May 21, 2010 off to Coronel Suarez, to visit Eric

It’s an early morning start to get weather and catch the taxi by 6:30am. Weather isn’t looking that great, but I have an optional airport with approaches and Buenos Aires as a backup alternate. If everything is low IFR, I have enough gas to return to good weather. Still, as Eric said in his email last evening, the rain seems to be following me. Actually, I believe it’s leading me by one day. It’s supposed to rain all weekend, oh well.

After pre-flighting the plane, I went inside to make sure everything was ok. All the employees were in the same office drinking coffee. They trooped out as I arrived, but waited in the hall. The flight plan guy said that everything was ok, I showed him that I had paid the fees and he said I was ok to go. The guys in the hall then started talking. Apparently the tower guy was one of them, so he now had to go to work. They joked with him as he headed upstairs.

I’m in the air now, cruising along at 8000 feet. It’s a non-radar environment, so I have to report intersections and the time to the next intersection. It was beautifully clear at Iguacu, but there is a low undercast now. I hope that will burn off. I can see the edges and ground beyond, so it’s localized.

Well, things got interesting after four hours of flying. As I got close to Buenos Aires, I finally picked up the weather and terrible it was. 400 foot overcast with 3 kilometer visibility. Not good. With solid clouds under me, I don’t hold any hope of descending into a VFR only airport. So, I ask to deviate to my alternate. It has an ILS approach and is only a one hour flight from my destination. If things are VFR underneath, I could still get the Coronel Suarez. We’ll see.

As I’m headed for my alternate, the controller offers direct to my destination; hmm that doesn’t make sense. So I say, no, I want the ILS approach at Tandil and what’s the weather there. After a minute he returns with visibility 600 meters and ceiling zero. That’s not going to work. I ask to go to my second alternate, San Fernando near Buenos Aires. He gives me radar vectors and I listen to the weather again. It’s just above minimums. I do a full instrument approach and land.

Gerard had told me it was a small airport and relatively easy to get everything done. So, in I went. Everyone was very helpful; but weather wasn’t going to improve for three days. What to do. I couldn’t reach Eric by phone and there was no wifi at the terminal. Then one person who had helped me offered to try on his phone. His went through and I talked with Eric. I explained the problem. I said I’d take a hotel for the night, watch the weather and see when I could get further south to see him. If everything failed, I’d have to return north.

Knowing that Claude, another Earthrounder, was still in Buenos Aires, I took a taxi to his hotel. We’ll have a wonderful dinner together then he’ll head out to Australia and I’ll keep watching the weather.