 Today's presenter has done something all of us probably have dreamed about doing. After 15 years in a corporate life, after going through school and doing a lot of things we all do, he said to himself and to his wife, is this what we really want to do? And then he didn't. He went to Mexico and has developed a way to share that dream with you. Rick now lives in Mexico and he has written articles about flying in Mexico and runs a service where he can actually escort you to Mexico. It's a beautiful country and it's one right near our borders that makes flying that much more exciting. Please welcome Rick Gardner. Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you, Kathleen. I'd like to thank Obi Young, the FAA, and the crew of volunteers here at the FAA Production Studios for this opportunity and I'd like to thank all of you for coming this afternoon to listen to the presentation. We've got a lot of information for you so I'd like to ask that we try to hold questions until the end. So bring your seat backs to the full upright lock position, fasten your seat belts, we're clear for takeoff and we're going to Mexico. A little bit about us, the agenda we're going to cover a little bit about us, some facts about Mexico and then we're going to get into the procedures which is the heart of the presentation and then I'm going to take you on a little tour of southeast Mexico which is where we call home and then give you an overview of some services that are available for pilots visiting Mexico and then have some time for questions and answers. I'm actually from Nassau, Bahamas. My wife is Mexican from Puebla, Mexico. We are based in Cancun. Now we've made that sacrifice for you fellow pilots that we've done this so that we can provide you with all of this good information. We're both bilingual which helps tremendously in communication in Mexico. Flying has been my passion, always has been and I've had the opportunity to be put on the General Aviation Council in Mexico which gives us tremendous access and a good relationship with the federal authorities there and I'm also on the Bahamas General Aviation Council so we're very proud of that and we're proud to be a resource for AOPA when technical issues or questions rise or members have problems say contact us and we help any way that we can. Some interesting facts about Mexico, 6,000 nautical miles of coastline which includes the Pacific Gulf and Caribbean coast so there's three completely different types of beaches and coasts, second largest barrier reef in the world and they've got about 1,300 airports. The only problem is only 92 of them are in the aeronautical information publication for Mexico. There's no AFD so we're going to talk a little bit about one of the things that we've done to try to address that. 75 VORs, most of them work most of the time and the altimeter settings are in inches, altitude is in feet, distances in nautical miles but fuel is in liters so be prepared to convert if you're going to Mexico because they don't use gallons but ATC does speak English, does speak, I don't but the ATC does and a lot of questions that we get from pilots are just that is how do I communicate, they speak English some better than others but very understandable. Gilberto López Mayer who is a pilot and is the director of Mexico's civil aviation organization, the DGAC, has made a commitment to continue to facilitate the arrival of general aviation pilots to Mexico, the committee that I'm on, we are looking at ways to simplify and continue to streamline the process even further but we do have the support of the top guy of Mexico's FAA which is very important. Now having grown up in the Bahamas and living in Mexico for many, many years, one of the things that I have found that helps to make your trip successful, any international trip for that matter is relax, don't set yourself an aggressive agenda, timetable, don't expect quick turns, just take it easy, build in plenty of time and things will be, will go much more smoothly. Now as far as documents are concerned to travel to Mexico for the US you need all of the documents that you would need to fly in the United States with the addition of the restricted radio operator permit. This is a topic that always gets a lot of discussion. It's actually an FCC regulation and if you go to the links page of our website it takes you right to where they say that you've got to have it. Now getting a restricted radio operator permit is a grueling process but if you can spell your name, remember your address and fill out your credit card information and other similar devious tricky questions you will have passed the requirements to obtain a restricted radio operator permit. So it's really not that tough. Passenger documents the United States Customs and Border Protection now requires US citizens to reenter the United States from Mexico and the Caribbean to have a passport. Mexico doesn't care, they'll keep serving you margaritas but if you want to go home you will need a passport so you'll need to get one and if you're traveling with minors and one of the parents is not traveling get a notarized letter from the the parent not traveling. Aircraft the same thing you need to fly in the United States with the addition of the radio station permit. Again if you go to our website there's a link that takes you to the FCC website where you can get that information. Insurance coverage in Mexico this is another topic where there's a lot of conflicting and misleading information. Around 2003 Mexico changed the requirement and now your US issued insurance is valid in Mexico provided three things. One that it specifically states in the geographic coverage that you're covered in Mexico and number two there's a formula that's 56,900 days of minimum wage on and on and on but it's basically $250,000. So if your liability insurance your liability coverage is at least $250,000 US or greater that covers the second requirement. They don't care about Hull it's the liability and the third thing is you need to bring a photocopy specifically of those pages that show those first two items because you'll need to leave that with your entry permit when you arrive. Notarized if your aircraft is borrowed or you've created a corporation just whoever owns the aircraft bring a notarized letter authorizing you to fly it on those dates and before you leave I recommend you try to get the customs and border protection decal you can get it upon arrival but it's just one other thing you're going to have to deal with. So plan ahead go to our website you can there's