I haven't flown over Cuba yet, our airplane was already in jamaica with another crew, so I airlined down to kingston. Our overflight permit is in place for friday's return trip. It should be fairly routine, but the Cubans can always change there mind and make us go around, so we will carry plenty of fuel just in case.
The trip from Jamaica to St Lucia and Trinidad was very interesting. We get very spoiled in the US flying in a radar environment with good communications. After leaving Jamaican airspace, they turn you over to the Port-au-Prince controllers who have no radar at all in the entire country. Some times they answer you, sometimes they don't. All the things you learned about and then forgot for the instrument written come into play, position reports, compulsary reporting points, and time estimates to fix crossings.
Then you talk to Santiago control in the Dominican Republic who have radar. Next comes San Juan center in Puerto Rico. The first controller there had a thick hispanic accent, but then the next controller was obviously from the mainland USA. Very comforting to hear a freindly voice. Next was Piarco Ocean control. again no radar and all position reports. Almost had them climb a 737 through our altitude on the return trip. fortunately we both had traffic information onboard and resolved it before it became an issue.
Then we talked to Martinique approach, who speak french and then St Lucia approach. Between St Lucia and Trinidad it was back to Piarco for most of the way. what was interesting about that leg was I think they used two different transmitters at the same time, because it sound like they were stepping on each at the midway point. At some points during the trip I would ask for the next frequency when they sounded like I was about to lose them and a couple of times I had to get another aircraft to relay messages to ATC.
Got to talk to some people here in Haiti. it is devastating to see buildings that are either reduced completely to rubble or three and four story buildings that have pancaked down on top of each other. Many of these buildings still have remains in them and the only way they have of removing the debris is sledge hammers, buckets and wheelbarrows. Very sad to see. Things that we take for granted like 24 hr electricity just don't exist here, although they didn't before the earthquake either.
I have rambled on enough, I hope some of you find it intersting.
