North to Palmas

Monday, May 24, 2010 heading to Palmas

Cruising calmly and smoothly at 9,000 feet with a slight head wind and all the difficulties of the morning behind me. It was a very restful night with a good dinner, shower and breakfast. However, on looking out the window during breakfast, there were clouds above this morning.

On arriving at the airport, I went straight to the meteorological office; there was a cold front almost over Campo Grande and headed northeast with high winds and thunderstorms. My destination was clear and good weather. The front was not supposed to be at Palmas by tomorrow. I wanted to get off the ground and head northeast before it hit.

At the Infraero office for payment things went reasonably quickly. They offered me a small cup of their sweet coffee which Wayne and I had enjoyed during our stops on the way south. It seems that each country has its customs, sweet coffee here, sweet tea in India and mahte in Argentina.

After payment, I took the receipt to the flight planning office and asked that the takeoff time be brought forward by an hour. I only had refueling to complete and I could depart. The officer did the change immediately.

As I stepped out of the terminal to walk to the plane, there was a light drizzle and it looked very dark to the southwest. The Shell avgas truck was just pulling out to refuel someone else, so he would stop by my plane afterwards. I did the rest of the preflight and he showed up, just as it started raining more heavily. Slight problem, he doesn’t accept US dollars and I’ve spent most of my reais. Guess I got rid of the local currency too quickly. So, I just filled the mains, gave him all my reais and added a US 20 dollar bill to cover the last 20 reais that I was short. He accepted that. I didn’t want to take the time to go back to the terminal to get more local money from an ATM. That’ll teach me a lesson that Wayne was preaching: never pass up a gas truck, never pass up a bathroom. If I’d taken the gas offered upon arrival yesterday, I wouldn’t have had this problem this morning and would have had enough reais.

I called up the tower on the radio, knowing it was 35 minutes before take off time, but asked for engine start. He said to wait 20 minutes for the clearance. I asked for an early departure due to weather. He said to standby. I got my handheld radio out of the ditch bag so as not to stay on aircraft battery for too long. When I called again after 10 minutes, he let me start up but told me to wait for clearance. That was ok by me, I just wanted to get everything set up and be ready when he was.

Looking at the stormscope, there were no lightening strikes; that was one good point. The rain alternated between light and medium and the wind was a little gusty but not too strong. So, I felt that the front wasn’t over the field yet and I would be ok for takeoff.

A few minutes after getting everything setup, tower called with my clearance, I taxied out and took off. With a right turn after takeoff, I was heading toward clearer conditions and away from the storm. I took a few pictures of the storm behind me. It was bumpy with 15 knot headwinds at 4000 feet, but I was finally cleared to 9000 feet where it is smooth with very slight headwinds. Everything is running well and only four hours to go. ;-)

Margi sent me an email explaining that Palmas is another purpose built city, like Brasilia, but hasn’t really taken off yet. It will be interesting to see this type of city in its early stages. We saw pictures of Brasilia during its construction and early years. This might be similar.

When will I ever learn lesson number one: don’t drink that extra cup of coffee in the morning…I have to pee. As I am preparing, I see deep ravines cutting into the flat fields. What a view. I try to take a picture from my awkward peeing position. Fascinating rock formations. See above; the picture turned out after all. The Brazilian coffee was just too good to pass up. I should be ok for the last three hours of this flight.

At noon, 1600 zulu time, I tries to contact Wes, Sandy and Rusty on the HF radio. I couldn’t reach them, so tuned in the Maritime Net and heard him. I tried calling and he heard something, but not clearly enough to talk. I tried our group again, nothing. So, I had to reel in the antenna. Will try again tomorrow and should reach them during my long flights to Puerto Rico and back to Florida at the end of the week. Too bad we couldn’t talk today.

The winds have picked up, 16 knots on the nose now. So, less than two hours to go, but about 20 minutes longer than planned. There are some clouds forming on the horizon, but I don’t see any huge cumulonimbus buildups. Palmas is situated at 11 degrees south of the equator. Belem, my next stop tomorrow, is at one and a half degrees south and apparently it rains all the time. We’ll see tomorrow.

Onto the ground and gassed up right away, thanks Wayne. Went to the weather office and it looks good early tomorrow morning. Went to the Infraero and paid the bill. The woman at the information station got me a close hotel and taxi driver. I found an ATM and got more cash. Good to go.