a link to take you there and you can obtain your CBP decal before you depart and if you're going to use ferry tanks you'll need your 337 navigation charts as simple as this sounds you'd believe you wouldn't believe the number of times I've run into pilots in Cancun or other other places trying to travel within Mexico or across to other countries and they don't even have a charge they're using their their GPS or something and they don't have current charts so make sure you you do bring them to cross the air defense identification zone we need 12 inch numbers and a mode C transponder and a radio to contact ATC and although the FARS don't necessarily require you on a private flight to carry life jackets or life raft I strongly urge you if you're going to be over water there's lots of places that rent life jackets and life rafts do it folks it's it's it's it's a very little expense and a tremendous safety equipment that you can have on board and of course your survival equipment adequate to the terrain oil and spare parts getting oil and parts in Mexico can be somewhat challenging especially if you use a specific type of oil so if space and weight allow I encourage you to bring it with you when I bought the 206 that we fly I saw the previous owner had changed the starter two times and I thought okay I know what I'm going to get first thing I did was buy a brand new starter for four years now I've been hauling it around in the back of my plane it's like Murphy's law in reverse you know and if I hadn't got it I would be in the jungle somewhere wishing I had and any country you go to I think it's proven even in the US I put my throttle lock on I think it's just it's prudent to have it in our neck of the woods we've not had any thefts or break-ins but it's always good to do but what you don't want to bring to Mexico do not want to bring firearms ammunition or any illegal drugs that's a big no no now to cross to depart the southeast of the United States towards our neck of the woods we've got to cross the air defense identification zone and part 99 tells us that unless I'm otherwise authorized no person may operate on aircraft into within or across an aid is unless that person has filed a flight plan and also in part 91 it tells us to fly to Mexico we've got a file so we've got a file flight plan so what you want to do is you want to select the Mexican airport of entry and I'm going to show you one of the places you can find what those are but you want to select an airport of entry it doesn't have to be at first border crossing or first coastline crossing it can be 500 miles inland they don't care all they want you to do is that first landing is to be at an airport of entry file a flight plan now coming out of Florida you'll be filing an IKO international flight plan Miami Flight Service will help you prepare that and but if you cross into Mexico from the border there is an agreement between the U.S. and Mexico and you'll actually can file a domestic flight plan if you're departing Texas Arizona into Mexico so be aware that if you're accustomed to crossing at the border and you come down to south floor and try to go across from here the process is different and the flight plan is different then make sure you activate your flight plan you can ask for flight following Havana Center provides it then the Mexican Centers provided I encourage you to do that Mexico request that when you cross their borders or their coastline you contact the nearest tower approach or center and identify yourself and who you are and where you're going okay it's also good for for safety so somebody knows where you are if you're vfr and then close the flight plan in the case of Mexico they do it automatically upon arrival coming across from Key West there's a number of different routes the three most popular points are Merida Cancun and Cozumel and some of the if for those of you that are IFR, Kanoa, Vinca, the two critical intersections outbound and then pick the appropriate airway from then on but what you don't want to do if you're vfr is you don't want to go inside the Cuban a interatis that 12 mile zone unless you're in contact with Havana Center they've approved they've given you clearance and they've given you a discrete transponder code okay and sometimes they will do that if you're vfr but what you don't want to do is make any unauthorized stops prior to an airport of entry because they will assume that you were doing that to drop off some type of illegal contraband so if you're flying let's say you're flying from Key West and you're flying to Merida and you have a problem somebody needs to go to the restroom whatever something happens that you can't make it then pick another airport of entry pick Cancun pick Cozumel pick something else but try to avoid landing of course if it's an emergency you've got to do what you've got to do but if you can certainly pick another airport of entry that's what you should do and then again don't cross that 12 mile um uh atis the interatis of Cuba unless you've been cleared to do so okay when you arrive in Mexico you will more than likely be greeted by a soldier uh the uh Mexican army and in some cases the navy but typically the army has been empowered to provide security at most airport so guy's going to come out and he's not going to speak real good English if at all now we have in our pilot guide a little page a cheat sheet that you can fill in with your information hand it to him and he'll copy it down and give it back but basically they want to know where you're coming from where you're going and the names of the people on board uh your aircraft and once you uh passed that step then the entry process is very similar to that in the Bahamas for those of you that have flown to the Bahamas you've got to complete the general declaration uh an immigration form now in the case of Mexico they tear off the bottom part of the form and they give it to you don't lose it that just shows that you entered the country legally and they're going to ask you for that when you depart just as if when you fly commercial those of you that have flown in Mexico and commercial airlines the next step is the customs declaration one per family again just as if you were flying commercial and then the entry permit um there are two types of entry permits into Mexico there's a one time entry permit that costs five hundred and sixty seven vessels which is about fifty fifty fifty five dollars and then there's a multiple entry permit that allows you to enter Mexico as many times as you want during the calendar year which