On a rainy Friday morning Fouad and I arrived at Fort Lauderdale Executive ready for our flight to Colombia. The day prior, over Whatsapp, the choice way to communicate with South American airports, I was told by handler Oscar Bravo that the civil aviation department of Colombia accepted our flight plan and we were cleared to fly.
We planned one fuel stop in Grand Caymans. Oscar said to call before departing caymans, and call again when on the ground in Colombia.
Colombian Permit needs fresh 1st class medical
The permit was not easy to get. Few days before the flight we were told Colombia requires a 1st class medical, and only recognizes it for 1 year. My 1st class medical was from 2 years ago so we scrambled and got 1st class medicals in Key West, the purgatory where we were stuck for 3 weeks waiting for engine work to get done.
Cuban Permit is free
After much searching I finally got a person in Havana on the phone, and was able to email my cuban overfly permit. I received an authorization from Havana just 1 hour after sending the email, on a national holiday, and it was completely free.
Weather
Weather over Miami was a real soup. Heavy precipitation and cells above south of the airport. Buckets of rainwater coming down, streets flooded when we got up in the morning. Ceilings were low so we filed IFR. East the skies were moderate precip with some cells, but we would be flying IFR with well trained Miami controllers, a stratus, storm scope, this is an easy soup to navigate through.
FAA Ramp check
GPS programmed, we taxi to the active runway. Near the threshold tower says "taxi back to customs, all international flights must be cleared". Weird- I have flown international dozens of times and have never had to talk to customs on departure. But what to do? I taxi back. We pull in and instead of customs, I am greeted by the FAA. "This is a completely random ramp check". Bullshit. This had nothing to do with customs. I didn't even file a flight plan for Colombia, just to Grand Cayman, not sure why they picked me out.
I had all documents in order, FAA guys were super nice, got to play with the drug dog, and we were off.
Departure into the soup
Our clearance changed to fly east of miami instead of south to key west because of weather. After about an hour of IMC, light to moderate precip, we got into clear weather and soon were flying over Cuba. I asked for lowest altitude, they gave us 9000. Cuba is pretty boring, to fly over, mostly farms. The South coast is really beautiful with pristine white sand beaches, blue waters, and soon you fly over Key Largo, an amazing island off South coast of Cuba.
Fuel stop in Grand Cayman
Cayman people were really really nice. Costs were low, we didn't even have to show passports and the handler gave us a ride to nearby super market with awesome hot fresh local food. We filed a paper flight plan for Colombia and departed.
Fuel flow loss in departure over open water!
The plane has a newly overhauled engine with about 4 hours on i, mineral oil, so I have been extra careful monitoring EGT, CHT, oil temps and pressures to look for trends in changes. We have been doing high IAS 130ias+ climbs to keep engine cool. But on last climb, CHTs were really low, around 300. They say 380 is fine, so we did a lower IAS climb this time, around 110ias. CHTs remained below 180, EGTs were beautiful flat line with low temps, everything looked good. Suddenly I see red flicker - the oil light annunciator. Fuck, the oil temps had gone way up and were near redline.
We were at 10,000' so I told ATC we would level for a few minutes. Temps quickly dropped to 225' on the oil and everything was good again.
We climb up to 13000' and I don't know exactly when, but I suddenly see the fuel flow had dropped from 13.3gph down to 11gph and we were running round. I brought mixture back up and told my copilot to watch the mixture knob, he must have bumped it.
A few minutes later fuel flow is low again. I bring mixture up again but I can see the red knob is far more forward than it should be. WTF is going on? I see fuel flow slowly dropping with mixture jammed almost all the way forward. It's not a rough running engine, so i knew it wasn't anything to do with magnetos or ignition problems.
I went through metal check of all systems in my head and my thought was "dear god, we are losing the engine driven fuel pump, we are going to have to water ditch". Both caymans and jamaica were beyond gliding distance.
The SR22 has only one mechanical fuel pump. The boost bump can only provide about 1gph of flow, it's only there to pressurize the fuel lines in case of vapor lock. This is not enough to even maintain idle. If you lose your mechanical fuel pump, all those fancy systems, those 6 cylinders with probes are useless, you're in a glider.
So then I think, what if there's vapor lock in the fuel lines? I turn on boost pump and cycle tanks, fuel flow jumps to 19gph. WOW. I bring wait a while, then lean it and things are stable. I eventually turn the fuel pump off and fuel flow drops by 1gph as expected.
I've never had vapor lock before - but knowing that the oil temps were up to near redline makes me think some components in the engine got really hot, which explains why fuel was boiling in the lines.
The rest of the flight was perfect, no problems at all. In retrospect I am disappointed I didn't immediately try the boost pump, but, this was not a rough running engine problem so my mind didn't think about those checklists until I thought through the problem more.
Colombia rejects entry and tells us to turn around
We are very happy to start talking to Colombian ATC. But they ask us weird questions. Are you single engine? Are you a piston aircraft?
