 Welcome to the FAA Production Studios and the FAA Safety Team's National Resource Center located in the Sun and Fund Complex in Lakeland, Florida. Our next presenter is originally from the Nassau Bahamas, and with his wife, Pia, they own and operate Caribbean Sky Tours, which provides products and services to pilots planning to fly to Mexico, Central America, or the Bahamas. He is a member of the Mexico's General Aviation Council, the Bahamas General Aviation Council, AOPA representative for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. He is based in Cancun, Mexico and travels GA and promotes GA throughout the region. He is going to share some of his experiences and good times flying in Mexico. Let's welcome Rick Gardner. Well, thank you very much. And good afternoon, everybody. We're going to talk a little bit about Mexico today, a place we call home, and we travel too frequently. As Walt said, I'm from, we live down in Mexico, but originally from the Bahamas. We are natives to the region and we have been able to develop over the years extensive relationships with the authorities, both in Mexico, Central America, Bahamas, which is very important because it allows you to get the facts and be able to answer all the questions. We are the official AOPA rep in the region, and as Walt pointed out, we are members on both the Mexican and the Bahamian General Aviation Council. I'm also on the Executive Council of the Mexican Federation of Pilots, which is an association representing Mexican pilots. And we're also the authorized distributor for the Mexican Charting Office, which gives us access to charts not commonly found outside of Mexico. And lastly, we have a license with the State Department for legally providing Cuban overflight permits. Mexico has approximately 1,500 airports throughout the country. 54 of them are international airports of entry providing tremendous flexibility for pilots wanting to travel to the country. Fuel prices are very attractive. We just fueled our Skymaster on Saturday and fuel was about $3.20 a gallon, with all taxes paid. The country has a network of 75 BORs, and the altimeter settings are still given in inches, altitudes in feet, distances in miles, and fuel is in liters. So if you're not familiar with liters, bring your E6B or just remember there's 3.785 liters to the gallon. And the other common question we get, air traffic control does speak English. Might have a little bit of an accent, but they are required to speak English to be a controller in Mexico. As far as the country's concerned, it's got 6,000 nautical miles of coastline, which includes the Pacific, the Gulf, and the Caribbean. So there's, if you are a beach lover, there's a little bit of something for everybody. It's got the world's second largest barrier reef that runs basically from Cozumel all the way down the Riviera Maya into Belize and Honduras. It's got jungle, desert, beaches, mountains, volcanoes. Pretty much there's something for everybody in Mexico from a destination standpoint. Very long and rich pre-colonial history with the Aztecs and the Mayans, as well as a colonial history with the Conquistadores en Nancortes. A country that's got a rich culture of regional customs and food, as well as tremendously attractive destinations for the eco-tourists. So all in all, it's a region that's got a lot to offer for everybody that's visiting. And if you have a small aircraft, we're going to show you how you can combine the aeronautical infrastructure with the destination to truly have a unique experience. Now, one of the things that I tell pilots, regardless of what your destination is, Mexico, Central America, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, one of the most important secrets that we've found to make any trip successful is to relax. Things are going to be different. That's not going to go the way you expect it. So don't expect a quick turn. Don't set yourself a really aggressive time schedule. All you're going to do is set yourself up for frustration. Just take it easy. Relax and things will go smoothly. Before you leave the United States, there's a series of documents that you want to make sure that you have. The first one, starting May 18th, U.S. Customs and Border Protection is going to be implementing the new rule for private aircraft leaving the United States. And the first thing we need to do is to sign up for an EAPIS account. The link to the EAPIS site is on our website. Go to the links page. You're going to log on. Enter your personal information. And within three to five days, you should receive an email from Customs and Border Protection with your username, password, and an activation key. So that you should try to get done as early as possible before you make your trip. You're going to need a passport. You don't need it to leave, but you will need it to get back. So unless you want to stay down with us in Cancun for a long time, you should get a passport process before you go. And for the pilot, you'll need the same documents you need to fly domestically. A pilot, airman certificate, a medical certificate, you should have the English proficient on the back of your airman certificate. If you don't, you can get that through the FAA for $2 and you can do that online. You'll need your airworthiness and registration as well as your aircraft limitations. Now the limitations, the main reason they're interested primarily in your weight and balance is that a lot of fees in Mexico and Central America are calculated based on the maximum takeoff gross weight of the aircraft. So if you have an aircraft that they're really not familiar with, that's what they're going to want to see so they know exactly how much they should be charging you. They're not worried about whether you've loaded your plane correctly. It's more about being able to charge you. You're also, the FCC requires us when leaving the United States to have a restricted radio operator and radio station permit. Now for those of you that don't have one, I will warn you it is a grueling, grueling exam. You're going to be required to know not only your first name, but also your last name. But the most important question of all is your credit card number. If you're able to answer those key questions, then you are going to be capable of operating a radio outside the United States. And insurance. This is a topic that gets a lot of misinformation in the aeronautical community. About 2003, Mexico changed its requirements. Your U.S. issued insurance is valid in Mexico, provided that you have at least 56,900 days of minimum wage in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. At the current exchange rate, that's about $260,000 and most people have a million. The other thing it should say specifically that you're covered in Mexico. If your coverage