costs five hundred and sixty seven vessels which prompts the obvious question why wouldn't you get a multiple entry permit I don't know but I suggest you do the multiple entry permit is a two page letter basically says you can fly within Mexico but you can't do any commercial operations and a receipt in either case if you get a one time or a multiple entry you will you will receive a form it's called a ghc zero zero one the ghc zero zero one is similar to the c seven a in the Bahamas it's the one you take with you on the aircraft but the most important thing is that those three blocks are stamped by immigration customs and civil aviation okay there's the reason for the ghc is that it's basically says these are the three federal entities that recognize this form so whatever you do you want to make sure that you leave the airport with that form okay and the north some some pilots refer to that as the green sheet many years ago they used to be green and then complete an arrival report just as you would say in Freeport or Nassau Bahamas any towered airport in the Bahamas there's only two you fill out an arrival report arrival report Mexico is the same so that's the entry process very similar to the Bahamas and you're there so it's time for your margarita or your corona on the beach now once you've entered Mexico has a lot to offer and so you'll need to get around navigate you probably need fuel so here's a tip a hundred ll and it is 100 ll it's blue it's called gas avión which is actually av gas in spanish gas avión av gas and jet a is called durable sina so remember those two words when you need fuel say i need gas avión and they're going to exactly what you're talking about typically they're provided by asa which is a part of the mexican government they drive these bright yellow trucks and i recommend if there's an fbo on the field pay asa directly because many fbo's market up 20 30 percent and it's still asa fueling your plane all they're doing is financing you at a very steep price so you can pay these guys directly without having to go through the fbo they accept vessels many times credit cards and right now it's running about three dollars and twenty cents a gallon for av gas i just fueled our 206 getting weather in mexico uh is done by cinam cinam is a branch of the government similar to atc in the united states the dgac is the administrative part they handled permits uh administrative functions cinam are your tower controllers briefers radar operators so they both report into the secretaria de comunicaciones y transport de their transportation and communications division of the federal government and at some airports they have like the old flight service stations where you walk up to the briefer they'll give you your weather you file your flight plan with them just as we used to do years ago and they also have some rco's for in-flight weather and we've got a chart where we show what those are unfortunately those aren't published but we do have them in our pilot guide then of course there's public and private resources available most of you know and then we'll be talking about this we have some free weather information off of our website mexico has prohibited airspace and restricted just like in the united states the only difference you'll see they start with mic mic that's the only thing when you look at charts that's all it is is just saying that's mexican restricted airspace cta is center and uh rather than class d airspace of what we call class d around towered airports they have aerodrome traffic zones atz so if you look at a jeb chart you see an atz what's that it's class d just think of it as class d airspace in the u.s because it is um and you'll need to get clearance into the atz just as you would into class d airspace here the other thing that they have are tmas now these are terminal control areas where the m comes from i have no idea when they just ask the folks up in a montreal at ikeo what that is but it's what we know as a tca and all you need to know is that you need clearance to get into it to enter it now they look ominously like class bravo i have never know i've personally never been denied nor know of anyone that has been denied access into a tma what happens is many airports don't have radar and so consequently what they do is they want to know where everybody is and that's why they want you to report especially if there's a lot of commercial traffic they want to know where everybody is so they can maintain vfr and ifr separation and they do a lot of traffic reporting so just make sure you get clearance there's also another strange creature called an aphis aerodrome flight information service and it's similar to the laa's in the us where basically it's someone from cinnam someone from flight services on the field on a discrete frequency that can help you with traffic and weather information just be aware that some aphis or some uncontrolled airports may underlie a tma so that when you depart again you need to if you want to enter the tma you need to contact and get a clearance then otherwise you can just fly underneath it without having to talk to them one thing that's different in mex outside the us is that vfr flight is not allowed after sunset so no night vfr just like in the bahamas i'm going to tell you if you've ever been out in the ocean at night or if you've been out over the jungle at night there is no horizon so it makes from a safety standpoint it makes a lot of sense basic vfr in mexico is a little bit the the ceilings just a little higher than what we're accustomed to and here's an important one the official ctaf for airports in mexico is 125 however as you get closer to the us border you'll find 128 becomes more and more popular and i think it's just basically because of the uh the proximity to the united states left hand traffic patterns predominate cardinal altitudes just a little lower if you're fortunate to have a turbine speech restrictions are a little different we've got those in our guide and again if you file the flight plan you need to follow it unless you advise atc that you're changing modifying your flight plan in mexico if you depart a towered airport and some non-towered airports even if you're vfr you'll need to file a flight plan and they use the iqail flight plan format and it needs to get the dgac approval now we are rolling out a number of airports and continuing to roll out a telephone radio version of this where rather than have to fill out all the papers and get the stamps you can actually call in or radio from your aircraft saying i'd