Flight Log: Natal SBSG -- Ilheus SBIL 18.01.2018/19.01.2018

18 January 2018, Natal — Ilheus:

This morning we shared the chores. Kurt prepared the plane and I sorted out problems with the flight plan and the rest of the administration. We had been told that the flight plan couldn’t be approved because the airfield in Ilheus isn’t suitable for IFR (Flight Instrument Rule) approaches. After a lengthy constructive discussion, the airport official changed the flight plan so that the first flight could be carried out as an IFR flight and the second as a VFR flight, one using visual flight rules. The flight plan is then marked with a Y. So everything could proceed from now on. In the meantime, Kurt was arguing with the refuelling team on the airfield who were stubbornly refusing to start filling up the plane before any Brazilian currency had been handed over. Kurt insisted they would have to start filling the plane up before we paid and not the other way round. After a bit more wrangling, Marie’s tanks were filled up however.

Now that the flight plan had been changed, we were given permission to take off. First of all we flew through relatively low cloud: It was a lovely cloudy flight in towered cumulus. We were very busy because we had to discuss with various controllers how the flight plan was to be carried out. Shortly before take-off, we were also told there would be a change to the flight plan because military exercises were taking place nearby, which of course we wanted to avoid. During the flight, everything calmed down quite a bit. Even the captain could afford to gaze out of the window and do absolutely nothing. The sight of a section of Brazil’s 7,000-km-long beach was simply fascinating. Another impressive sight was the Brazilian monster that we could spot from the air below the surface of the sea and which we photographed. The Loch Ness monster is small fry compared with that.

Kurt was delighted to see Recife and Ilheus because he hadn’t ever seen these towns from this perspective before. A short while later we were already approaching the airfield which was located on an island. The strip is directly in front of the water. So you could say it was a sort of aircraft carrier landing. Everything went smoothly and we were guided to our parking position very professionally. Interestingly, this airfield doesn’t have a tower or a controller who guides and organises the flights. This is all done remotely by Brazilian air traffic control. So nobody says “Cleared to land”, but tells you to report in when you’ve touched the runway. This sort of procedure isn’t allowed in Germany, but standard in some other countries.

Of course, we pilots were in a good mood after another happy landing and we wanted to get to what was said to be a very attractive hotel. Bye.