Flying to Mexico

Great report and a very good cause. Thanks Ted.
 
I dunno, we got all these illegal immigrants coming from Mexico, and now we've got their dogs too?

Good for you Ted, sounds like quite an adventure. More flying in one trip than I get in a year. You dah man.
 
"Since Laurie is a pilot, we claimed her as first officer. I don't know if you could claim a third person as flight engineer... "

I'm still waiting for my epaulets and 3 stripes....
 
wait a second ted, why weren't YOU the FO?
 
Ok, I'm finally getting around to uploading some pictures from the trip, although I can't figure out how to insert them larger, but you can click on them for larger size.

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Mexican 100LL truck. I figured it was about as comforting as Mari's Russian Jet-A truck.

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The view from our hotel room in Cozumel. It was right on the water, and they did a lot of scuba/snorkeling.

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Over water. No really, there's no land anywhere. That was when talking to Havana center.

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The island of Cozumel as we were flying into the airport.

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Me doing what I do best - put dogs in an airplane.

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Back we go over lots of water en route to New Orleans.

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As I said, lots of water. No land.

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"So do you think we can make it over those mountains?"
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
Ok, I'm finally getting around to uploading some pictures from the trip, although I can't figure out how to insert them larger, but you can click on them for larger size.
Click to expand...
Nice pictures, Ted. The way to insert them larger is to first click on the link yourself to make the picture big, right click the picture, select "copy image location", select the insert image icon (the one with the mountains and yellow sky) and paste the link there. I always resize the images to a smaller file size before I do that though, or the posts take a long time to load, especially for people with slow connections.
 
Everskyward said:
Nice pictures, Ted. The way to insert them larger is to first click on the link yourself to make the picture big, right click the picture, select "copy image location", select the insert image icon (the one with the mountains and yellow sky) and paste the link there. I always resize the images to a smaller file size before I do that though, or the posts take a long time to load, especially for people with slow connections.
Click to expand...

Now that makes more sense!

By the way, you mentioned that in Russia it was a pain to get to a restroom to use - in Mexico when we landed the first time they spent 20 minutes figuring out which restroom we were allowed to use. The second trip we learned the shortcut - just answer the questions of the guys with guns who come out to the plane immediately, and then they'll quickly take you to the customs building where there's a restroom right there. Go figure.
 
Enjoyed the write up Ted. Great Fun it sounds like.

We just got back from Sloshkosh and your over water journey makes our lake crossings look like puddles. lol
 
I just got back from another trip to Cozumel and back. At this point (my third trip), the guys remember us and the process actually went pretty quickly and smoothly. It still took us about an hour upon arrival and prior to leaving to get all the paperwork done. However knowing the process and where everyone was made it go significantly quicker. This trip, it didn't seem nearly so bad.

Havana was even more accommodating this time than it was last trip. We effectively got direct to Cozumel from Palm Beach. Going back to Key West, we went on G765, which is an international airway that goes through the Cuban Inner ADIZ, but is fine to be on without an overflight permit so long as you're at or above 8,000 ft (we confirmed this with Havana center). We actually got to see Cuba out of the plane, albeit not very well.

A handler actually was arranged to help us on departure day, but as we were familiar with the whole process, we got everything done ourselves by the time he arrived (we arrived 10 minutes before him). It would have been much more helpful the first trip, though.
 
LearDriver said:
Are you doing this route with or without the Cuban overflight permit?
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As stated above, without. From my research no flight over Cuba's inner ADIZ was allowed without one, but the outer ADIZ was fine. Havana center cleared me through the inner ADIZ without one, though (I even told them I didn't have an overflight permit and wanted to confirm). Surprised me, but nobody shot me down, either.
 
We always order one up just incase. It keeps the options open. Besides you never know if one controller lets you do something if the controller in the next sector may make a deal about it and then request you to land and sort out the issues on the ground. We have never had any issues with Cuba at all. Though, our flight plans have the permit numbers listed in box 18 for other information.

The only place that would give us grief like wanting us to land was Cenamer Control when we would overfly Nicaragua. It would take about 10 to 15 minutes to negotiate with them to get passed the issue. Usually transmitting the billing address for the fees was all they wanted.

It seems that you found Havana Center to be very user friendly. I am hopeful that we will end up being able to fly there as a destination in the future.
 
For the flights through Havana center I've done, it is very easy to stay in the outer ADIZ without issue. If weather is really that bad, I'm probably staying on the ground. Ordering an overflight permit is something we thought about doing, but really wasn't necessary. But your destinations are differnet. If we were planning on going further south, I would file for one if that would ultimately be the quickest route.

Havan Center was, in fact, extremely friendly to me. This makes a total of 4 passages through their airspace in the past 4 months, and they have always been friendly in my experience. I, too, would like to be able to have Cuba as a destination one day. Until then, though, I'll stick to chatting with them. Getting to see the island from 8000 ft and several miles offshore was still pretty cool from my perspective.
 
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