has that, then just bring photocopies of those pages showing the coverage, showing the limits, and the fact that the policy is valid, is current with you, and that's really all you need. The other thing you should bring, if the aircraft is not registered in your name, if it's under an LLC or if it's rented or borrowed from somebody, then what I suggest you do is write a letter, whoever the owner of it is, the officer of the LLC, if it's yourself, write yourself a letter authorizing you to fly the airplane to Mexico on a private flight. So I authorized Rick Gardner to fly on November 1, 234 from January 1 of 2009 through December 31 of 2012 on private flights to Mexico. And that way they can make sure that you are authorized to fly the aircraft, and they don't mix you up with the charter company because you're saying private flights. So that way you kill two birds with one stone. And the last thing you should do, you really don't need an outbound, but you're going to be a whole lot more popular with customs on your return. If you go ahead and get your CBP decal now, and the link to do that's also on our website. Just go to the links page, and you can go ahead and get it. As well as the FCC license, we've got the links for that as well. For equipment, you need to bring current suitable navigation charts. There's a number of different charts. Mexico has come out with their own set of VFR WAC charts, one to one million scale. They are the most accurate charts out there. There's, by far, versus any of the other options. There's also DODONC charts for Mexico, Central America, and the Southern Caribbean. IFR and Root charts. We also, there are charts for IFR as well. Jefferson has some products, although they only cover airports that have instrument approaches. Your aircraft, to cross the ATIS, we need 12 inch N numbers. Now you can use, if you have the smaller numbers, you can get two inch vinyl tape, and go ahead and make temporary numbers, just as long as the numbers meet the FAR requirements. And you'll need a mode C transponder and two way radio to cross the ATIS, to be talking and squawking. And lastly, the FARs require us to follow the regulations of the country we're flying to. And Mexico requires, when you're outside of gliding distance, you should have life raft and a life jacket for each member on board. And I'm going to tell you, if you haven't been out over the water, it's a really good idea. So even though it may sound a little bit more stringent than what we're accustomed to, I'm going to tell you, if you're out over water beyond gliding distance, it's not a bad idea. And lastly, suitable survival equipment. Unless you have a burning desire to find out more about the Mexican legal system, these are three things that you don't want to bring with you. So if you've gone hunting, if you have had firearms in your plane, just make sure you don't have any loose rounds rolling around inside the aircraft, because that is a big no-no. So getting ready to fly outbound. First thing you want to do is select the Mexican airport of entry. Now, the nice thing about Mexico is they let you pick whichever one's convenient to you. So if you're leaving, say, Brownsville, Texas, and you want to fly to Veracruz, you can overfly Matamoros, you can overfly Tampico. All they care about is that your first landing is at an airport of entry, okay? Next, we need to file our EAPIS. On May 18th, this becomes mandatory. And basically, what we need to do is to file a notification that explains what aircraft is going to depart where, going where, on what date, and where is it going to cross the ATIS. And then a manifest, which contains the information of all the people, the pilot, crew, and passengers on board that aircraft. If you have questions on EAPIS, we've been working with Customs and Border Protection in Washington for quite some time now on the EAPIS. And we've got a lot of information and experience doing that. So if you've got questions, come over to booth A80, and we'll be glad to answer it. Next, what we want to do is file a flight plan. Now, if you're crossing Mexico over land from Texas or Arizona, you can do it with a domestic flight plan. But if you're going to cross into Mexico over water, if you're coming from Houston, New Orleans, Cancun, I'm sorry, from Key West to Cancun, you'll need to do it with a KO flight plan, an international flight plan. And you can do those with Miami Flight Service. And then what you want to do is file a plan. Make sure you've activated your flight plan. Don't forget to activate it, especially before you cross the ATIS, because that way your flight plan information gets relayed to the authorities in Cuba if you're going across through Cuban airspace and certainly to the Mexican authorities. You can ask for flight following. The Mexican regulations allow for flight following for VFR aircraft. And Cuban Havana Center will do flight following as well. So take advantage of that if you're VFR. But what you don't want to do is to make any unauthorized stops. So if, for example, you had decided to fly from Brownsville to Barracruz, but headwinds were greater than expected or something's not right, you just don't feel that flying to Barracruz is going to work out for you. Then try to select another airport of entry to make your intermediate landing. And then by all means, please let ATC know. But the key thing is to try to make that first stop at an international airport. And if you're flying VFR from Key West over to Cancun, what you want to avoid is that 12-mile inter-atis of Cuba. You don't want to fly inside Cuba's territorial waters VFR. Or IFR for that matter, unless you have an overflight permit. Now the first guy that's going to greet you when you come into Mexico is actually probably the most courteous people that we deal with, which is the Mexican military. Unfortunately, a lot of them don't speak English. So we have a little note in our pilot guide, a little sheet with the common questions that have been translated. So you can just fill in the blanks, pop it out, hand it to the soldier, let him copy the info and hand it back. Otherwise, it's a good opportunity to practice your Spanish, but it's a whole lot quicker if you give them the little form. The entry process is fairly straightforward, especially if you're familiar with flying to the Caribbean or the Bahamas. There's a general declaration. It'll be the first one that basically talks about who's on the aircraft and where it came from. The immigration form, which is what you would fill out when you fly commercial. And they're going to tear off the bottom of the form, that little stub that's outlined in red. They're going to give that to you. Don't lose it because you'll have to surrender when you leave. Next, a customs form, one per household, just