like to file a flight plan from cancun to chichen itza and they'll start giving asking you the information and they'll say flight plan received contact tower for departure no paper no stamps no fuss uh and same for the arrival i've arrived from gozumel i'd like to close my flight plan and you'll be queried for the information and and you're done okay so that's it's really pretty straightforward getting in and flying within except for the the flight plan piece and we're working to make that easier but when it gets time to go home you need to plan your return and and here we need to pay special attentions because after 9-11 things have gotten a little bit more delicate you need to select the mexican aoe for departure you're the mexican regulations say the last departure from mexico should be from an airport of entry and i know there's a lot of uh misleading information i can tell you the immigration law just like our laws in the u.s clearly says that it's in the law so make sure your last departure is from an airport of entry they're going to ask for that ghc 001 they're going to ask for your immigration card back and then you need to select the u.s customs and border protection designated airport for arrival and there they want you to land at the closest aoe or designated airport to border or coastline crossing so if you're flying back to the u.s from cancun you can't overfly key west up over naples and land in tampa they will you will not be very popular when you arrive so you need to land in key west clear in key west and then continue on if you're coming in from the bahamas obviously one of the east coast airports the appropriate one for your route you'll need to determine your route eta and the eightest time they're going to ask you for that when you file your flight plan now here's a tip for those of you that are ifr certified there is one airway over cuba airspace that you can fly without an overflight permit if you're departing cancun or kozumel you can file direct mises it's actually upper juliet 18 mises and intercept green 765 it's an ndb airway goes from kozumel direct to fish hook ndb in key west and there is an agreement between havanna center and marita center that for ifr routing you don't need an overflight permit so if you're in a single and you are ifr certified you may want to make that return ifr and that way puts you within just a few miles of the cuban coast beautiful view and puts you much closer to land also if you are coming down ifr and you once you reach canoa and you're talking to havanna center i always start asking direct nosat or wherever the fear boundary point to cut off having to go to vinca so if i'm going to kozumel i might start asking for direct i think it's nucan for kozumel where it where the havanna center and marita center airspace is meet so just little tips there to cut off the distance call flight service cineam does not have access to local notams and also i would be concerned if i was vfr about any tfrs in the key west area for example so it always is a good idea call flight service get a briefing from them now depending upon whether you're re-entering the u.s. from into florida or on the border they may even allow you to file a dvfr flight plan to speed up getting that transponder code that squat code miami is a little bit more hesitant about doing that let's say because they they're correct saying the ike mexican i ko flight plan is the legal flight plan that you're under but on the border many flight service stations allow you to place basically a duplicate flight plan to be able to cross the adis and get the transponder code so if they let you do it take advantage of it the key thing is talk to flight service and get a briefing and then call customs and border protection they've gotten a little bit picky before a lot of times we just put adcus in the remark section and then flight service would call some ports have gotten a little bit more demanding and they want the pilots to call directly so i suggest don't get caught in the middle of that call cbp and get a name a badge number or the initials of whoever you spoke to because it has happened to me i've called i've done everything i've arrived and i get the look like i've got three eyes and gills and you know what are you doing here and it turns out that who the fortune i had the person's name had mis-entered the information so once i gave the name they looked it up sure enough there i was and then all of a sudden everyone started smiling again departing mexico is is just uh is very straightforward for those of you the flight of the bahamas it's it's the basically the same process you need to file your flight plan in this case with cineam don't forget to put adcus doesn't hurt complete a general deck your outbound general declaration and turn in that immigration form and once you've done that you're good to go as far as the mexican side is concerned on the u.s. side you need to file and activate your flight plan 15 minutes prior to crossing the aides now coming in from cancun into florida that can be a little challenging i'm going to show you a little trick here and you need to get that discrete transponder code okay that's the very important thing they need to know who you are and where you are now if you're arriving into south florida from mexico and you have a hard time sometimes flight service is busy and the rco and key west uh there's only a couple of frequencies there and and the distance from the aides to key west is is considerable here's some tips try miami center you can call them up 133 explain your situation you're inbound you've got you know you're trying to get your your code you've got a vfr flight plan that's been activated try havana center havana center is actually great to work where they speak very good english and they've been very accommodating they could relay they've got a landline to miami center they could pick it up try key west approach 124 45 and worse comes to worse there's a lot of commercial airline traffic up there 125 get an airliner ask them to relay for you and i've done that too so there's lots of different avenues don't get uptight don't get nervous out there there's many different ways of getting in contact with the the atc in the us and letting them know who you are and where you're going now when i arrive in the us airports i always ask customs and border protection okay if i when i make these presentations what would you like me to tell the pilot community so let me tell you how to become really unpopular at customs and border protection some of the airports