Stressful Friday and Saturday

On the way to Bogota, I got a "fault message" telling me that the radar was "out of commission." - not the message I wanted to see.

Through the years, I have seen a lot. I am always ready to solve situations, respond to mechanical issues and work with handling abroad, and most of the time it works out in my favor, but sometimes, it doesn't.

While flying the leg from Ochos Rios to Bogota, I turned the radar on to investigate some CB's (cloud buildups for non-aviators) around Bogota. Within 60 seconds the screen returned an error message. Pulling the breakers and restarting the radar did not clear the error.

After a hold, we were cleared on the ILS 13R, the glide slope took us thru the clouds and under the CB, no bumps, no rain and about 3 minutes of IMC.

Smooth touch down, good speed control and exit via taxiway R and then we were following our fellow Journeyer, a TBM, the Canadian one, to our local FBO.

Great spot, good service and everything organized as expected.

After a quick call to Team Mustang to handle the fault, I am told to reset the breaker and the battery, and to try the radar again....nothing different happens. The next step is to load the software again - easy to do since I carry the original SD card with all the software needed for the Garmin G1000 navigation system with me.

I run into Rick Garcia, the successful owner of Gulf Coast Avionics, he looks into the problem with me, and the "dead radar" is confirmed. We quickly call back to Air Journey headquarters and Cessna Team Mustang to find a replacement.

Great service from Cessna in Wichita, they have 2 in stock and are sending one express to Bogota with a planned arrival late Friday late afternoon.

Team Mustang presentation