when you fly commercial. And then an entry permit. Now this entry permit, there's two types. There's a single entry permit that costs 626 pesos, or there's a multiple entry permit that costs 626 pesos. The multiple entry permit allows you to enter Mexico as many times as you want during the calendar year without paying that 626 pesos again. Which prompts the obvious question, why would you not get a multiple entry permit? I don't know. I always get a multiple entry permit, and so I would suggest you do the same. You have a great time, you want to come back, you don't have to pay again. But regardless if it's a single or a multiple, you're going to get a form that looks like this. It's called a GHC-001. And it's going to be stamped by immigration. It's going to be stamped by customs and civil aviation. This form shows that the aircraft entered the country legally. And when you pay those 626 pesos, they give you a receipt. So staple the receipt to the form. That's the one you want to have with you. It's similar to the C7A that you get in the Bahamas that you take with you when you fly around the Bahamas. This would be the Mexican equivalent of the C7A. And when you arrive at a towered airport or an airport where there's a civil aviation presence, you'll fill out an arrival report which basically says your tail number and where you came from. And it's margarita time. So that is the entry process into Mexico, which is fairly straightforward and similar to other countries. But now let's go and do some flying within Mexico. First of all, we're probably going to need some fuel. So the people that distribute fuel is the government. Mexico is an oil-producing country. And ASA, Aeropuertos y Servicios Auxiliares, is the Mexican branch that operates the fuel. And 100LL is called Gas Avión, which is a literal translation in Spanish of Avgas. And Jet A is Turbocina. Now an easy way to remember is Turbocina, Turbine, that's for jet engines. Gas Avión, Gas, sounds like Avgas, that's Avgas. Getting weather, the official agency for getting weather is CNAM. I'm going to tell you what they're called. They're just called CNAM for short. And they operate the flight service stations. They operate the towers, the radar centers. They're the operational side of civil aviation. The DGAC, you'll hear about. The DGAC is the branch that does permitting, licensing, and enforcement. So they're more of the administrative side of civil aviation. You're also probably familiar with your own, you've got your own public, private sources of weather information. But we also have on our website a number of links that we use to help us with weather when we're traveling that specifically cover Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. So if you don't have, if you're not comfortable, you want some more information, take a look at our website. We've got some, possibly some additional resources you can use there. Airspace in Mexico is IKO, just like it is now in the US. They have Alpha, Delta, Echo, and Golf. They recognize them all, Bravo, Charlie, and Fox, but they, right now the airspace is in those four categories. Basically everything above 19-5 is A, everything below is golf, and Echo is going to be the airways. You're going to see a lot of brown on their charts because it's just tons and tons of uncontrolled airspace, which is really nice, it's nice and free. Airports and terminal areas, they use the IKO terminology, so you're going to see at airports, you'll see something called an ATZ, Aerodrome Traffic Zone. Just think of it as Class Delta in the states on steroids, 10-mile radius and it goes all the way up to Class Alpha. Okay, so around a towered airport there's going to typically be an ATZ that's 10 miles in radius going all the way up, and you need to get a clearance. It's Class Delta airspace. We also have in Mexico AFIS, Aerodrome Flight Information Service. Think of it as a local airport advisor in LAA. It's going to be somebody that's going to answer the radio, give you an altimeter setting, give you a traffic report, they're not going to clear you to land, and what you do at an AFIS is just self-announce. 15 miles out, get on the radio, they typically have their own discreet frequency, and just like you would in the states, do your self-announcement. Uncontrolled or non-towered airports, self-announces you would hear. Down there are terminal control areas called the TMA. Where the M came from, Montreal maybe, it's Class Delta, you need a clearance to get into it. And they also have special use airspace. The only thing down there, everything is prefaced with a mic mic. And that just says it's Mexican airspace. You've got danger, prohibited, and restricted, and look at the chart, because they could be permanent, they could be by no time, or might have a schedule like Monday to Friday, or sunrise to sunset, they might have some kind of schedule. You'll see that on the charts. And lastly, you have center airspace, as you would hear. So regulations, some of the most important ones that you should be aware of, is there's no night VFR. There are some very few exceptions at the US-Mexico border to help pilots get across into the US. But for all practical purposes, there's no night VFR. And if you've ever been out over water, or over the Yucatan jungle at night, it's IMC folks, because there's no cities, there's no horizon, it's dark. VFR is very similar, just a little bit higher ceiling for basic VFR. The common traffic frequency in Mexico, the official frequency is 122.5. That's what's in the regs. But from mid-Mexico north, you're going to find 122.8 is used at a number of airstrips. And it's just as you get closer to the US, it's just part of the US influence on aviation. So if you've ever in doubt, you don't have our pilot guide, you're approaching a non-tower, then what you can do is just transmit in the blind on both. And then when someone answers, now you know which one they're using. Experimental aircraft, a little noise about a year or two ago about experimental aircraft. So we petitioned the Mexican government directly. We wrote a letter, Caribbean Sky Tours, and asked for their position. We have a written response. And basically, as long as your airworthiness certificate does not prohibit you from flying outside the United States, you're welcome in Mexico. And IKO, they speak English, but they use the IKO glossary, which is not the same as the FAA glossary. And there are a couple of phrases that are pretty strange. The first one is, line up and wait. That doesn't mean you're at McDonald's or they're going to bring a burger or a pizza out to the plane. That means taxi into position and hold. The other one, which is a little bit more dangerous if you're thinking runway incursion, is taxi to the holding position runway 12. That does not mean taxi