15 minutes later the Colombian ATC guy says we cannot enter Colombia. No night time flying is permitted for single engine planes. I did some quick math and we had just enough fuel to go to Jamaica or Caymans, but we'd be flying another 3 hours and screw up the whole trip. I told the ATC guy "unable, insufficient fuel". We were just beyond the halfway point so it was believable.
He was coordinating with authorities and said they would be waiting for us on the ramp. Oh well, at least we'll get there.
We continued to report on progress. I was reading the jeppessen airway guide about Colombia and saw nothing about this night time flying restriction. But I did see wording about Humanitarian flights. So, I told ATC guy we are a humanitarian flight. He became very friendly and talked to the authorities and got us special permission to fly in at night. Wow, colombian jail avoided!
Night arrival in Colombia
The last 45 minutes of the flight we were visual night time and watched a spectacular light show as a cell pulsed with lightning strikes 50nm off at 2 o clock. ATC told us visual conditions into Santa Marta airport.
We had a nice landing into SKSM and spent the next 2 hours waiting for Colombian customs to arrive. The airport is small, there is not even a vending machine, it was real torture. It's boiling hot, and we are standing around waiting.
No english in Santa marta
Then, we spent another 2 hours after customs arrived arguing about out documentation. Surprise - not a single person spoke a word of english. I have been learning Spanish for past month, came in really handy. We'd be totally screwed without it.
The ATC guy spoke English, but not that well. Some of the things he said we could not understand and after asking 3 times for repeat he gave up.
The idiot customs guy refused to talk to our handler on the phone, he says it's not authorized, and there is no internet, so we were hopelessly stuck in a deadlock. He told us to fly to Cartagena where the handler was, but we can't fly at night.
The problem was I didn't have a prepared gendec. I intended to fill it in at the airport since it was just 2 of us on the plane, but for him this was a reason to deny us entry into the country.
Finally another guy talks to our handler on the phone, and eventually they let us fill in a new gendec and enter Colombia. Set the captives free ---Bob Marley!
It's awesome being in Colombia with an N plane. We're the only N plane here.
Ecuador does not allow high altitude flights
Ecuador rejected our permission to enter Quito. There is no avgas in Quito, and the aircraft must have a "high altitude certifications" from manufacturer. I don't know what this is, and they can't tell me either, so I made my own high altitude endorsement manual for the SR22 and looks like they will accept it.
The airways are mostly around 9500 and airport isa round 9000, it's no problem for SR22. POH publishes takeoff performance up to 10000', climb up to 16000', and cruise up to 17000'. I think tomorrow we will get our permit.
We can get avgas at an airport on the coast, and quick 45 minute hop to Quito.
Photos from trip here. Flying, flight planning, etc.
We planned one fuel stop in Grand Caymans. Oscar said to call before departing caymans, and call again when on the ground in Colombia.
Colombian Permit needs fresh 1st class medical
The permit was not easy to get. Few days before the flight we were told Colombia requires a 1st class medical, and only recognizes it for 1 year. My 1st class medical was from 2 years ago so we scrambled and got 1st class medicals in Key West, the purgatory where we were stuck for 3 weeks waiting for engine work to get done.
Cuban Permit is free
After much searching I finally got a person in Havana on the phone, and was able to email my cuban overfly permit. I received an authorization from Havana just 1 hour after sending the email, on a national holiday, and it was completely free.
Weather
Weather over Miami was a real soup. Heavy precipitation and cells above south of the airport. Buckets of rainwater coming down, streets flooded when we got up in the morning. Ceilings were low so we filed IFR. East the skies were moderate precip with some cells, but we would be flying IFR with well trained Miami controllers, a stratus, storm scope, this is an easy soup to navigate through.
FAA Ramp check
GPS programmed, we taxi to the active runway. Near the threshold tower says "taxi back to customs, all international flights must be cleared". Weird- I have flown international dozens of times and have never had to talk to customs on departure. But what to do? I taxi back. We pull in and instead of customs, I am greeted by the FAA. "This is a completely random ramp check". Bullshit. This had nothing to do with customs. I didn't even file a flight plan for Colombia, just to Grand Cayman, not sure why they picked me out.
I had all documents in order, FAA guys were super nice, got to play with the drug dog, and we were off.
Departure into the soup
Our clearance changed to fly east of miami instead of south to key west because of weather. After about an hour of IMC, light to moderate precip, we got into clear weather and soon were flying over Cuba. I asked for lowest altitude, they gave us 9000. Cuba is pretty boring, to fly over, mostly farms. The South coast is really beautiful with pristine white sand beaches, blue waters, and soon you fly over Key Largo, an amazing island off South coast of Cuba.
Fuel stop in Grand Cayman
Cayman people were really really nice. Costs were low, we didn't even have to show passports and the handler gave us a ride to nearby super market with awesome hot fresh local food. We filed a paper flight plan for Colombia and departed.
Fuel flow loss in departure over open water!
