Adventure Pilots

Here are the trip costs. One of our goals of this trip was to get others to go on adventures of their own whatever they may be. Often the costs of a trip aren’t as expensive as one might think.

This is just to illustrate the costs of this particular adventure and to get people thinking about how real and possible an adventure(not necessarily aviation related) of their own might be. We think we got a pretty good deal for the magnitude of the adventure.

Plane expenses*:

6 months of interest on loan $1,600

6 months of insurance $558.50

Life raft $500 rental

Life Jackets $300

Handling fee** $1,200

Traveling Expenses-

Satellite Phone Rental $185($170 rental+$15 in phone calls)

Fuel*** $3,580.55

16 days food/drink/lodging/etc**** $1,679.09 per person

Total Cost of the trip $12,961.32

Total Cost per person $4,320.44

*20 year loan. 6 month time frame because we are planning other adventures between the three of us with Charlie Banana in the future. Obviously there is risk of ownership to consider in this cost as well. Planes can hold their value quite well if bought right but you can also lose money. Don’t go buy an airplane if you don’t know what you’re doing. Patrick got a good deal on the plane because he knows the market well, thus alleviating some of the risk.

** For help with handling government paperwork, entry/exit forms, flyover permits, etc.

***Fuel costs ranged anywhere from $3.50(Mexico) gallon to $7.00(Bahamas), Charlie Banana burns about 11-12 gallons per hour.

***Includes customs fees, taxes, taxi’s, etc. Also, we traveled inexpensively whenever possible; hostels, cheap hotels, and inexpensive meals.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Alex — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:04:42 +0000

Well,

Adventure Pilots

did it!

We have successfully the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean in a appropriately named, “Charlie Banana”. My expectations were slightly different, but traveling wouldn’t have the same appeal of excitement if everything went according to

plan

. When I first started to tell my friends and family about the trip many of them thought we simply were out to while others thought we had a . In all honesty, this adventure is much more than that. I am a , just as Patrick and Aaron are the same. This adventure was about getting outside our comfort zones, having new experiences, and .
A few of you might have thought we hit the to be able to afford this trip. If that were true, I would have bought a house in Costa Rica while I was there. The trip was actually more affordable than you might think. Once we have reviewed all of our trip we will be posting our trip cost and breakdown!

We will continue posting about this adventure and our adventures to come so make sure to check back with us. You can now subscribe to site if you want email reminders about changes on our site. If you would like to reserve a DVD or coffee table book of our trip click here.

We hope to have met one of our major goals- To inspire others to chase their dreams and have their own adventures. Anything is possible and your reality is what you make it, so get out and have a blast!

The Islands Man

Aaron — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:59:58 +0000

Well, we’re back Stateside after completing our journey around the Caribbean Circle. The last legs of our flights in the States were met with cold temperatures, strong headwinds, a hairy landings. All of which seemingly said to us “get your butts back to the Islands.”

After departing Colombia we made our way to Aruba and were promptly met with people that spoke English and with people that were wondering what three 20 somethings were doing coming from Colombia.

After busting out the drug dogs at the airport, making Patrick undress Charlie Banana, and some intense questioning they finally realized we weren’t Pablo Escobar reincarnated.

Aruba looked like a fun place to check out(minus the high prices) but we were only there for a pit stop on our way to the Bahamas. We had originally planned on extending the route further east towards Grenada and the Virgin Islands.

The leg to Grenada would have been a long one so those plans were dashed by a headwind that could have caused a gas shortage and forced an emergency landing(unannounced) in Venezuela. Having seen what arriving without notice can do in Colombia(a US ally) we decided that doing the same in Venezuela(definitely not a US ally) might actually result in the airplane seizure we had just avoided.

So North to the Dominican Republic it was. The change in plans meant roughly 330 nautical miles over open ocean.

There was something eerily exciting(at least for me) about dawning the life jackets and getting the preflight briefing from Patrick about how to deploy the life raft in case we had to ditch in the open ocean.

Not that I wanted to ditch, but floating on life raft in the Caribbean for a few days waiting for rescue has an odd appeal to me. I’m a sucker for an adventure I guess. And that definitely would have been an adventure within an adventure if you will.