into position and hold. That means cross all runways and taxiways, but hold short of runway 12. So if you're ever in doubt, that's the key thing. Left-hand traffic patterns prevail. Cardinal airspace begins a little bit lower at 2,000. If you've got a turbine or turboprop, speed restrictions are a little bit different there. So check our pilot guide. We have the details. No deviations. If you file the flight plan to a destination and you aren't going to go there, then advise ATC because if they start looking for you, they're not going to be happy if they find out you went somewhere else. And flying within Mexico is very expensive in the sense that if there's civil aviation on the field, regardless of your VFR, IFR, you will have to file a flight plan. They're very helpful. They'll help you fill it out. But they will use the IKO format. We've got a simplified way, simplified instructions for filling one out in our pilot guide that kind of focuses in on the type of equipment that general aviation aircraft will have. And you'll need to get it stamped from the DGAC. Now, if you're at a remote airstrip for civil aviation, you don't have to do anything. But if there's civil aviation there, they typically will want it. It's kind of like the Bahamas. If customs is there, they want to stamp the C7A out. And then when you arrive, they want to stamp the C7A in. It's just a way of keeping track of where you're going. And finally, you close a flight plan with an arrival report, again, if there's civil aviation present. So that's pretty much it. Just the flight planning piece is a little different. And that's true for Central America as well. It's pretty common. Central America that process is pretty much standard. Now, coming home, planning your return. The first thing we need to do is to plan our route. We need to decide where we're going to leave Mexico from, and we have to leave Mexico from an international airport. And then we have to select the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Designated Airport of Entry. Now, there, it's not so flexible. We must select an airport, a designated airport from the official list that is nearest our point of border crossing. So, you can't fly to Miami from Cancun. You've got to land at Key West unless you have an overflight permit from Customs. You've got to land in Key West, clear, and then you fly to Miami as a domestic flight. Determine the route you're going to fly and when you're going to get there, and then file your EAPIS. Now, one of the tricks on EAPIS, one of the things that we had asked for and was approved when they did the final rule, you can actually file your return EAPIS before you ever leave home. So when you file your outbound EAPIS notification and manifest, I suggest you file your inbound. If you know where you're coming back and where you're coming back from, go ahead and file it. So that's one less thing to have to worry about when you're sitting at a remote airstrip somewhere in the Bahamas or Central America or Mexico, you've already done it. And now if you have to make modifications, it's just an exception. And then contact flight service, especially if you're a VFR, and this is two primary reasons. You've got to get to the border and Mexico may not see all the FDC no-tems. So that's one way to be absolutely sure that you've got all the information. So contact flight service, we have the numbers, the direct dial numbers, because 800 numbers don't work for Mexico. We've got them all in our pilot guide. And they will give you the opportunity to give them the flight plan information. And that's very useful because sometimes, especially VFR, if you're near the border, by the time the AFTN, the information gets input into AFTN and it gets to center and then works its way through the system, you might be at the ATIS before your flight plan information. So if you give it to them ahead of time, when you pop up at the border and say, hey, I need a squat code to cross the ATIS, they already know who you are and they've got it all in the system and that way you don't have to start giving all this stuff over the radio back and forth. So that's a nice thing to do. So that's just a suggestion on our part. And lastly, what they do expect you to do, if you've told them where you're leaving and where you're going and what time you're landing and where you're going to cross the ATIS, you still have to pick up the phone, call the CBP office at the airport and give them all that information. Not my idea, folks, but that's what they want us to do. Get a name, badge number, or initials when you do that so you've got a record of that conversation. And then as far as Mexico's concerned, when you do want to leave, just file a flight plan, fill out a gen deck outbound, then you enter, hand it back, and you're done. As far as air concern, that's all they need you to do. Approaching the U.S., contact flight service. If you're IFR, if you're IFR, it's not an issue because you've already got it. Everything is, you've got your squawk and you're already talking to ATC. But if you're VFR, contact flight service before the ATIS and give them your tail number, get that squawk code from them before you cross the ATIS. And if you're going to be late, folks, if you're running late, contact flight service to update customs. If you're going to be more than 15 minutes late, call them up and say, hey, Miami Radio, would you please update my arrival time, Key West, my new arrival time is, so that they can inform customs and they're not sitting there at the airport waiting on you for an hour or half an hour or whatever. You're not going to be really popular if you make them do that. Very quickly, how to not be unpopular with CVP. Some airports, they have this big, nice ramp. But some pilots like to park right in the middle of the ramp with their Cessna 182, they'll come in, turn 90 degrees and boom, shut down. That's a problem because if the taxiway is right next to you, you might be blocking entrance to the ramp for other aircraft. So see where the blue aircraft, if there are boxes, you'll see that they paint boxes towards the edge of the ramp. Make room for other pilots because it won't go well if you're halfway through your entry process and the tower calls the customs agent saying, would you please ask that pilot to move the plane, or would you like to work on the taxiway? Some airports have the penalty boxes and they'll have a yellow line will lead you right up into the penalty box. Go all the way to the end. Make room for other pilots behind you, folks. Somebody else might be coming in from another international destination. Don't block the lane, just go to the end and make space for fellow pilots. You'll fill out a customs form, one per head of household. If you have not filed an EAPIS, you'll need