Thunderstorms? In JANUARY??

The toughest flying on this whole trip likely will have been what we ended up doing yesterday.

Synopsis: plane checked out, picked up Collin, left for Florida, ended in Savannah.

I spent tuesday nite at Andy and Lora's and drove out to HWV, Brookhaven airport on Long Island (my home airport), around 7. By the time I loaded the plane with all of my stuff (tent, backpack, flight pack, life raft, tools, oil, etc.) I casually wondered where Collin was going to sit, much less his board and stuff. I packed the plane pretty full. Did I mention the red sled is like the MR2? Not alot of space. But whatever.Wheels up, 745AM, ambient temperature -2 C, skies clear. First stop, Aero Engines, Winchester, VA. The two hour flight was fast and pleasant, I was cruising at about 135 knots ground speed, IAS (indicated air speed) was about 145 knots. A little faster than with the old engine. Tom wasn't there but Pete was and we (I) removed the oil filter and swapped out the engine oil. Pete cut open the oil filter to inspect it; all looked good. Jeremy, another A&P (airplane mechanic) also gave it a onceover, found a couple things, like a chafing bolt on the starter cable (not good), so we fixed that too. But the most valuable part of flying to Winchester was when Jeremy asked me, after I told him of our trip to Central America, "Don't you need permits for that?" Permits? We don't need to stinking permits. I mean, we got radio licenses, Customs stickers, Customs clearance, IFR flight plans, whaddya mean, Permits??
"I think you need permits for that. Ask Pete, he's flown down there before."
Pete shows up, Jeremy asks him the same question, and Pete says, "Well, only if you don't want to get shot down. Remember those missionaries in Peru? They got shot down." Pete had ferried a POS (piece of junk, aviation term) Twin Commander from southern Chile back to the US some years ago, and in between emergency landings he wound up in areas without permits. In fact, when flying from Chile to Peru, after spending hours on the phone trying to procure required flight permits, he just told the Chileans on the phone, "Screw it. I spent enough time on this. I'm just flying to Peru, will straighten it out there." Said the Chilean authorities: "Senor, that is a bad idea." Well, he did it, and he didn't get shot down, but he spent a day looking down machine gun barrels, trying to explain what happened (and he doesn't speak spanish). Says Pete: "Well, if you got time to kill, you don't need permits. But if you have the time, you might want to get flight permits."
You learn something new every day.
By 1PM I was buttoning up the red sled for the flight to my other home airport, VKX (Potomac, Maryland). It took me one hour to get there and while uneventful, it is always a little crazy flying so close to DC. There are many rules and restricted airspace surrounding the Capitol. In fact, to land where VKX is, you have to have undergone a security clearance with TSA and be on file, etc. Even then, when you're flying into the SFRA (Special Flight Rules Area), it can be confusing if you're not used to it. I am used to it, having flown in and out of the SFRA weekly for the past two years, but I am only used to one particular route; other routes, like the one today, are foreign and therefore a little bit more attention grabbing. If you mess up in the SFRA you become national news ('Small plane flies over White House, causing utter panic'), are ridiculed by other pilots, and might be lit up (shot down). Seriously.
But I made it with only one minor infringement on airspace (not my fault). Landed at VKX around 2PM local. Temperature: freaking cold. 35F or something like that. Spent the next two hours trying to figure out exactly what countries require permits, and how to get them. I even enlisted the help of my little sister Sue (that's 'Suzanne' to all you nonbrothers out there) to call the Civil Aviation Authority in Honduras and get a document from them, which she did with typical alarming alacrity and efficiency. After that I decided to join a website, caribbeanskytours.com, for $50, that gives us crucial information. Why didn't I do this before, you may ask? Well, I sorta did; I joined a different, cheaper website, which was not nearly as useful. You get what you pay for.

Bottom line (pilots pay attention): you need permits to land in, or fly over, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Mexico and Costa Rica, you don't.