Anyone who’s ever flown a single engine plane knows there’s always a chance the engine can fail and be forced to ditch or emergency land. As the saying goes “there’s pilots who’ve had an engine failure and there’s pilots who will”.

I’m one of those pilots who has yet to have an engine failure. Fortunately, on this open water leg of the flight, Charlie Banana lived up to his robust reputation and delivered us perfectly into Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

We refueled there and headed on to the Bahamas. I’ve been to the Bahamas before(Nassau) and as preconceived notions go I wasn’t expecting too much of an adventure there. Everyone speaks English, they accept the dollar, and it’s a relatively “tame” country in my book.

It turns out, as should have been expected, the Bahamas are much much more. The island chain that is the Bahamas spans hundreds of miles across over 600 islands and cays.

It’s not just Nassau. I’ve traveled enough to know better than to stereotype a country based on a short visit, but guilty as charged.

We arrived that afternoon in Great Inagua. It’s a big Island with a small population on the Southern tip of the Bahamas.

We arrived expecting your standard conveniences with the Bahamas. An ATM, some good conch, and a place to stay. We were happy to find two out of the three.

The missing link was the ATM. Having spent most of our cash previous to landing we weren’t far off from being stranded on Great Inauga.

We had just enough money to refuel the plane with some change left over to find a place to sleep and eat. We decided we could figure the rest out later and used the remaining hour of daylight to do a short flight around the Island.

We flew low over the coastline, by the lighthouse, over flocks of pink flamingos, and around the town. By the end of the evening it was apparent that more than a few of Islands 1,000+ residents had seen Charlie Banana making the rounds as they asked us with a thick Bohemian accent “oh you were in dat plane man?”.

After scoring what appeared to be the only “motel” on the island and frequenting the only open restaurant(where we found some much needed and delicious conch) we decided to venture to the local hangout with our last $20.

Given the island was so small in population there was only one place to be. We found it at a house turned bar called Angie’s. The people on Great Inagua were amazing. We all had a great time hanging out, dancing to the local music, and attempting to do the “rake n’ scrape” with the locals.(a form of dance where you scrape the ground with your feet similar to a bull about to charge).

As Patrick said to Alex and I “we’d managed to infiltrate the party quite well”. I chalk that up to the vibe of the islands and it’s friendly inhabitants willing to entertain.

The next day it was off to Exuma. The Exuma’s are an island chain within the Bahamas and to describe them as spectacular wouldn’t do them justice. The clarity of the water made it difficult to tell from the air if the water was 1 foot deep or 100. The water was simply clear, bath tub clear.

The white sand beaches, trees, and blue holes added to scenery as we arrived. Upon landing we realized we didn’t have enough time for another exploration flight so we decided to head over to the Chat N’ Chill. It might be the coolest place to hang out on the planet.

It’s a bar/restaurant accessible only by boat or water taxi where people from across the islands(and world for that matter) come to, well, Chat N’ Chill.

We brought all our filming gear with us, including the QuadCopter, and managed to meet half the 100 people there who were curious what we were up too.

There were boat captains(a la Captain Ron), Bohemians, Old Man and the Sea Characters(who haven’t slept on land in 45 years), and a smorgasbord of travelers and boaters from across the globe.

After an afternoon of filming, shooting the breeze, and soaking up the island sun and spirit we knew this was a place we could get used too.

The next day we headed out for States. But not before landing at some random island runways along the way. After navigating the customs and paperwork we’d experienced in some of the countries along the way it was good to taste pure freedom and be able to land at literally any airstrip that struck our fancy.

The Bahamas are an amazing place, and after seeing only 4 of it’s several hundred islands, it’s one I plan on returning too.

Warm Photos

Alex — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:52:50 +0000

We sure are missing the warmth of the Caribbean. If you live somewhere cold, I hope these photos will warm you up. Be sure to check out our gallery page to see even more photos from our trip.