to do a 178. If you have filed an EAPIS, you will not. If any of you file EAPIS but are asked to fill out a form 178, would you please let me know, call me, send me an email, I'll alert customs in Washington because they're trying to get that straightened out at all the ports. And if you came in VFR, don't forget to close your flight plan. What you don't want to do, and I know this is easier said than done, especially if you've got small kids and it's hot, which is yet another reason why to make sure you update your ETA. I'm telling you otherwise they expect you to stay in the aircraft, okay? Now some airports, Tamiami, Opalaca, I know for sure have a sign that says pilot and passengers, please grab your belongings and proceed to the customs building. Okay, if there's instructions to do that, you do it. Otherwise they expect you to stay inside the aircraft and definitely stay inside the penalty box. What I'd like to do now is give you some recommendations and safety tips based on our flying. We've been flying down, well, I'm like I said, from the Bahamas and a lot of remote flying for many, many years. And one of the first things that I always recommend is bring oil and spare parts. Okay, sometimes it's hard to find, but definitely the spare parts. Because it's sort of Murphy's law in reverse. If you bring an alternator with you, that's probably the part that's not going to fail. Okay, Murphy grew up in aviation. Prop, throttle lock, be prudent, some of the airports are remote, bring chocks, tie down. Sometimes there's not enough for everybody or they're missing or they're anchors but no ropes. So if you can bring your own a 406 megahertz PLB. 406 saves lives, there's no question. So get yourself a PLB and take it with you. They're great even for domestic cross-country trips in the U.S. A GPS with a moving map is another helpful tool. If you're out there over the water or you're out there over that carpet of green jungle in the Yucatan you get this little voice in the back of your head that says, you know, you start getting, well you have a GPS with a moving map that shows that yes, you are heading to the right place, that can help put you at ease tremendously. Machete is a good thing to bring with your survival equipment. If you ever get in a bind and you can't communicate because of range, you know, when you get outside the U.S. the distance between communications outlets can be very great and, you know, being that we typically fly at lower altitudes that can be a problem communicating. You can hear them on frequency, jet liners, and worst comes to worst, contact them on 12015, ask for assistance, and then transfer to an air-to-air frequency so you don't clog the emergency channel. When in doubt, clarify. As I said with the IKO speak, again, between the IKO glossary, accents, hey, any questions? Clarify it. Controllers in Mexico are fabulous to work with. They're very easy going, they're very accommodating. So take advantage of that. Give position reports to air traffic because that's a good way to get search and rescue. They have the towers are all interconnected. So when you call up, say, you're leaving Cancun for Veracruz, they're going to call Merida and they're going to tell you when able, contact Merida. Merida's going to let Gampiche. Gampiche's going to let Viermosa. It's kind of a daisy chain. So if you're departing a non-towered airport, the best thing to do is contact the nearest towered airport. That's the best way to get to the system. Flight following, we mentioned. It's available. Non-towered airports. Some of these airstrips are very remote. Kids use the runway for their soccer field. There might be goats. There might be dogs. So a good idea is to come in at 500 feet offset from the runway so you can see the runway and just configure yourself and go over to 500 feet, check everything is clear better communication distances flying early in the day less convective activity typically in the afternoon. There are places in Mexico that are high and hot so consider the terrain and density altitudes. Always plan on an alternate. A lot of airports have only one runway with no taxiway. Something's blocking the runway. Always have a backup plan and take positions of ships. This is something we've studied. We've hired consultants to come in money analyzing. If you're flying from Cancun to Key West and you see a ship you can hold that GPS button and create a user waypoint. Now, here's the tricky part. You're flying along and you see two ships and one is a container vessel and the other one is a Royal Caribbean cruise liner. Both pointed in the same direction and for whatever reason you have to put it in the water. We've had this proven scientifically folks. Sweaty crewmen, sweaty sailors, probably a two week trip to China. Royal Caribbean bars, food, swimming pool. Royal Caribbean. That's the one you want. Okay? All right. What we'll do now, I'm going to take you on a brief tour of the places we visit on our escorted trips. We do fully escorted trips. I'm going to take you to some destinations to show you. If you have a small aircraft, a private aircraft, what are the things we do to some places. Our tours, we typically depart Brownsville, Texas and Key West, although we do escorted trips for groups, associations and you just tell us where you want to go. But that's typically where we go. Our offices are in Cancun and this is one of the places we've got a trip coming up here in a couple of months to Olbosh. Olbosh is a Mayan word. It's a small island just off the northern tip of the Yucatan. What you see is what you get folks. Those are the hotels, those little cabanas, those little bungalows right there on this beach. We spare no expense for our customers, so we bring in the limousines to whisk you off from the airstrip there to your bungalow at the hotel. That's the stretch limo folks there for one of our trips. This is a typical hotel. This is the one we use for our whale shark trip. Each one of those cuts is an air conditioned room. That's each one is a separate room right on the beach. And this is the highlight of the trip, the whale sharks. They congregate off the Yucatan in the summer so from there we go out to the world's largest living fish. Unless you're a plankton or a krill, you have nothing to worry about. They are filter feeding animals and they're very, very docile. Another destination, Isla Mujeres, which is located off of Cancun. Isla is, I'd say it's Cancun's alter ego where Cancun's all that big hotels, glitzy nightlife restaurants. Isla is the exact opposite. Back, rustic, small hotels, fishing village. Cozumel, very popular with the scuba divers. If you like water sports, scuba diving, that's a great destination with all of the amenities. And then on the other side right across from Cozumel is Tulum. Now