Before leaving Nazca, I did my walk around and made sure the plane was ready. I started the engine and let it warm up. Once the engine was warm, I taxied out and ran up the power. The plane leapt forward. I held it down on the runway to make sure it would fly before I let the nose come up. The runway points down towards the sea. Once aloft, I turned and headed north until I was over the surrounding hilltops. I continued north following the coast, those towering mountains to the East. A straight course would take me over them but it added only a few minutes for me to stay over the coast and at lower altitude. Then the course took me out away from land and towards Central America. The mountains continued falling away until I was over the Pacific.
I settled back and relaxed flying along the red line on the screen and watching the miles click off. It was open ocean until I hit Costa Rica again.
It was times like this I wished the Mustang had auto pilot. I could close my eyes and get a nap like they do on commercial flights over the ocean. Didn’t know that? There are lots of reports by stewardesses about pilots sleeping on those long over ocean flights and apparently based on that flight that flew past Minneapolis by 150 miles, in the states as well.
I couldn’t, so on I flew, watching the miles slowly click off. Then I started to see the Central American mountains ahead. Slowly they rose out of the sea. I had purposely decided not to fly back to the same airport as I had the outbound leg. I chose the capital San Jose. I hit the coast and contacted air traffic. They guided me into San Jose. I saw an airport, a big runway, and waited for them to turn me. Then I saw another airport appear on the screen. One thing about GPS screens, they show you airports and surrounding restricted airspace. The first airport I saw wasn’t the one I was going to. I had no idea San Jose had two International airports. Why? ATC guided me around the one and lined me up on the other slightly to the north. I landed and taxied off. They had me taxi all the way to the west and into an out of the way apron out of harm's way, which was fine by me.
San Jose according to their own tourist stuff isn’t much of a tourist town. So I headed off to the airport hotel and got a room. I spent the time in the hotel bar watching soccer, which is slightly better than watching paint dry. I had a beer, but not enough to affect my flying the next day. I had dinner at the hotel and sacked out early.
The nice thing about a day like that is when you get up early the next day, you feel refreshed and eager to go. I was up at dawn and down at the airport. The plane had been fueled the day before.
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Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2010