Opportunity to fly light aircraft in South America

[PacoPollo]

And there are many stories...heck just look at American Airlines and what happened to them going into Cali. No help from ATC...

good luck...

PILOT ERROR

 

[satpak77]

maybe so but....

PILOT ERROR

yes, at the end of the day, the AA pilots should have known where they were, period, end of story

however ATC is very lacking in Colombia (esp back mid 90's) and this obviously did not enhance the safety level

 

[TurboS7]

Colombia is a wonderful country to fly in. There are three basic mountain areas that run north south. The valley reach almost all the way down the sea level. Bogota is located on a high plain at 8000 feet. To go east you have to take-off climb over Techo radio beacon, you can go VFR through the pass but you have to get to 11,500 to clear the entrance. The pass winds down to the town of VVC. As you come out of the pass you will see the beautiful llanos stretching to the horizon. These llanos are plains like our North American plains that stretch all the way to the Atlantic Ocean via Venezuela. The country is wild, very wild, with only about 1/4 person per square mile. It is full of wild game, white tail deer, capybarra, anaconda's. Raising cattle on the free prarie it what it is all about. Finca's exist about every 20 to 30 miles, squatter huts are sprinkled through the landscape. Any little town has all the things that our western towns had years ago, girls, bars, a wild gun fight every now and then and a Catholic and Penecostal church. Now comes the FARC a organized military bunch of thugs. They take advantage of this area forcing the locals to get involved with the drug trade, which they use the profits to arm themselves. They protect the locals but there is a large price to pay if you resist them. 80% of the wonderful finca owners that I knew are now dead, at the hand of the FARC. A FARC general lives in our old house and things are bad, real bad. I look forward to the day that the U.S. invades that area and burns the FARC good. That day will come it is just a matter of time.

As for the flying weather in the jungle it is very complex. There are 9 months of wet season and 3 months of dry. There is a big High that cycles the air over the steamy jungle to the Macarena mountains to the Andes and creates afternoon instability through all the mountain passes into Bogota. There is also an afternoon convergence that happens every day at San Jose de Guavirare at the head of the Apaporis and Vaupes river.The jungle starts here and goes all the way to the Amazon. Flying the jungle is another thing altogether,you must follow the rivers, if you go down you will never ever get out otherwise. In the Vaupes you have the town of Mitu, Miraflores, Leticia, and my favorite Araraquara( acutally a diffrent providence but the same general direction)In between is again FARC heaven, and lot's of cocca leaves.
If you love wild adventure and do not cherish your life or your freedom. Go for it. I have talked to many an American lost in the prison system with no hope of release. Remember the Colombian way, if they don't like you the policia arrest you and put you away. FARC controls everything, there is no law, only what the FARC wants and gets. Have fun. By the way the CIA will sell you down the river too, so I wouldn't trust them too much either.

 

[Swass]

You have a FARC General living in your house? And I thought my wife was bad news.

 

[Flechas]

Hey turbo, where do you live? and how come you have a FARC general living with you?

 

[avbug]

There are a lot of legitimate jobs in latin america that are operated by pilots with no certificates or minimal logged time. Government contract work is not among those assignments.

A few people alluded to Dyncorp's show in colombia. Theirs is a helicopter show; the fixed wing is a subcontractor, not dyncorp. The fixed wing program prefers other than blue passports for obvious reasons. You'll also need substantial ag time, and the ability to speak conversational spanish. It's worth noting that US pilots in the INL program require a lot more experience than their Colombian contemporaries...and it shows. Almost every aircraft loss down there has been other than a US citizen flying.

Inexperience and low weather, tall mountains, few navaids, weak to nonexistant ATC in many places (and a devil of a time understanding them when they are available) are some of the hazards. Sure, you can go get yourself hired. But to what end? Hired into the side of a mountain? Hired as a guest of the FARC? Hired into a chance to find out just how realistic "proof of life" really was, for yourself?

If you're going to be flying into places with legitimate facilities (as opposed to roughcut dirt ribbons slashed out of rainforest), you're going to probably want a well equipped, well performing airplane. Is that the Bonanza? Perhaps nobody else wants a job cruising the Andes in a Bonanza. Perhaps it's not well maintained. Who knows? Do you want a low-key job...no worries, mate. Just come on down. Low time? We don't care. Inexperienced? Not important for what we have in mind for you. Just come on down and give it a shot. Don't speak the language? Not an issue...after all, you'll get to log time in a bonanza!

Before you trundle off to Alaska, or Colombia, or Papua New Guinea, or any other classy hotspot of time-building euphoria, consider getting some basic experience under your belt. When you enter whiteout conditions at 200' in a heavily loaded 206 for the first time in Alaska, what experience are you going to fall back on? You probably don't want that to be your first time. When you have representatives from the Colombian army waving a rifle in your face and asking you questions, it would be nice to be able to answer them, and nice to be able to navigate when the weather goes down and you need to get from A to B...and how's your NDB work?

A lot of missionary pilots work in remote locations who have relatively little fligth experience, but some very solid training. Ag pilots work in places down there that have no real experience or training...and nobody really misses them when they're gone, except the owner of the airplane who needs to replace it.

Don't get too wrapped up in potential ferrying jobs in and out of these countries. You can spend a lot of time in unholy places as a reward for getting caught, and aside from that, the US government hates competition. Airplanes still get shot down in those parts...more often than you might think...and you never hear about them, either.

You don't have the experience to fly for Vertex or EAST or Dyncorp or Airscan or PAE, or any other agency or department contractor down there...so who do you really think you'll have paying your daily bills? And do you really want that paycheck? There are a lot of jobs that you can find that are entry level because they'll take anybody, but you have no business being one of those people. Flight instruct, fly freight, gain some basic experience before branching out into areas that would put you in way over your head. It's hard enough to float in a nice clean pool without having to look out for sharks.

 

[sonofaeagle]

Point taken. Thanks for the advice guys. Ya my spanish is pretty sketchy. I'd probably offend someone real fast. I shall remain in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

[jobear]

I did some recurrent a couple years ago for a crop duster going down to SA to work for a Dept of State subcontractor. Long story short his first training flight in country he never went below 3,000 feet and came back with 4 -7 new bullet holes in his OV-10 Bronco.


Jobear

 

[avbug]

True enough...but they were just little ones.

 

[Pistlpetet]

I am glad that there are always a bunch of people on this board who have no idea what they are talking about, and bad mouth things that they themselves do not have the balls to do.