the neat thing about Tulum besides the archeological side is that there's lots of small boutique hotels. Many without electricity so they have their own generators or they use solar panels. So if you like really rustic off of the beaten path to Tulum, to the south of Tulum, there's some great destinations. If you like caves, you're a cave diver. Largest underground cave system is on the east side of the peninsula. So you've got places like Actunchen, Hidden Worlds, Dos Rios, all sorts of cenotes, the sinkholes with springs. It's a cave diver's mecca. Further down the Yucatan is Siankan. Siankan is a biosphere reserve so there's nothing, which you see. That little white strip there. That's it. That's the major highway. It was all the way. There's a whole lot of nothing. So you can go down there, go into this. There are some remote airstrips. Go by Jeep and you can have beautiful beaches to your own. If you want not quite so rustic, go down the Skalak, right on the border with Belize. There's a 3,900 foot I think it's 3,900 to 3,700 foot airstrip that's in our guide. And there's little small hotels. There's only three hotels there. One we use for rooms. But they have a dive operation there. Very, very nice one that'll take you either to the Barrier Reef or over to Banco Chinchorro which is a very large reef located 22 miles offshore. And it's a reserve, it's protected but they have the permits to go out there. And there you can see the view of the Barrier Reef going all the way down the Riviera Maya, down the east side of the Yucatan Peninsula. So beautiful, beautiful places to visit Some other interesting destinations when the archaeologists were exploring the Yucatan 50, 60 years ago looking at all these Mayan sites what they would do is they would cut out a 1,000 meter strip that they used Cessna 185s and 206s to bring people and supplies into these remote strips. Later the government paved some of these airstrips to make it easy to give them access or easier access to these remote areas. Next up Koh Hun Leech, this is what the runway looks like. You're out in the middle of the jungle, very remote but nice asphalt runway that you can go in and go to the archaeological site which is located about one to two kilometers from the runway. The neat thing about Koh Hun Leech here at the Temple of the Masks when they excavated it, you could see the original exterior of the pyramid. They weren't just big piles of rocks they were covered with stucco and carved and you can see the paint so it's you know, there's many places where you can see things and experience things that you'll never see at the more famous more popular touristic destinations like Chichen Itzu or Tulum. And there you go right next to Koh Hun Leech, there's this is how the archaeologists left it. It's not full of, it's not, you know, Disneyland for cruise ships. This is it. This is the real thing, the real deal. It's not Chichen Itzu or Tulum with the tour guides stuff. And you can go up and down and explore all the caverns of these buildings. As far as where to stay, you have extremes. You have on one end this is the Explorian located about a kilometer, six tenths of a mile from that Koh Hun Leech runway. Each one of those bungalows is an air conditioned room. You're right there in the middle of the jungle with the howler monkeys. Every day they organize different activities kayaking, hiking. It's a fabulous place if you want to go to all the amenities in Pamper. Or you have the other extreme, the place that we have the Echo Resorts with no air conditioning no electricity and the mosquito net. So whatever makes you happy there's something for you out there. And then from an archaeological standpoint this is one of the most adventurous destinations. How many of you have been to Tikal? Anyone here to have been to Tikal or heard of Tikal in Guatemala? Well, Tikal is considered one of the largest Mayan city along with Kalakmul. There's a debate which one's bigger. The difference is Tikal is very developed, a lot more like Chichen Itza the buses coming from Flores very well known, established more frequently traveled. Kalakmul happens to be located in a biosphere reserve so there's no infrastructure there's no highway, there's no buses. The roads so narrow the buses can't go down the road. But they have so far uncovered almost 7,000 structures inside the jungle canopy and if you fly into the Shpuhileh strip which is another one of these paved strips in Shpuhileh of all places fancy that but you go into Shpuhileh and it's a two-hour car ride through the jungle you come in under the canopy and you've got the place yourself and there you'll find the archaeologists are still there they were excavating the last time we were there they had found chambers inside the pyramid and since you're the only game in town you get a lot more flexibility space, time and attention when you've got the whole place to yourself versus places like Chichen where it's you and several thousands so this would be at the other extreme of the adventure scale of going to visit archaeological sites in Mexico. Somewhere in the middle is Palenque anyone here heard of Palenque? Palenque is located in the state of Chiapas on the side of Sierra Madre Mountains in a rainforest you'll hear the howler monkeys up in the trees this large pyramid here the pyramid of the inscriptions is where Pacal's tomb is one of the famous Mayan kings his tomb was built first and then the pyramid around it there's no way to get it out there's no way to get the slab out so you've got a tremendously gorgeous site here and there's the palace of Palenque you can go into the underneath the palace are caverns rooms where they where they would live you can tour all of that inside and then further up into the mountains is the waterfalls of Aguasula considered one of the most beautiful in Mexico because of the mineral content of the water which gives it a bright turquoise color and what we do is we do the archaeological site in the morning where it's cooler and then we hop into the vans we go up into the mountains and then we go a little path that leads up the left side of the picture up through those trees we go all the way upstream and then we go swimming with the local kids there's a nice area with the water there's hardly any current and you can go in and relax and cool off makes for a beautiful day also in the area is Yashilan Bonampac some other more remote archaeological sites again there's so much folks there's so much but if you have a small plane you can fly into the Palenque airport there's no commercial flights small relatively small 4,000 foot runway other places that are need to visit are the Haciendas these were the estates the working estates in the case of Temozón in Yucatan Peninsula they grew Cicel before nylon rope was