The fun of traveling abroad Privado Avion style

Patrick — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:30:58 +0000

I knew from the beginning that the logistics of this trip would be challenging. I’ve flown around most of Central America in business jets with the support of a handling company. They charge about $2000 per stop, a little out of our budget, to make sure no one hassles you.

Big companies don’t like to pay “bribes” so they pay a handler and then the handler bribes everyone on the ground so you get treated like a VIP. Knowing that this type of service was not an option I started researching other possibilities and found Caribbean Sky Tours. Caribbean Sky Tours provides basic and full-service handling in the Caribbean, Central, and South America. I called and spoke with them and they immediately offered “priceless” advice about which airports are friendly and quick and which ones are not.

I was sold as I knew we needed this kind of consultation for a trip like this. We enlisted their services in early December. They provided a trip briefing that included every document that needed to be filed and specific instructions for entering and exiting every country along with an emergency phone number if anything went wrong. I was hoping not to need the latter but Columbia took care of that.

After our mechanical delay in Panama we got to know the folks at the airport pretty well and could get by even with our very weak spanglish. We filed an international flight plan to Cartagena, Columbia SKCG with the Panamanian authorities and obtained our general declaration complete with three different government agencies stamps. I thought we were legal eagle and good to go, all bases covered so we departed Panama City for Cartagena, a 3 hour flight As soon as we crossed the Darien Gap the pandemonium ensued.

The first controller had no idea what to do with us and told us to report over the Montero VOR. I checked in over the VOR and he insisted that he had us on radar 90 nm from the VOR headed North and that if we continued we would not end up in Cartagena. I eventually gave up convincing him that I was not lost and continued on my way switching frequencies to the next tower. For those of you who are used to flying in the US there are no centers at low altitudes you just check in with the individual airport towers.

The next guy thought we were going to another airport and asked us about five times where we departed from, how many souls on-board, etc. We lost him eventually too, and finally made contact with Cartagena approach, all seemed ok now. We were cleared to the Cartagena VOR and then for a visual approach, easy enough. As we approached the VOR we were instructed to fly 6 miles West of the VOR. We flew a 6nm arc from the VOR which put us on final again, and we proceeded inbound behind an airbus. We were cleared to land about 3nm out from the runway and set up for a normal approach, until we were over the numbers and noticed that the airbus was back taxiing, hmm. Cessna 180 vs Airbus 320 I think I know who I’m betting on. I queried the tower and was instructed to enter a right downwind, overhead break, once again easy enough. We broke right and the tower informed us we were now number 3 for landing, easy enough. This time it worked out and we landed after 3 other aircraft.

After landing we were met on the ramp by a Colombian Police Officer who was very cordial and checked our documents and then gave us a ride in his truck to the terminal. We proceeded through customs pretty quickly and were headed out the door when things went South. A lady stopped us and asked for something in Spanish. We had no idea what she wanted, and she kept talking 100mph in Spanish. Eventually we were escorted to a small office full of Colombian Police Officers, none of which spoke any English, and the stare down began.

They insisted on some document we did not have and they were not entertained by our inability to magically produce it. I think Alex fell asleep half-way through the conversation and at one point I may have too. After about an hour they finally found someone that was bilingual. She entered the room and informed us that the authorities had the right to apprehend our aircraft!

Enough of this, time for the game to end. I asked for a phone and was escorted to a pay-phone bank where I called our handler’s emergency number. He spoke both English and Spanish and after a 5 minute conversation informed me they were insisting that we provide a document required when you are permanently importing an aircraft to Columbia. They would not relent on the fact we must fill out this form but finally agreed to let us fill it out post landing, which we were happy to do. Off to the hotel for a night in Columbia.

We arrived at the airport about 10 am the next day and the game began again! We filled out form after form and walked all over the airport paying fees, $200 and 1 hour later we thought we were done. Everyone wanted a copy of our general declaration and somehow we managed to give them all away before the last stop. This hung us up for about 3o minutes while Aaron convinced the last security guard that she really did not need a copy of our gen dec more than the customs officer did.