We'll take care of that in Daytona Beach. The first goal is to get out of the northeast. Collin showed up around four with his mom (see pic), and it took us a couple hours to get all organized. Collin's stuff includes a 6'2 quad surfboard, a board bag (inflatable) and a backpack and flight bag. I don't know how but we got it all in the plane. We filed IFR to KCPC, a small municipal airport located in Whiteville (I am not kidding), North Carolina. Cheap fuel. IT is only 2.5 hours to Whiteville and the weather there looks good. However, weather is a fickle beast and by the time we got to CPC the nice weather turned to soup. We were in IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) for the last hour of flight, and the closer to CPC we got, the worse it got. The idea was to land VFR (visual; you can see the airport, so you can land there) but as we flew over at about a thousand feet, we saw nothing. No lights, nothing. Collin kept furiously clicking on the CTAF for runway lights (typically you click 5-7 times on your mike and the runway lights turn on, giving you a visual reference at nite) but we still saw nothing. IFR approach into CPC was then arranged for with ATC (air traffic control) and we landed. Let's just say on a scale of 1-10 for challenging instrument landings, this one was a solid 8. Maybe even 8.5.

Obviously, the weather had gotten worse with time. As we refueled (there was not a soul around), we checked the weather on the flight computer and with ATC. When we called to enquire about flying to Daytona Beach, the briefer paused, and said, "Have you seen the latest radar image?" No, we replied, we have not. After another pause that indicated part disbelief, part bewilderment, the guy says, "Well you got a line of thunderstorms running west to east, tracking east, across the entire state of Florida south of Georgia". Thunderstorms? In January??? OK. Easy Call. To Kate, that is, a friend who lives in Savannah, Georgia. Professor Kate answered the call at about 1045PM and she graciously agreed to let us stay with her. That's when I mentioned it'd be about two hours before we arrived. Take a cab, was her reasonable response.

Icing
We filed direct SAV and took off, immediately into the soup. Not a problem, though nighttime IMC is a little bit challenging in the red sled, because of less-than-optimal cockpit lighting. More of a concern was Collin's visual inspection of the wings at 6000'. "We got a little ice". I hate ice. I am afraid of ice. So we asked for 4000'. Still in the soup. After a few minutes, Collin:"We still got a little ice". Three thousand feet. "We still got some ice." However there is one thing I hate more than ice, and that is controlled flight into terrain. I hesitated to go lower. Collin glued his eyes to the wing, and after 10 or so minutes, the ice seemed to go away. Now we are not talking about alot of ice; this stuff just looked like whiter areas on the wings. Very thin, very little ice. But like I said, I hate ice. Any ice. Anyway, we managed. The approach into SAV was an ILS and we busted out at about 600'. The tower was closed, ground was closed, the terminals were closed; so there we were, at this humongous airport, trying to figure out where to go. We found an FBO and parked the plane, then proceeded to look for an egress. It's hard to enter an airport premises but usually you can find a oneway gate to get out. Usually. After walking around the perimeter of the tarmac for an hour, we gave up. There was simply no way for us to leave the airport compound. So we got back in the red sled and taxied a couple miles, to another FBO, where we found a turnstile exit. And there was even a yellow cab waiting for us! We hustled it to Kate's, who was nice enough to open the door at 230AM...

There's lots of low white stuff.
9AM came pretty quick, after flying all day prior. I was still in bed when Kate came in. Eyes still closed, I asked her to give me a weather briefing, and she looks outside, and pronounces, "There's lots of really low white stuff." In spite of this, Collin and I headed to the airport and filed for Dayton Beach (OMN). A very pleasant, uneventful flight.

The plane up to now is running well. Fuel burn is lower, speeds are up, all looks good. The plan is to leave for Cozumel via Key West, tomorrow. Weather should be fair, VFR (though we will go IFR).

In Daytona Beach we are staying with Chad and hanging out with Collin's buddies.