have these big ramps in front of the building okay and some pilots like to pull in in their 182 right in the middle of ramp do a 90 degree turn and shut down and then what'll happen is you're about halfway through your procedures inside when the phone rings and it's the tower saying would somebody please move because i've got a citation out in the ramp who's blocking my taxi way because he can't get into your you will become very unpopular at that point with customs and border protection so what they like you to do is to come in taxi to the edge of the ramp and they've got spaces there into one of the spaces and then shut down okay some cbp have these lanes and what they want you to do is they want you to get into the lane and go all the way down to the end because they they do first in first out so they want you to go to the end so that when they're done with you you pull out the next guy behind you can pull out sometimes people come in and they just do a 90 degree and boom there you are they've locked the whole lane because they really want you to be inside those boxes i call them penalty boxes okay so don't do that just go to the end of the lane shut down um the other thing that you want to do is don't let people start wandering around as far as they're concerned only the captain can get off of the airplane okay now some airports will have signs that say passengers you know crew and passengers unload your baggage and proceed to the building okay great do that but if there's no sign like in key west for example they want you in that penalty box and that can be a real problem if somebody has to go to the bathroom you've got little ones so again another reason to call customs and border protection ahead of time and let them know exactly when you're coming once you're in you'll need to fill out your forms the customs declaration just as if you were flying commercial and then your form 178 is what we call it the enforcement system form and we've got a link on our website where you can download those uh and fill it out ahead of time i found that there's a direct proportion or correlation between the more you have ready and the easier you make it for customs the nicer and the faster it goes for you it seems funny how that seems to work but if you go in and you go duh i got nothing you know what do i do what you know then it'll be a little longer but i always try to go in i always try to get a declaration for my next trip i get a blank one take it with me i've got my 178 in fact i put it into power point or word i fill in all the stuff that never changes your address your tail number print out a bunch of those even if i always fly with my family their names you know you got to put is the date and the time so there's a lot of things you can do just have blank ones with you you know your takeoff time fill it in and and it just saves you a lot of time and if you were vfr don't forget to close your flight plan so again the key thing here is don't when you arrive you still have not legally entered the united states so don't let people start running around in different directions go don't go talking to other people you recognize on the ramp that are coming in they get really upset about people doing that so again there's no sign stay in the penalty box but if there are signs then do as instructed some safety tips what i tell folks is it's better to have a bad plan than no plan at all okay some people like i've told you earlier you know go out there no charts nothing don't have a plan they just woke up one day and said i'm going to go to kozumel and off we go with my Garmin 396 have a good plan or at least have a plan i recommend strongly the plbs i saw that we got some great deals here at sun and fun on them they're great over water over land anywhere you go for those of you that aren't familiar i encourage you go find out more about them they're terrific a gps with a moving map if you've ever been out over the ocean or over the jungle there's not a whole lot of pilotage you can do because there's no landmarks unless you can tell one way from another there's really nothing to go by and a lot of times people start getting this little voice in the back of their minds that haven't done this before am i going where i think i'm going you know jeez i should have seen land by now all those little thoughts start to go through your head if you have a gps it can really help uh allay your fears life jackets and a life raft there's many fbo's that rent them i encourage you to get them because it's the best insurance you can have kind of like murphy's law in reverse i've got mine in my plane never had to use it pack a machete and survival equipment especially if you're over the jungle make sure you've got appropriate equipment and over water here's another tip what i do when i'm over water if i see a ship i just hold the enter key on my gps you know you do the waypoint does the current waypoint and just program it in so if i had a problem i have to do is hit my uh my nearest button nearest user waypoint that's going to be where it's going to take me now if you see a freighter and then you see a royal caribbean cruise ship here's another important tip pick the cruise ship they got the food they got the entertainment you don't want to be with those guys on the freighter so that's the one you want to take uh take note of and also other aircraft 125 the commercial guys do a good job of monitoring monitoring guard i always do and i encourage you to do that do so as well try to get another aircraft and if you're over land remember mexico only has two ctafs so 120 you can't get anyone 121 5 chances are you might get someone on 122 5 or 122 8 i k o english is a little bit different from what we're accustomed to here's a trick question what the somebody want to tell me what this means taxi to holding point means taxi to runway 11 okay taxi and hold short i've been in situations where people have missing misunderstood that as taxi into position and hold so this is basically taxi to runway across all runways and taxiways but don't enter across the active runway line up and wait is taxi into position and hold doesn't mean go to mcdonald's and get a fry at this tax unit position and hold but whatever always ask for clarification if there's ever any doubt in your mind whatsoever stop and ask for clarification they aren't going to get upset make position reports if your vfr they have microwave and landlines connecting the towers so when you're in route if you especially if you took off from a non-towered airport and you're going to