Flight Log: Rio de Janeiro SBRJ -- Jundiai SBJD 22.01.2018/23.01.2018/24.01.2018/25.01.2018

22 January 2018, Rio de Janeiro – Jundiai:

On Monday, 22 January, we’d decided to fly the DEMCA to Jundiai to have the maintenance carried out. As the maintenance team insisted on starting work from 10 a.m., we had to be in the air by shortly after 6 a.m. again. This meant getting up at 4 a.m. and completing all the formalities with just a small cup of coffee to keep us going. The handling agency was very friendly and handed out a few more cups of coffee to us and a small breakfast.

For some unfathomable reason, the flight plan was initially rejected. However, the handling agency got into contact with air traffic control directly and worked out a new flight plan which we were given on a piece of paper. We then worked with this flight plan and everything else actually went smoothly. We left Santos Dumont airport in light early morning mist and started out on our journey to Jundiai. The weather was a bit tricky, because low-lying fog was accumulating, particularly in the gorges between the mountains, and meant that it might be impossible to approach airfields. En route to Jundiai, we saw several airfields, whose frequency we’d listened in on, that had fog and visibility of less than 3,000 m. That’s normally not a problem for an instrument flight pilot, but you can’t make an instrument flight approach to Jundiai. It’s only a visual flight airfield, so we had to hope that the fog would lift during the morning and by the time we landed at the latest.

We initially had friendly and polite air traffic controllers (mostly women). However, after a while these controllers’ line manager started to lecture us rather sharply. He said that if we wanted to fly to Jundiai, we’d have to do part of it following VFR rules and not instrument flight rules and it had its own AIC 36-15 for these visual flight rules. We had to read through these so that we were familiar with the visual flight corridors that were created and in which no IFR flight was possible. We confirmed politely that we were focusing on doing that but that we would otherwise carry out our flight plan as per instructions. We believe someone there was full of their own importance because we had strictly complied with all the flight plan’s regulations in order to give no reason to criticise. After landing in Jundiai, we got together with a pilot who showed us that there’s an app for these visual flight corridors in the greater Sao Paulo and Rio areas. As we had our iPad with us, he found this app and downloaded it. We couldn’t finish downloading it, but hoped we’d receive the relevant charts as a result.
The TAM support team was enthusiastic about our plane’s paintwork and Marie had to succumb to a few photo shoots. In the end, we agreed that we’d pick up the plane again after it had undergone its maintenance on Wednesday, 24 January at around midday. As already explained, we’d then fly back to Rio to spend another day there and then fly on. A Boeing 737-800 took us back to Jundiai. This 737 took off from Sao Paulo’s urban airport called Congonhas. There’s a tightly orchestrated shuttle system of flights at very short intervals to connect Sao Paulo and Rio with one another. The one-hour flight was smooth with a few thunderstorms in the distance but nothing that needed to concern us. Therefore, we were back in our hotel at 6 p.m. and let the day draw to a close.

Bye for now.


24 January 2018, Jundiai — Rio de Janeiro:

On 24 January, we headed off early in the morning for Santos Dumont airfield to fly in an Airbus 319 to Sao Paulo and then by taxi to Jundiai. When we arrived, Marie’s maintenance had been completed. The 50-hour servicing was done and dusted. Two employees were still getting Marie in top form. In the meantime, we had an enjoyable conversation with the TAM management team who were now really interested in our plane and had looked on the internet to find out what our flights were all about. The team wished us all the best and expressed their admiration for our courage. So everything was great and all that was needed was four more litres of oil in the plane so that we were kitted out for the rest of the trip to Santiago de Chile.

On the flight from Rio to Jundiai, an air traffic controller had emphasised that in the case of a flight plan that included instrument and visual flight rules we would have to observe the visual flight corridors and the visual flight rules in the greater Sao Paulo and Rio areas. We then talked to a pilot in Jundiai who told us how the corridors for a VFR flight work. He also installed an app on the iPad for the purpose. The app’s quite big, so we couldn’t download it fully in Jundiai. We did so when we came back to Rio and the app actually worked for the visual flight corridors and regulations in the whole of Brazil. We took a closer look at the visual flight corridors for Rio and Sao Paulo airspace in order to identify all the reporting points and altitude restrictions. When then also used this chart on the iPad to organise our departure from Jundiai.

Therefore, we were able to follow the controller’s instructions as this chart gave us all the information required. The iPad screen even showed our plane’s position and the direction we were flying in.

We were absolutely delighted and therefore judged ourselves to have passed a little test regarding visual flight rules in the greater Rio and Sao Paulo areas. That’s great, particularly on a day where the weather’s so fantastic that you can make the approach to Santos Dumont and Sugar Loaf Mountain.

This time, we are actually in the air at 1:00 local time. The parking fees had been paid, the flight plan approved and everything was hunky dory, with one exception: Kurt complained the whole of the flight that in bringing or picking up the plane, he hadn’t been offered a cup of coffee in the TAM workshop and that left a slightly sour taste in his mouth. I explained that this time it wasn’t a question of the pilots’ welfare but the plane’s. Kurt insisted that this was a breach of Brazilian rules not to offer a coffee.

The weather was marvellous and we had visibility over about 70 to 100 km. At 10,000 flight, or 3,000 metres, we were able to see the entire greater Sao Paulo and Rio are during the flight. As a result, we could see a cruise ship in one of the bays and at an altitude of 10,000 feet already, the controller was able to give us permission to land based on visual flight rules on runway 20 on the left.

All in all it was a fabulous flight with a fabulous with a landing directly in front of Sugar Loaf Mountain. Just fantastic. The next day, we would be flying on from Rio de Janeiro.

Bye.