Tuesday, May 25, 2010 to Belem

Cruising along in clear and smooth conditions with a ten knot tailwind; what more could you ask for? How about a good night’s sleep. I was awake all night. I think that last cup of coffee, offered by the meteorological guy at the airport at 4pm, stuck with me all night. It was good and I had another this morning!

I didn’t get into the main city, but you can see that the infrastructure is well prepared. The airport has everything, see pictures. New tower, big fuel station and fire station. Nice terminal, with not too many people. The roads are wide, four lanes going into the city. Plenty of room with trees in the middle and on both sides. It’s still very clean.

This morning I walked straight out to airside and the flight plan office, checked the weather and signed the flight plan, had a cup of coffee, with the met guy, and restroom break and was on the ramp pre-flighting in no time at all. Plenty of time, sunny day, very relaxed. The thunderstorms aren’t forecast until after I’ve landed. Let’s hope the next two days go as well.

I got some pictures of the airport after takeoff and you can see the city also. It’s in a beautiful location with hills and lakes around. Very much like Brasilia. I hope this planned city works. I can see fields all around, so maybe this used to be rain forest as well.

I’m talking with Amazonica Center again. As usual, they want time estimates to the next few intersections. With the GPS doing all the calculations, that’s pretty easy. Time to get the Belem charts out and figure out what might happen. Yesterday, clear weather and no-one else in the area, and I had to do a full VOR-DME 11 nautical mile arc to final. Although I had the airport in site, and tried to shorten the procedure by telling approach that it was in site, he didn’t want to hear that until I was on final, then passed me over to tower. The last three landings at Campo Grande and Iguacu, they actually let me do visual approaches; but, no such luck yesterday.

Wow, that was expensive avgas yesterday, $8.41 per gallon. Cheaper than Manaus, but more expensive than other places in Brazil. I should get the last fill-up tax-free, this afternoon, as I’m departing the country, we’ll see. Although, the airport fees here in Palmas were less expensive by $50 than other controlled airports.

There was one big isolated buildup to the northwest as I departed. Now, after two hours and 10am local time, there are a few buildups to the east south east. Nothing ahead that I can see.

I received an email from Wes saying that the propagation doesn’t look good for HF communication today. I tried the net at 13z and there was a lot of static. I called a few times and KD4CMV turned his beam on me and we spoke relatively clearly. At least I heard him well, but he said my transmission was light. At least he got my location and that I’ll call in on Thursday on my way to Puerto Rico.

Well, the weather is 1100 feet broken, so an ILS approach is required, but they give me a shortcut directly to the final approach fix. Wow, that’s nice. Under the clouds, I snap a few pictures of the city and airport and land. The parking if off in the “boonies” nowhere near anything. I’m all set to go and the avgas truck and Infraero bus haven’t shown up. It’s VERY hot with the sun beating down. I stand in the shade of the guard shack and finally the avgas truck shows up. After filling up, Infraero still hasn’t shown up, so I take a ride back in the Shell truck.

I completed all the paperwork except customs and immigration which must await the morning. Hopefully things will go smoothly and quickly.