a non-towered airport well you probably didn't file a flight plan because there was no one there to take it and there's no one there to know that you got there so contact the tower and just say hey i just took off from playa del carmen and i'm headed to kohundic and what they'll do is they'll let the next tower so once you're out of radio range they'll say you know frequency change approved contact chetum al tower 50 miles out and let you know and report and that way somebody knows where you are and what you're what you're doing flight following is available marita center mexico center masatlán all of those guys will provide it so i encourage you to take advantage of it and get as much as done on the ramp there's very few airports have parallel taxiways it's basically a runway in a ramp and there's nothing worse than being in a foreign country you're already probably a little bit nervous if you've not done this before and you're sitting there holding short and then you hear turbines behind you know somebody you know and then you get even more nervous so try to get as much done on the ramp as possible so that you can be more relaxed use your checklist again when you get nervous you tend to overlook things so just just a tip verify airport data and conditions again sounds pretty straightforward but sometimes in the in the nervousness we forget to do so and overfly runways of non-towered airports before landing so we're going to have a little quiz now and i'm going to ask all of you to participate the quiz is can you identify which one of these runways are open all right hands for open no hand this was an easy one that one's pretty obvious how about this one open or closed how can i see hands for open okay about half the room it's open very good how about this one hands up for open about half the room it's actually closed there's actually ditches dug across this runway not conducive to a smooth landing unless you're me and all my landings are bad but certainly it won't help yours open or closed hands up for open all right very good and last open or closed ends up for open and about a third of the room there's actually a nylon rope and a steel pipe sticking out of the middle of that runway and the point with this folks is from traffic pattern many times you can't see these things so what i do and in fact the mexican regs encourage you to do is overfly the runway at 500 feet what i do is i'm offset to the right so i can see the runway out my window 20 degrees of flaps or whatever the appropriate uh go around position is i configure slow the plane down get my flap setting and then i fly the right edge of the runway and i look at that entire runway and make sure it's clear of any obstacles another tip make your run your landing short many of these runways that we use on our trips are 3 000 feet i treat them all as a short field you never know when a dog or a goat or a cow or something might come out of the bushes so i treat all my landings a short field just to minimize my time rolling out airborne weather there's a number of ways to do that from san am you can also get them from atc asca tower or or a radar operator and other aircraft mexico's got a very modern fleet of commercial aircraft mexican or mexico and the pilots are great guys and gals they they're real great to work with and they'll be more than glad if they're anywhere near they're on an airway they'll say i'm flying west of many of them 20 miles out and whether that's good or i'm painting a cell 10 degrees to the left of course they can they'll be glad to share that with you and then there are some rco's unfortunately they're not published but this is one of the advantages of being from there living there for so many years and being involved in the aviation and what we've done in our pilot guide we've got a chart where we try to show you where you can actually talk to a weather briefer in the air and get information so if you're coming in from brownsville texas headed to veracruz you can talk to victoria dispatch and they can look up new meet our taff information for veracruz and all the airports along the way another thing we recommend fly higher it's cooler more gliding distance better communications range early in the day try to avoid the convective activity in the afternoon especially you know we're in the tropics here consider terrain there are peaks in mexico up to 18 000 plus feet so unless you are a turbine or have a turbocharger those could be somewhat challenging and density altitudes there are a lot of places in mexico that are high and hot so make sure you take density altitude into consideration when you plan and always plan on an alternate as i said there's few airports have a parallel taxiway so there's nothing worse than being low on fuel and having a stranded aircraft on the runway that could really ruin your day so i always even if i'm vfr and it is completely you know clear day i always plan on an alternate just in case and one of the things that we spent most of last year working on and they're in the printer uh they're coming out mañana is uh mexico whack charts this is important folks because the do d charts are going away the onc's and the low altitude and root stuff after october they're gone so this is very very important for traveling to mexico uh and we should have them before october other resources one of the best resources i found is right here the f a a production studios if you get on their website and look at their catalog there's a a wealth of information on survival ditching all sorts of stuff depending whether you're flying over land over water there's lots of important stuff and i encourage you to use it uh and then a number of other websites where you can obtain good information well now i'd like to quickly take you on a tour of where we call home which is the southeast mexico where we conduct guided tours and show you a little bit of the things that mexico has to offer the general aviation community uh there's tremendous colonial history the spanish conquest of mexico uh veracruz this is san juan du lua the fort and veracruz which was very important in mexico's early colonial history they have a beautiful socalo which is the city center square uh at night it's it's beautiful it's lit there's all sorts of music food drink it is it's one very very uh pleasant place to to visit in the evenings uh and of course veracruz has its own unique folkloric history the marimba which is like a xylophone that makes a rattling noise it's about the only way i know to describe it but you've got them all over the place