The plane has a newly overhauled engine with about 4 hours on i, mineral oil, so I have been extra careful monitoring EGT, CHT, oil temps and pressures to look for trends in changes. We have been doing high IAS 130ias+ climbs to keep engine cool. But on last climb, CHTs were really low, around 300. They say 380 is fine, so we did a lower IAS climb this time, around 110ias. CHTs remained below 180, EGTs were beautiful flat line with low temps, everything looked good. Suddenly I see red flicker - the oil light annunciator. Fuck, the oil temps had gone way up and were near redline.
We were at 10,000' so I told ATC we would level for a few minutes. Temps quickly dropped to 225' on the oil and everything was good again.
We climb up to 13000' and I don't know exactly when, but I suddenly see the fuel flow had dropped from 13.3gph down to 11gph and we were running round. I brought mixture back up and told my copilot to watch the mixture knob, he must have bumped it.
A few minutes later fuel flow is low again. I bring mixture up again but I can see the red knob is far more forward than it should be. WTF is going on? I see fuel flow slowly dropping with mixture jammed almost all the way forward. It's not a rough running engine, so i knew it wasn't anything to do with magnetos or ignition problems.
I went through metal check of all systems in my head and my thought was "dear god, we are losing the engine driven fuel pump, we are going to have to water ditch". Both caymans and jamaica were beyond gliding distance.
The SR22 has only one mechanical fuel pump. The boost bump can only provide about 1gph of flow, it's only there to pressurize the fuel lines in case of vapor lock. This is not enough to even maintain idle. If you lose your mechanical fuel pump, all those fancy systems, those 6 cylinders with probes are useless, you're in a glider.
So then I think, what if there's vapor lock in the fuel lines? I turn on boost pump and cycle tanks, fuel flow jumps to 19gph. WOW. I bring wait a while, then lean it and things are stable. I eventually turn the fuel pump off and fuel flow drops by 1gph as expected.
I've never had vapor lock before - but knowing that the oil temps were up to near redline makes me think some components in the engine got really hot, which explains why fuel was boiling in the lines.
The rest of the flight was perfect, no problems at all. In retrospect I am disappointed I didn't immediately try the boost pump, but, this was not a rough running engine problem so my mind didn't think about those checklists until I thought through the problem more.
Colombia rejects entry and tells us to turn around
We are very happy to start talking to Colombian ATC. But they ask us weird questions. Are you single engine? Are you a piston aircraft?
15 minutes later the Colombian ATC guy says we cannot enter Colombia. No night time flying is permitted for single engine planes. I did some quick math and we had just enough fuel to go to Jamaica or Caymans, but we'd be flying another 3 hours and screw up the whole trip. I told the ATC guy "unable, insufficient fuel". We were just beyond the halfway point so it was believable.
He was coordinating with authorities and said they would be waiting for us on the ramp. Oh well, at least we'll get there.
We continued to report on progress. I was reading the jeppessen airway guide about Colombia and saw nothing about this night time flying restriction. But I did see wording about Humanitarian flights. So, I told ATC guy we are a humanitarian flight. He became very friendly and talked to the authorities and got us special permission to fly in at night. Wow, colombian jail avoided!
Night arrival in Colombia
The last 45 minutes of the flight we were visual night time and watched a spectacular light show as a cell pulsed with lightning strikes 50nm off at 2 o clock. ATC told us visual conditions into Santa Marta airport.
We had a nice landing into SKSM and spent the next 2 hours waiting for Colombian customs to arrive. The airport is small, there is not even a vending machine, it was real torture. It's boiling hot, and we are standing around waiting.
No english in Santa marta
Then, we spent another 2 hours after customs arrived arguing about out documentation. Surprise - not a single person spoke a word of english. I have been learning Spanish for past month, came in really handy. We'd be totally screwed without it.
The ATC guy spoke English, but not that well. Some of the things he said we could not understand and after asking 3 times for repeat he gave up.
The idiot customs guy refused to talk to our handler on the phone, he says it's not authorized, and there is no internet, so we were hopelessly stuck in a deadlock. He told us to fly to Cartagena where the handler was, but we can't fly at night.
The problem was I didn't have a prepared gendec. I intended to fill it in at the airport since it was just 2 of us on the plane, but for him this was a reason to deny us entry into the country.
Finally another guy talks to our handler on the phone, and eventually they let us fill in a new gendec and enter Colombia. Set the captives free ---Bob Marley!
It's awesome being in Colombia with an N plane. We're the only N plane here.
Ecuador does not allow high altitude flights
Ecuador rejected our permission to enter Quito. There is no avgas in Quito, and the aircraft must have a "high altitude certifications" from manufacturer. I don't know what this is, and they can't tell me either, so I made my own high altitude endorsement manual for the SR22 and looks like they will accept it.
The airways are mostly around 9500 and airport isa round 9000, it's no problem for SR22. POH publishes takeoff performance up to 10000', climb up to 16000', and cruise up to 17000'. I think tomorrow we will get our permit.
We can get avgas at an airport on the coast, and quick 45 minute hop to Quito.
Photos from trip here. Flying, flight planning, etc.
