Statistics:
7 days/6 nights
Straight line flying distance: 1,300 NM
Hours on tach: 12.5
Route: KCVC KFMY KEYW MUVR KEYW KFMY KCVC
On Nov 4 Sue and I departed our misty rainy 2 mile vis 400’ ceiling home airport KCVC on a most interesting journey in our Mooney M20J. We would be part of a group of 14 planes and about 28 people organized by Jim Parker of Caribbean Flying Adventures flying to Cuba. Cuba has been void of general aviation travel for some 50 years until the last few months. Ours was the second group that Jim had organized. It was a package in that Jim had organized our accommodations, transportation, tours and most importantly the work with the Cuban aviation authority. Tourist travel is still not authorized to Cuba. Our State Dept allows travel under 12 categories. Ours was a people-to-people educational program. Cost was a bit over $2,000 per person and included everything but our fuel costs, personal purchases and tips. Very reasonable considering all the work it takes to organize this. We are pioneers of a sort.
Because this would be a group launch from Key West the morning of the 5th, we flew to Key West on Wednesday and stayed at a great bed and breakfast in town. We had dinner with two other couples that would be on the trip.
There was no problem with my filing an ICAO flight plan for the hop from Key West to our Cuban arrival airport MUVR, the Juan Gualberto Gomez Airport in Varadero. We were all able to depart IFR with minimum spacing, say a few minutes. However, all roads into and over Cuba lead to one waypoint, TADPO. Before reaching TADPO Miami Center hands off to Havana Center who was having nothing to do with this spacing. I was somewhere in the middle of the group, got slowed to 110kts and was vectored all over open water. Eventually I was handed over to Varadero Approach who vectored me on a nice sightseeing trip all over Cuba until getting me on the localizer to the ILS RWY 6. Oh, I forgot to mention that this delay allowed a nice storm to get to the airport and I ended up hand flying the ILS to about minimums and landed in pouring rain (picture 1). What should have been a one hour flight took two.
Our group was parked in a line at the far end of the ramp and they took us by bus to the terminal where we assembled as a group in a small VIP lounge waiting for people to get in. You can buy a card with WIFI time and there are hot spots around. However our cell phone service does not work there. One of the planes had not arrived, and it turned out she’s broken an alternator belt departing KEYW and had to return there. Fortunately it was fixed quickly and she was able to get to Cuba albeit a bit late.
After clearing customs and immigration we took a nice Chinese built coach to our hotel, which was large Iberostar all-inclusive resort on the beach in the Varadero peninsula. After a quick lunch we got back on the coach and did our first tour.
Although few US citizens have been in Cuba for many, many years, it is a tourist destination with about 3 million visitors a year. One million of these are Canadian. I assume that most Cubans that didn’t specifically know assumed we were Canadians. The Cubans we did interact with were friendly and very happy we were there. The US embargo has been tough. Buildings, roads, and such look ok from a distance, but on closer inspection there’s always a look of decay. They just don’t have the money, materials or whatever to keep things up. That 80% of the cars are vintage 50’s models of all makes is indicative of this.
We drove by and through many towns, and the people don’t have much. (picture 2) Yet this concept of the revolution lives on very strongly. There are many billboards and other type signs showing Che’s picture and to a lesser extent Fidel Castro’s. Every Cuban citizen still has a ration book with which they can get staples very cheaply with their internal Peso. They have a parallel convertible currency called the CUC that we had to use and that the people must use to buy things above and beyond those government subsidized staples. A CUC is worth 25 times a Peso and is worth $0.87.
Our tours included a Sunday open farmer’s type market where people buy their food for a week. Kroger’s it ain’t. I snorkeled in the Bay of Pigs, but passed on the tandem sky dive from a very large old Russian helicopter (5 in our group did and had a good experience. They landed on the beach right in front of the hotel.) We visited Havana and saw the newly reopened US Embassy. We also toured an old sugar mill, a museum geared towards the Bay of Pigs invasion (the victors write the history books), did a half day tour in a procession of vintage convertibles (much fun picture 3), got a tour of a cigar factory where we saw literally hundreds of workers hand rolling cigars (NOT a worker’s paradise) and had some excellent meals at privately owned restaurants which have only recently been allowed.
Our departure from MUVR on the 10th showed again that so far the Cuban aviation bureaucrats just don’t know what to do with general aviation. At the terminal we had to check our bags at a counter just like we were getting on an airliner. They made baggage tags and hand wrote our plane’s N number on each. We also got boarding passes. We went through normal screening because we had to go into the terminal to get to our planes. We didn’t depart as early as planned because they had not processed all our flight plans even though they had received the information and charge big time for doing them.
The flight to KEYW was easy, but had to dodge storms to get into KFMY to buy gas ($3.33/gallon!). The Mooney performed flawlessly, but I’m sure was glad to be back in its own hangar.
Our group had a great time together (picture 4). Sue and I were very glad we did this trip.
(P.S. I have a lot more photos, which may or may not be interesting to others. However, I have no experience with sites where you can share a lot of files like this. If someone can guide me, I post more.)
