Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing

By 11AM this morning, Collin was feeling well enough for us to depart for Costa Rica. We bid farewell to all and grabbed a cab to Managua airport ($28 from Granada). There we went through the process of leaving the country. As I had been to flight control twice already, and to the FBO administrative office (there is no FBO for general aviation; it’s the same one for all planes), I knew the routine. First to flight planning, where I paid both my departure fee ($105) and my flyover fee for when I return to Mexico. It costs $100 to fly over Nicaragua each time, period. No ifs, ands, or buts. At least they're consistent. I paid ahead of time so that when I request a flyover permit, I won’t have to wire them money (this is where the money wiring comes in to play; if you don’t land there, you do have to send them money before flying over Nicaragua). After parting with $205 I went next door to the FBO administrative office, where they handed me a bill of about $80, a reasonable amount for a 4 day stay at MNMG. This is comparable, on a daily basis, to what we paid in La Ceiba and Roatan. But after handing me a slip of paper with that amount on it, the guy takes it back, crosses it out and writes down $145. That’s when my Spanish improved immensely. Apparently they charge $20 each time a crew member picks us up from the plane or drops us off to the plane. Now, the distance from where my plane was parked to where they drop us off is about 300 meters. That’s about $100 per mile. In Nicaragua.

I was not agreeable to the charge, and in my subtle and diplomatic way I communicated this to them, in Spanish. I explained to them that it was a ridiculous cost, and unacceptable. Of course they could not disagree and rather quickly crossed out the total and replaced it with a new total, of $105. I agreed to that but was still a little hot under the collar and told them, in amazingly fluent Spanish speaking a hundred miles an hour, that I was going to tell every American pilot I know how expensive it is to fly to Managua. They did not respond to that but were quite accommodating afterwards.

The FBO takes credit cards but the flight planning office does not. Cash only.

Total cost in Managua: departure fee, $105 (max takeoff weight dependent), ramp fee, four days, $105, flyover fee for my return to the US, $100.

By 115PM we were preflighting and at 130PM we took off, IFR, for Liberia (MRLB), Costa Rica. We climbed to 11,000 feet (MEA) for the one hour flight. Conditions were mostly visual. After an uneventful flight we were vectored in to the ILS runway 07 at Liberia. Welcome to Costa Rica.

On the ground, Liberia, Costa Rica

It took over 2 hours to get out of Costa Rica. The process was not explained at all and we ended having to go back and forth from Customs to flight planning to Administration. And the offices are all spread out. So here is the CORRECT way to do it:

After passing through immigration and customs, STOP. Go to a small brown door on the right after you exit customs (Aduanas) where the head dude sits in an air conditioned, windowless office. There, you present all of the normal documents: airworthiness, registration, insurance, medical, license, passport.  The man is particular; I watched him weigh down the page of my passport so that it lay perfectly flat while he typed in the information. That took him, oh, a minute to do. I swear to god I almost fell asleep in the chair in front of his desk, waiting for him. When he is done you get permission to stay in the country for a certain period of time, with your plane. For us it was til the end of the month.

After that, you turn left, and go upstairs to the administrative office. There is also a restaurant upstairs. Find the administrative office and give him the permission slip and he will give you some other slip or slips, and you pay $5 and get a receipt. THEN go to flight planning, which is located IN THE CONTROL TOWER at the far end of the field. Enter the control tower and walk upstairs, where you then file your flight plan.

If you know how to do it you can do it all in 45 minutes. We, however, ended up going from Customs to flight planning, to administration; then at administration they took us back to Customs, where we then followed what I outlined above.The guy in the administrative office, who took me back to Customs, and explained what to do, was very helpful. We would have tipped him $10 but we didn't have it. I hear Collin gave him a buck.

By the time we finished flight planning for Tambor (MRTR) it was 440PM. Sunset is 540PM. Figure a 45 minute flight. We were pushing daylight. Did I mention Tambor airport was not on any of our aeronautical charts?? We found it looking at Heidi's National Geographic Adventurers map of Costa Rica. That map was not accurate either; it had three times as many airstrips as really exist, or thereabouts. So basically we were trying to find an airstrip not on any of our charts. We found it on Google, got the lat lon coordinates and plugged it into the GPS, and went direct. That's right. Basically, we are aviator gods.

Enroute from Liberia to the unknown airstrip at Tambor.

We took off by 5, VFR, to Tambor, at 4,500 feet. Clouds prohibited us from climbing to 5,500. Terrain topped out at 3,500 around us. It was a short, pleasant flight. We were flying to a very small air strip, located maybe 200 feet from the ocean. The strip is very short, less than 2300 feet. This is shorter than my home field at Potomac, which is already short at I think 2600 feet. An average runway length is maybe 5,000 feet. It is also surrounded by hills about 3,000 feet high, making it very challenging to conduct a missed approach, or to land from any direction other than 330. Basically, it's a pretty friggin interesting approach that you don't want to screw up. I certainly did not want to have to go around. I circled once, dropped down to 700 feet over the water on final, and came in with a short field landing approach in mind. Turned out, I had no problem stopping short of the runway end; think carrier landing. I let my airspeed drop too much a foot or two above the ground and we fell a little bit. No bounce; no ground effect. Too slow. But as they say, Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. So, Good Landing.

On final, Tambor (MRTR)

The red sled safe and sound and on the ground, MRTR

Took a cab to Santa Teresa for $40. One hour ride. Staying at this very swank place, for $35 a nite. Nicest place we’ve stayed at so far. Which is good; these aviators are tired. Will be surfing by 7AM.