Finally we were on the ramp with our plane, 2 hours after we arrived at the airport. At this point we requested fuel, which required the truck to cross the runway. Twice we saw the truck pull up on the other side of the runway and wait for 5 minutes and then disappear. The game was on again, after an hour we decided to taxi to the truck and give him no other choice than to fill us up. We managed to pull up to the truck and the driver promised he would fill us up in 10 minutes. After 30 minutes we had our tanks topped off and were ready to depart we thought. The ramp agent had informed us that the fuel truck would accept credit cards, so we did not have enough Colombian Pesos to pay for the fuel as they would be useless as soon as we departed.

After fueling us the truck driver demanded cash only so Aaron went back through customs and airport security to an ATM and pulled out several million pesos to pay the guy. When he got back from his second adventure through security and customs the driver now demanded US dollars, oh the power of the greenback. The problem is the ATM only dispenses pesos. At this point I had enough and made it very clear he was going to take our damn Pesos or he was not going to get paid. Miraculously he found a chart one page down on his clipboard that had prices in Pesos. We paid him what equalled about $6 US dollars per gallon, got in the plane, and left as fast as possible. We thought the game was over when we crossed the Colombian border into Aruban airspace, little did we know Columbia would haunt us.

We landed in Aruba and were greeted by what seemed like a friendly English speaking police officer who ask for our passports and the usual paperwork. He then asked us into another obscure office and informed us something was not right. He began interrogating us, at least he spoke English, but this meant he also probably new I was not entertained. He tried to play the three of us against each other by asking exact times and dates for each departure and exactly why were doing this. He then informed us our aircraft was going to be searched, I could see the twinkle in his eye. He thought he had himself a plane full of coke. Our plane was searched by a drug dog and then they insisted that I remove the interior, arghh. I tried to tell them they had to call a mechanic but eventually did it for them because I did not want them destroying my plane.

After they were satisfied that we were just a bunch of dumb gringos not drug runners they became very friendly and explained the situation. Columbia failed to inform them of our international flight plan, which was filed with 3 offices that required my fingerprint in ink to file. When we arrived unannounced on their ramp and told them we came from Columbia they had never met any gringos dumb enough to try that without financial motivation from a Cartel.

To the credit of the Aruban officers I probably would have done the same thing in their shoes. One of them was even nice enough to call a friend who had a condo that was considerably cheaper than the standard $200/night on the island. When we departed the next morning we received a bill for $230 in airport, FBO, and landing fees so I am striking Aruba off my list of places to go simply because of the price. However, if you did not arrive with such a suspicious story I’m sure customs would be no problem. I’ve struck Columbia off my list places to go in private aircraft permanently, which is to bad because it is a beautiful country full of what seemed to be nice people outside of the customs and immigration offices.

Random Pictures from the Trip

Aaron — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:05:55 +0000

We’re back in the States! We’ll be making our way back to Arkansas tomorrow. Here’s some pics in the meantime!

: We were doing some serious shooting, ha. Tried to take a video, got this instead.

Patrick and Alex napping in flight. We took turns either napping or flying when needed.

The mountains of paperwork in Colombia. Panama was just the same too.

Alex snapped this in Cartagena.

Over the Darien Gap.

Alex shot this from the roof of our hotel in Panama City.

Patrick's mosquito bites. The following day his foot was infected and swollen.

More customs fun

Aaron — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:37:37 +0000

When we arrived in Cartagena, Colombia I wasn’t expecting a whole lot of trouble with customs. I’d been there this summer and it was a piece of cake(commercial flight though).

I was about as wrong as you can get. We disembarked easy enough and rode across the airport to customs and immigration. We got our stamps and made our way towards the door.

We were then approached by a woman who was speaking insanely fast spanish of which I caught none. We were asked to come with a group of them to the DIAN(customs) office.

It was here after a few conversations in Spanish(I speak a little and no one in the room spoke any English) that I began to understand we were missing a form of some sorts that we were required to fill out prior to landing in Colombia.

And evidently that’s a pretty big deal to them. We sat in the room for about 45 minutes as I explained to them we were informed that the missing document wasn’t necessary for us since were only staying in Colombia one night.

I’m not sure whether they were messing with us or genuinely thought we were in violation of the law but the situation seemed somewhat serious.