you can see here and they go you'll be you grab yourself a little table and they bring your food to you they bring you your margaritas your coronas and these guys go up and down they play you a song they ask you what do you want to hear and they'll play you something nice tremendous architecture uh in the city of veracruz another one of our favorite stops is the city of gambitche and gambitche was walled by the spanish to protect it from the pirates because it was a key point of trade and much of that wall is still there you can still see it uh and uh the bulwarks to protect it you can see the the city center is in the background uh the bulwarks where the troops were uh were garrison to protect them and then of course the socal of campetches fabulous place to walk around in the evening and visit explore uh beautiful one of our favorite personal favorites and many little boutique hotels that we have found that are truly remarkable outside the city you have forts that are still there they've been turned into museums that you can visit and tour and climb up and let the kids run around and burn off some energy and then there's medida which is another well-known colonial city a little bit further north the white city as it was known with spectacular architecture and little cafes boutique hotels to visit outside of these colonial cities were asiendas and asiendas were estates and they either raised cattle or they raised and again which is sisal and before nylon rope was invented ropes were made out of sisal fibers and these places cultivated the plant they harvested them and brought them into the main buildings where they were processed and of course with nylon these all went away and some of these were were turned into boutique hotels and some were just basically abandoned and shut down and in the case of those that were shut down this one just capoe which we visit uh ran up until the mid 80s and they basically just flipped it off and locked the door and so if you get there at the right time and get the caretaker and give him you know 30 pesos three dollars four dollars you'll get this big key ring off the wall and he's going to take you on a tour and you'll get to see the original machinery just as it used to run this is a single cylinder diesel engine that flywheel is about as tall as i am so you can imagine what that vibration must have been like and the original machinery for combing the fibers and producing the sisal all still there so it's kind of a real life museum and others have been turned into beautiful boutique hotels where you can go and pamper yourself spend the weekend relax and just completely get away from it all it's a fabulous place and then of course there's always shopping my wife's favorite pastime and a lot of folkloric dances and mexico wouldn't be mexico without the mariachis archaeology is another thing that's very impressive in this part of mexico we've had lots of articles written about it but there's numerous sites to visit uh to loom in this case which is right on the caribbean sea and many small airstrips located nearby palenque which is one of our stops uh spent spectacular on the side of the sierra madri mountains and and these are truly unique and you see all the carnival cruise line people there with a small airplane you can get to visit places and be the only people there if you go to chichen itza after 10 11 o'clock forget it you won't do it but here i am with my two kids there in the foreground with one kid my my son's up with my wife taking the picture and you can see this is very typical day in usman so you've got a small aircraft we can show you how to do this uh ekbalam as they uncovered these pyramids uh you know people think of the mayan pyramids as a pile of rocks they were actually covered in either carved stone or stucco and as they excavated ekbalam you can see they uncovered sections of the original exterior surface of the pyramid so you can just give you an idea of the detail another popular place is kohun lich it's not even on the charts so don't look for it but we have access to this airstrip and another pyramid where you can see the original exterior and you can even see the original paint you can still see the red tint of the the the pigment came from plant the pigments that were used were plant-based sivan che and it's i'm connect this is where they believe at nancortes uh had the last astic emperor uh kowtemok assassinated and again we had the place to ourselves so truly there's a wealth of things to do uh this is another interesting spooheel you can see there's an archaeological site right off the runway but it's our access point to calakmul which was the tikal's rival in the mayan world there's over 6 000 structures hundreds of stela which are the carved obel obelisks and right in the middle of the jungle no lights no no phones no nothing it's an hour and a half by car because the road's too narrow for buses but it's a spectacular place it takes you back in time you can almost imagine what it was like back then so there's a tremendous wealth of mayan archaeological sites to visit natural beauty mexico's got tremendous amount of of mountains deserts jungle beaches you name it but these are some of the places that we go to visit on our tours the candelaria river it's got unique structures underwater there's different theories because this whole region is completely unexplored no one really knows they some say that nan cortez these were the the foundations to bridges that he built others say these are mayan dikes no one really knows what we do know is that this whole area is just wide open to those that have a small aircraft okay we have the largest underground cave system in the state of quintanarro with just some spectacular places to go visit some are dry some are wet and different caletas beaches some populated some not and of course swimming with the dolphins deep-sea fishing scuba diving you name it we've got it lots of wildlife there's many places in that place calakmul there's jaguars wild turkeys all sorts of wild animals running around flamingos my kids and of course in the yucatan the iguana is everywhere okay last topic on our destinations we do some island hopping and isla mujeres has got a nice little runway that we use and tremendous nightlife it's a great place to get away from it all and just relax and unwind disconnect again more shopping then we go to more remote islands like the island of old bush and this is one of our favorite getaways not a hotel in sight see that beautiful beach for miles not a road not a house nothing this