invented they would harvest the Cicel and bring it to the Hacienda where they had all the machinery to process it some of the Haciendas have been converted into boutique hotels like Temozón others are working or living museums they literally this one ran until 1986 and then they shut it down and you can go there give the caretaker a tip he'll get this big key ring off the wall and you can go in and see the engines the shafts the machinery you can basically see exactly what it looked like when it stopped running so it's a great way it's a living museum and you can see the estate the houses the furniture the living rooms the bedrooms just see what life was like other archeological sites Ushmal, Labná, Sahil Edzna there's it just goes on and on you have a plane we can show you how to get to these places and then of course there's the granddaddy the most famous Chichen Itza seven wonders of the world if you have a small plane it's even great here if you want to see Chichen because you can get in before all those buses make it from picking up all the people of the cruise ships and all the people at the hotels you could get into the Chichen airport we can work it out to get in there before the tower opens have the transportation take you to the site and then by the time you see the big dust clouds where the herds start unloading from the buses you're out of there you can get it get in get out you've got a Cessna or Piper you're good another neat destination Campeche we visit Campeche it's then declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO the city was a very very important trading point a port rather and it kept being attacked by pirates so what they had to do is petition the Spanish crown and they built the wall with bastions all around the city put two forts on either side of the city to protect it from the pirates and much of the wall the bastions are there the bastions have been turned into museums the forts are museums and you can go up the wall they have a really neat view this is the land gate which is how everything entered the city through that gate and then they have the sea gate which is at the other end of that street you go all the way down and you have another entrance from the seaside this is what the streets look like your typical colonial city the Socalo the city center which is a very very beautiful place you can sit there relax read a book at night it's all illuminated it's a gorgeous gorgeous city and that's one of the forts, Fort San Jose that was built to protect it moving further up the Gulf Coast Veracruz where Hernán Cortés this is where he started it all this is where the conquest of Mexico began we stay right there in the historic city center and there's lots of interesting places to view and visit the nightlife in the Socalo is spectacular, mariachis, marimbas trios, there's food, there's drink it's very lively city very very beautiful and the people are wonderful the jarochos, as they call the people in Veracruz are just great people there is also lots of beautiful architecture this was the lighthouse the original lighthouse of Veracruz now we move further inland this is where my wife is from from Puebla de Los Angeles Puebla Mexico one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Mexico is located in Puebla the cathedral of Puebla the Mexican china the talavera handmade it all comes from Puebla nearby is Cholula Cholula is famous for all of these small picturesque churches you can go in and tour and visit this is my favorite Don Ancintla, each one of those is handmade, each one of those faces and it goes on the whole church with gold leaf the picture does not do it justice but it's just fascinating what the Spaniards were known to do is wherever they showed up and there was a pyramid first thing they do is they tear the pyramid they take the rocks from the pyramid, they strip it take their stones and they build a cathedral so they started burying these things they started burying their pyramids to hide them so these guys came along couldn't find a pyramid, what they do they stuck a church on the hill turns out the hill was a pyramid there we go but the neat thing about the great pyramid of Cholula is the archeologists have dug tunnels about six kilometers of tunnels inside the pyramid because it turns out every time the dynasty changed there was a new ruler they would build a new pyramid on top of the old pyramid so you always got to see the outer one so what they did is they dug tunnels and you can see, you're walking through and you see the steps of the first one and you go another 6, 8, 10 feet there you see the steps of the next one and then they've got tunnels that go parallel so you can look up and see the steps of the pyramid and see the layers beneath the one before it so it's a spectacular pyramid because you can tour it inside as well as outside that's in Cholula this is near Cuernavaca Cuernavaca is known as the Land of Eternal Spring it's south of Mexico City it's lower, it's altitude and it's location give it a very, very moderate temperate climate this is another one and then towards the center they typically grew sugar cane or they raised cattle our kids love this one because it's got dungeons they've got tunnels and rooms underground you can explore we love it, we're looking for a lock next time so we can leave them down there but it's fabulous it's got a working aqueduct beautiful place to visit and then Tascu Tascu is a mining town the silver mining town south of Cuernavaca and one of the things one of the questions I get from pilots and they say Rick, you know I just want to know one thing is it dangerous to go on these trips with you and my response is if your wife is with you it can be extremely dangerous and Tascu is one of the most dangerous because every other store is a silver store so if you go to Tascu on our group trips leave the wallet behind, leave it in the safe because they can get extremely dangerous for the budget moving over to the Pacific side we're now looking at Puerto Escondido, if you like rustic you like laid back Puerto Escondido is a wonderful destination if you like a little bit nicer larger hotels with more amenities Bayez de Huatulco is located next to it in the whole area these nice little secluded beaches where you can go and basically have it to yourself go snorkeling and of course all up the Pacific side Atlán, Puerto Vallarta and then of course the Sea of Cortez as you move up into Baja California we offer a number of things to help make it easy because one of those 1500 airports I mentioned only 85 of them are in Mexico's Aeronautical Information Publication which is in Spanish and you can only purchase in downtown Mexico City which is kind of self-defeating so what we did is we took that along with our local knowledge and we created this