environment existed in the United States as exists in Central America, GA would definitely have a different look. Consider these facts:

• Each country has its own set of complex charging schemes that do not appear to have any rationale for the fees or their amounts.
• In most countries, a flight plan or local flight permit is mandatory for all flights.
• Most consider "GA life" in Guatemala as relatively good because the government still oversees air traffic control, so it can moderate fees and manage the republic's "FAA" (the DGAC) more so than in other areas, where privatized ATC corporations can adjust rates at their whim.
• It's not just the inconvenience of the flight-plan fee, but also other fees nickel and dime you, such as airport taxes (up to $30 per passenger), landing fees at airports where there are services, airspace fees, and other costs that we don't even think of in the United States.

That's why AOPA has been adamant in its opposition to user fees for any segment of aviation. Many times the user-fee philosophy opens a Pandora's box for charges that can be levied for each part of the flight. Or privatized ATC service providers make business decisions based on what's best for their bottom line rather than safety or national aviation needs. AOPA has pushed for keeping Congress in control of ATC so that the airspace remains a national asset — not for sale to the highest bidder. — AOPA Government Affairs