is the island of old bush and this is where we go for our whale shark visits the runway's been resurfaced and recombacted it's 2100 foot it's in great condition there's the international terminal of the old bush airport and there's no paved streets in old bush you get around by foot or you get around in a golf cart that's the two modes of transportation the hotel that we use each hut is a little room you're right there on the beach the beat when rays comes in off of the golf and restaurante pizzeria delin is our favorite for lobster pizza you ever had lobster pizza that's where to go and this is the attraction on that trip is when we go out and swim with the whale sharks no teeth they don't have teeth but they are filter feeding animals and we go out there with the fishermen and these small boats and put on some snorkeling gear and take a plunge and those aren't sharks they're dolphins there's pods of dolphins everywhere around old bush dolphins manor rays and beautiful sunsets gosumel is another attraction of course most of you are familiar with that the beaches the scuba diving are well known we do catamaran tours is one of our group activities and then this is our home cancun and again if you like to pamper yourself there's plenty of places to do that on cancun as well now mexico is a very child-friendly country many of the hotels we use have kids clubs and when we go with our kids all they want is to go to the kids club and they do a great job of keeping them entertained during the day and at night as well if you want to find out more about this there was an article that was done by pilot getaways magazine and we have some reprints of the article in our booth we're in hangar a booth 80 if you want to read a little bit more from another you know from an unbiased source of what it's like to fly down there there's an interesting article now there's some other services that we have we have an interactive website and on there we have a map where you can go to and you mouse and click on one of those airports and it'll tell you what there is to do there we also have a weather page where we have programmed all the links for you so if you're traveling in mexico and can get access to an internet cafe go to our website click whether it's all free and you can get mexican doppler radar surface analysis international sigmets etc and then we have useful links to get your decal FCC license all the things that we talked about and then a pilot shop you can buy our pilot guide and the necessary charts to travel there one of the things that we did because there was so much conflicting information is produced the pilot's guide and right now our territory goes from the texas border around the gulf the eastern part of mexico in the entire yucatan peninsula and it contains general information who to tip who not to tip what to do before departure entering mexico the whole process basically everything that we've talked about today but in much more detail takes you by the hand through the whole process differences in airspace shows you the most common documents and how to fill them out airports of entry that we verify personally and some useful information and emergencies airport information we show you where the general aviation ramps are the buildings what kind of fuels available method of payment services at the airport aerial shots to help you acquire the runway a shot of the building that you need to go to once you're on the ground and a sketch of the building and very important where the bathrooms are after a long trip that can be probably the most useful piece of information on any airport diagram one of the things that we do are fly-ins which are guided tours we meet the group in the united states and scorch you through the trip we select the accommodations we provide most of the meals we leave some open for people to go explore on their own all the transportation from the airport group activities entrance fees equipment anything that's required and then special fairway dinners we think it's important to speak the language which we do and understand the culture we want you to leave with more than a sunburn so we try to always integrate the cultural aspect into the trip and we pick out all of the hotels and restaurants ourselves and we'll work with ATC to make sure that our fly-ins are being monitored by them and again for us living in mexico flying to and within mexico is as natural for us as it is for you traveling to and from your local airport we also do vacation planning services for people that want to do it on their own we can do a lot of that stuff we just don't go with you you just tell us what you want to do when you want to go and what type of accommodations that you want so with that i'd like to take the remaining minutes and answer any questions that you might have if you want more info you can also come by hangaray booth 80 where we're located but i'd like to open it to questions yes sir turning the 12 inch n numbers we just have the small ones would something temporary like black duct tape work yes the answer is yes you can use temporary duct tape try to make it look as professional as possible just so that because i've seen some times i look at it a little bit funny but yes we've we've seen people use it it's not a problem yes sir could you say something about maintenance at any of the aoe's what kind of maintenance facility they might have down there maintenance facilities at aoe's uh it really depends which one some have us a and p's us registered a and p mexican a and p's but with the us a and p and some had don't even have a hanger so it really depends on which one what we do is if you have a problem and like in our vacation planning we give you a 24 hour number depending where you are what kind of problem we can try to we'll get help moving to you we can we'll find the parts in mexico that are yellow tag and if necessary we'll have them imported from the us either from if it's a special airplane from whoever you get it from or from banyan air service in port lauderdale you you were in hangar a booth 80 80 thank you any other questions well i hope that means i answered them okay well i want to thank everybody for coming i hope it was beneficial again i want to thank the faa production studio staff they're wonderful to work with as always and if you some if you think of anything else give us a call visit our website and most of that information although the weather information is free so even if you're not on one of our trips please take advantage of it okay thank you okay i got it in an hour