document and it tells you everything everything I've covered it goes into great detail shows you the airports of entry both in Mexico as well as the U.S. with the phone numbers how to get weather, go into more detail about weather and no-tems and unpublished frequencies in Mexico where to talk to a briefer in the air that's covered in our guide along with the frequencies how to get fuel, how to avoid unnecessary fees and then the airport information we fly to every single airport information we go in and we verify everything personally we also include a border crossing chart give you frequencies on both sides of the border as well as on both sides of the gulf to help pilots get that squat code we talked about that's where we put it to help you out we put all the frequencies that we can there we've got a website we have news that we update periodically with new stuff what's going on we have a tool, we have testimonials we have an online pilot shop where you can purchase charts we sell FAA charts, ONC charts the enroute charts, the Mexican whack charts the Mexican whack charts are great as I mentioned earlier far more accurate and updated than anything else out there if you're going to Mexico if you want to see what they look like we've got them at the booth we also do fully escorted trips a good way to go to Mexico to see how it's done you see how the paperwork is done you see how the filing of the flight plan this is a great way to do it as a first step and that's one of the services that we offer they're all inclusive we take care of everything even the ground transportation we're not going to let you loose in a taxi we're going to have vans or buses there to take you to the hotel you get a chance to meet fellow pilots to share similar interests it's great fun to see the dynamics of the crew procedures arrival what to do if you get lost we try to cover anything that could occur we give you also places of interest along the way with coordinates so you can go down and take a look at sites you get a chance as I said to see how the process works if you're a little bit more adventurous and you want to do it on your own we also do custom trips we do a personalized destination selection and itinerary we recommend hotels, restaurants we try to find out what your interest level your level of sensitivity for adventure is and then we try to match up what's available we also do the aeronautical review with you we look at what charts you should use we update fuel availability pricing and very important we advise the authorities at the airports that you're coming that you're a customer of ours so that way you're not a surprise when you show up at the airport in fact we will forward your documents and we give you a 24 hour number to reach us that way and it happens forget to turn off the master switch battery goes dead, blow a tire alternator dies on you who do you call you can call ghostbusters but I would suggest that you call us instead we also provide aeronautical planning we do overflight permits as I mentioned we've got the OFAC the Office of Foreign Asset Control we have a license from the federal government to legally provide human overflight permits and landing permits for Central America South America we review your documents we advise them, very similar this is the aeronautical piece of the vacation planning and update everything for you in advance so that kind of gives you just an overview that there are services and products and services out there that will help put this trip together so what I'd like to do now is open it up to questions and see if there are any questions from the floor as to Mexico or Central America Bahamas for that matter whatever I can answer I didn't do that good of a job now yes sir that's not a problem for me I can talk all day you probably figured that out by now the flight from the Keys to Cancun how far is that, can you do it in a little plane? yes you can it's from the Key West VOR to Cancun 360 nautical miles give or take a couple of nautical miles you can probably say 5 or 10 I can show you a little trick on selecting which route to go but consider 360 nautical miles the most common airplane we get are single engine airplanes and I know there's some apprehension of over water but that would be the shortest one if you are concerned about over water then you can always come around to the Texas Arizona border and enter Mexico over land you don't have to deal with the over water piece if you're concerned and you can always rent life rafts and life jackets at FBOs in South Florida there's a number of them that have emergency equipment we sell some on our website if it's something you plan to do frequently sometimes it could be I don't know if cheaper but certainly more convenient to have your own rafts so you know it's been taken care of when it was last packed other questions you can go to Miami direct to Cancun but then I had mentioned coming back you have to end Key West the answer is yes you can leave from Miami to Miami airport file a flight plan to Cancun that's not a problem but on the return unless you get an over flight permit then you do have to land in Key West first and then you can fly back to Miami you can get an over flight permit on single trip I don't think it's worth the hassle of going through all the red tape of getting an over flight permit plus customs in Key West I can't say enough good things about CBP in Key West we wrote the port director letter they're very professional very courteous they're great to deal with I would be very surprised if you have an unpleasant experience customs, officers or people you treat them with respect and you treat them as you should they do the same thing but Key West they just they go that extra mile any other questions you guys ready to go to Mexico now? alright we're in Hanger A in booth 80 if you think of any other questions or if you want to come in by and see more pictures my wife is the brains in the operation I'm going to be honest and she's the destination expert so if you want to find out more about places she's the one you need to talk to her name is Pia she's in the booth right now and you can certainly send us an email or give us a call we have US numbers that will ring at our offices in Cancun and we'll be glad to answer and help any way we can any more questions? okay thank you Rick, you're very welcome I keep talking about going to Central America but I think you've convinced me I need to stop through Mexico first there's a whole bunch of stuff in there I didn't know it was hitting under all those trees that's right, in fact if you will let us know ahead of time we'll make sure that your margarita is waiting for you right on schedule hey now you've convinced me I need to go there first there you go you have any questions you can come up