We are staying at the Ker Alberte hotel, a French four start rating place in downtown Cayenne.
Very friendly and understanding management, the owner Laurent was there to great us and make our stay enjoyable
we had a french dinner with some Rum Agricole and liquid sugar cane sugar and lime....this is a great drink to learn the l,coal language after 2 bottle everyone was fluent in French,...easy with a 50% proof ...
we all had a big truck going over us that evening but we did sleep well
For this one I am doing the brief and the flight at the same time to get you, the reader in the mood
For this leg we are flying off shore.
This one the thing to do on take-off since w head some heavy shower to our left over Macapa.
The Brazilian approved all our request for deviation and gene help one of us to stay clear of the weather.
It is a short flight, only 1:30 mn for the Mustang.
During the flight we start to listen to the ATIS.
The ATIS is an hourly report of the weather condition at the airport where we are going and usually you can less these about 200 nm out...we did but the now we had was 50 mn old...and was giving us a dream of weather, visibility light wind no rain and no cloud....perfect....but lets get the latest one since we are seeing clouds there.
It came at 10 mn past the hour and we got it while we were on the approach , the good weather was gone, the weather radar was on and this was going to be a very wet approach. I made sure all was secure in the plane...but lucky for us no bumps..
This is the arrival in Cayenne......looks like we are going to land at Atlanta or Kennedy airport .
Leave it to the french to confirm their Motto: Why make it simple if you can make it complicated...they must have more traffic than Orly and De Gaulle in Paris combined.
In any case all of this is in the box and we have the ILS programmed too....by the way we have 3 ils for the same runway to choose from....why not...
After landing we had the visit of a very nice Custom agent, we have him our paperwork and all went very well. A nice man.
we transfer to the hotel, but we had to wait for taxis, even with the daily departure for the Air France Airbus 340, there were no taxi to be found....
I was up early and went to the airport to file the flight plans and pay the fees.
I am getting good at that.
Timing was perfect, I felt an hour before the participants at 06:30 and everything was ready at 08:00 for a speedy departure
weather seems ok
Beautiful from 40,000 feet
The approach in Belem was fine
as we started we were told the airport is IFR with 1000 feet and a 1000 meter visibility
we could see the Amazon
Our captain was ready
Flying over the city we could see the airport and the landing was assured.
Then started a long 3 hours of paperwork, custom, immigration, and flight Plan filing and paying the darn fees...3 hours while keeping an eye on the weather to make sure we will make it to our destination
We are ready bright and early in Rio to go to the international airport and fly north.
The transfer did not show up at 07:30, stuck in traffic.
We get 3 cars from the hotel and we are on our way..Took less than 30 mn to the Main Airport, but we could see the horrendous traffic going to town.
But...then under the impression I had to go and ONLY pay the fees for our parking, I sent the participants to prep their plant and I am doing the billing...This took about 10 mn per invoice, then I am told that as the captain I have to file the flight plan myself for the 3 planes....this tops another 45 mn, because my printed form is not good, I have to rewrite the FP and then the guy use my printed FL form with the route to enter in the computer...What a waste of time and a fantastic example of ineffective bureaucracy..
Wondering why we pay a handler?
Then we launch and this time the startup and the ground movement do work pretty well.
I forgot to mention the night before we had a great dinner and Steve went for the Oriental Restaurant, then we had a Sake Bottom's up competition.....the near perfect way to prepare a long flight the next day.
we had a beautiful arrival in Salvador under exquisite skies
The flight did progress well but we had to do a deviation of nearly 70 nm off course to avoid some build-up that top at 45,000 feet.
Here is our track
While I was at the main terminal ready to pay the fees and file the flight plan, same as I did in Rio, I am checking the weather and the satellite and made the decision that going to Belem that afternoon would be a pretty bumpy ride and very wet.
So we are staying in Salvador for the night and heading to the Covento.
I have been keeping an eye on weather for the last couple of days and made the decision last night to fly to Salvador de Bahia instead of Brasilia for our flight toward the Caribbean.
There is some instability in the air and the satellite photo looks pretty colorful, at least the coastline is more attractive.
Here is the brief and the weather.
The idea is to go to Salvador, refuel and go on to Belem for the night and then on to Cayenne and Barbados the next day.
Looks like we are going to have a little weather to deal with. No idea if we are going to be on top or not.