7 days/6 nights
Straight line flying distance: 1,300 NM
Hours on tach: 12.5
Route: KCVC KFMY KEYW MUVR KEYW KFMY KCVC
On Nov 4 Sue and I departed our misty rainy 2 mile vis 400’ ceiling home airport KCVC on a most interesting journey in our Mooney M20J. We would be part of a group of 14 planes and about 28 people organized by Jim Parker of Caribbean Flying Adventures flying to Cuba. Cuba has been void of general aviation travel for some 50 years until the last few months. Ours was the second group that Jim had organized. It was a package in that Jim had organized our accommodations, transportation, tours and most importantly the work with the Cuban aviation authority. Tourist travel is still not authorized to Cuba. Our State Dept allows travel under 12 categories. Ours was a people-to-people educational program. Cost was a bit over $2,000 per person and included everything but our fuel costs, personal purchases and tips. Very reasonable considering all the work it takes to organize this. We are pioneers of a sort.
Because this would be a group launch from Key West the morning of the 5th, we flew to Key West on Wednesday and stayed at a great bed and breakfast in town. We had dinner with two other couples that would be on the trip.
There was no problem with my filing an ICAO flight plan for the hop from Key West to our Cuban arrival airport MUVR, the Juan Gualberto Gomez Airport in Varadero. We were all able to depart IFR with minimum spacing, say a few minutes. However, all roads into and over Cuba lead to one waypoint, TADPO. Before reaching TADPO Miami Center hands off to Havana Center who was having nothing to do with this spacing. I was somewhere in the middle of the group, got slowed to 110kts and was vectored all over open water. Eventually I was handed over to Varadero Approach who vectored me on a nice sightseeing trip all over Cuba until getting me on the localizer to the ILS RWY 6. Oh, I forgot to mention that this delay allowed a nice storm to get to the airport and I ended up hand flying the ILS to about minimums and landed in pouring rain (picture 1). What should have been a one hour flight took two.
Our group was parked in a line at the far end of the ramp and they took us by bus to the terminal where we assembled as a group in a small VIP lounge waiting for people to get in. You can buy a card with WIFI time and there are hot spots around. However our cell phone service does not work there. One of the planes had not arrived, and it turned out she’s broken an alternator belt departing KEYW and had to return there. Fortunately it was fixed quickly and she was able to get to Cuba albeit a bit late.
After clearing customs and immigration we took a nice Chinese built coach to our hotel, which was large Iberostar all-inclusive resort on the beach in the Varadero peninsula. After a quick lunch we got back on the coach and did our first tour.
Although few US citizens have been in Cuba for many, many years, it is a tourist destination with about 3 million visitors a year. One million of these are Canadian. I assume that most Cubans that didn’t specifically know assumed we were Canadians. The Cubans we did interact with were friendly and very happy we were there. The US embargo has been tough. Buildings, roads, and such look ok from a distance, but on closer inspection there’s always a look of decay. They just don’t have the money, materials or whatever to keep things up. That 80% of the cars are vintage 50’s models of all makes is indicative of this.
We drove by and through many towns, and the people don’t have much. (picture 2) Yet this concept of the revolution lives on very strongly. There are many billboards and other type signs showing Che’s picture and to a lesser extent Fidel Castro’s. Every Cuban citizen still has a ration book with which they can get staples very cheaply with their internal Peso. They have a parallel convertible currency called the CUC that we had to use and that the people must use to buy things above and beyond those government subsidized staples. A CUC is worth 25 times a Peso and is worth $0.87.
Our tours included a Sunday open farmer’s type market where people buy their food for a week. Kroger’s it ain’t. I snorkeled in the Bay of Pigs, but passed on the tandem sky dive from a very large old Russian helicopter (5 in our group did and had a good experience. They landed on the beach right in front of the hotel.) We visited Havana and saw the newly reopened US Embassy. We also toured an old sugar mill, a museum geared towards the Bay of Pigs invasion (the victors write the history books), did a half day tour in a procession of vintage convertibles (much fun picture 3), got a tour of a cigar factory where we saw literally hundreds of workers hand rolling cigars (NOT a worker’s paradise) and had some excellent meals at privately owned restaurants which have only recently been allowed.
Our departure from MUVR on the 10th showed again that so far the Cuban aviation bureaucrats just don’t know what to do with general aviation. At the terminal we had to check our bags at a counter just like we were getting on an airliner. They made baggage tags and hand wrote our plane’s N number on each. We also got boarding passes. We went through normal screening because we had to go into the terminal to get to our planes. We didn’t depart as early as planned because they had not processed all our flight plans even though they had received the information and charge big time for doing them.
The flight to KEYW was easy, but had to dodge storms to get into KFMY to buy gas ($3.33/gallon!). The Mooney performed flawlessly, but I’m sure was glad to be back in its own hangar.
Our group had a great time together (picture 4). Sue and I were very glad we did this trip.
(P.S. I have a lot more photos, which may or may not be interesting to others. However, I have no experience with sites where you can share a lot of files like this. If someone can guide me, I post more.)
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