At this point I decided to start recording the conversation on my iphone because I thought it would make some good audio for the DVD .

No sooner than I hit record did a woman walk in who spoke perfect English. She relayed some information to us that my remedial understanding of Spanish definitely did not pick up.

She said quite clearly that if we can’t find the form getting permission to come into the country the authorities had the option to seize the plane.

Uhhhh, that wasn’t going to work. We highly doubted they would actually take the plane, but you never know, and we definitely didn’t want to burn the rest of the day in customs.

After recording that exchange on my iphone I decided to turn the recorder off to save the clip and to not push the envelope if they caught me recording. That might have led to some other issues.(I’ll take my chances they don’t read this post, ha).

I got quite the surprise as I went to turn the recorder off the clip began to play back on speaker phone!

I tried to turn the phone on silent but that didn’t work. After about 5 seconds of button pushing and cussing under my breath I managed to turn it off. Several of the customs officers were looking around wondering what the heck it was they just heard. But thankfully there were enough people in the room talking about what to do with us that no one figured out what had just happened.

Suffice it to say the heart was beating a little faster than usual.

Patrick then left the room to go call the handler’s emergency line and see what we needed to do. Alex and I sat in the room with our stuff and tried to lighten the mood with some light spanish convo’s.

I doubt it helped but we managed a few laughs from them and about 15 minutes later they said we could fill out the form after landing(usually done prior) just this one time and be on our way.

I think one of the officers had made a phone call or two to some of their higher ups and decided we weren’t worth screwing with any more. And Patrick thinks they were just having a good time screwing with some gringos.

Either way, we filled out the form, said our muchas graciases, and were finally on our way. As with every customs office we’ve been too they were very friendly as can be, but the red tape cost us some time and almost an airplane.

Colombia is an amazing country and has some amazing people(I spent 16 days there this summer and plan to go back again). I’d check it out via commercial flight instead of private though.

Just a few…

Alex — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 02:49:35 +0000

Panama City Departure

(The next few are from the old part of the city in Cartagena, Colombia)

Church in Cartagena

Mundane Entertainment

Aaron — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 20:30:24 +0000

One of the best parts about traveling and seeing new places is how even the mundane can be entertaining.

Back when I was in college a buddy(Jeff) and I were working on a farm near Fayetteville doing manual labor in the Arkansas summer heat.

A week earlier Jeff had dropped off a friend of his in Yellowstone, Wyoming and was telling me how awesome it was out there.

We decided if we were gonna work like dogs and pick ticks off each other we should do it out West for the summer instead of business as usual in Arkansas.

3 days later we’d packed up and arrived in Big Sky, Montana for a summer of work on a guest ranch there.

We’d never been more excited to do some of the worst jobs in the world. We coined a phrase for mundane activities while we were enjoying our summer in Montana. Everything was better because we were in a new place. We were in Montana.

It didn’t matter that I was a dishwasher emptying the grease trap every night.

I was a dishwasher emptying the grease trap in Montana!

When we had to go grocery shopping for ramen noodles and canned tuna because it was all we could afford it was cool because we were grocery shopping in Montana.

So two days ago when were in Panama and in desperate need of a shave(Patrick needed a haircut as well) it was more fun than usual, simply because we were getting a shave and a haircut in Panama!

We’d been looking for a barber shop for a few days now. Our beards had gotten long enough where a razor really wasn’t going to work.

We had asked our taxi driver to recommend a restaurant to us and take us wherever it was because we were pretty hungry. It worked like a charm. We had the best meal of the trip at a genuine Panamanian restaurant and sure enough right across the street was a barber shop we’d been looking for.

We made our way over there and got the best straight razor shave we’d ever had(Patrick got his hair buzzed too).

This guy was meticulous and great at what he did. We spent about an hour in there as he left no hair uncut. There were your standard lost in translation moments as always. Patrick ended up with a goatee by accident which he’s grown fond(oddly enough just like the barbers).

We all napped, relaxed, and enjoyed a dang good shave in Panama.

Before the shave and naps.

After

Catching up on sleep