Flying is great. Flying for an airline in Central America is amazing!
As a new “gringo” pilot at Tropic Air in Belize I had no idea what to expect. However, the company and other pilots are making the transition easy. I had a total of 14 hours in the C208EX Caravan when I came on board. Twelve of the hours were in a simulator and only two were live….so I was a clear novice.
Starting as a First Officer, I thought I might sit in the right seat and merely do the radios while the captain flew the plane and ran the navigation. On my first flight the captain did not introduce himself or say more than a cursory “hi.” He then called the tower and announced a short VFR flight from Belize International (Goldson tower) to San Pedro. I thought…well OK I’m not doing the radios, so I guess I’ll just sit, watch and learn. We taxied to the runway and he set takeoff power and at 70 miles per hour he pulled the nose off the ground. About 10 seconds later, he said “your airplane” and he moved his seat back! We were at 150 feet and I had no clue that I was going to be flying that soon. He noticed my horror and said “you not going to kill anyone – so just fly.” We flew to San Pedro and he told me the approach altitudes and coached me through the landing…it was a great way to break the ice and get started. The landing was a bit hard, but I indeed did not kill anyone!
By the end of the first week, I was doing pretty much everything from flight planning, to radios, to navigation, takeoffs and landings – although the landings are still not as smooth as I would like. Not really bouncing, but not always on the center line (by Tropic standards you have to be within 12 inches of the center of the runway and the landing should not be felt by passengers).
To get started here are a couple new experiences as a commercial airline pilot….First, we were flying last week from Belize International to Cancun. It is an hour and a half flight – so, long enough to relax a bit but not too long. We are about 30 minutes into the flight and I felt the plane shift a little. If a passenger gets up and moves from the front to the back of the plane the plane will adjust to the new center of gravity. Ok, no problem, but I turn around to see what is happening. Sure enough, a guy is standing at the back of the plane. Again, no problem, but I see he is holding something to his waist! I look a bit closer and he is peeing into a water bottle and seeming to miss as much as he is making!! Seriously, you can’t hold your water for 30 minutes? You would think that passengers who know we have a 90-minute flight in a plane without a bathroom would go to the restroom before boarding. We get to Cancun and he leaves a full water bottle of urine in the back seat and pee all over the floor. Made for an interesting/smelly flight back to Belize.
A couple days later we are flying from Cancun to Belize and a guy boards in the back of the plane. He seems agitated so we go back and check on him. He said that he had just had nose surgery and he needed to be sure we had oxygen. We said that the plane was only going to 10,000 feet and we do not use supplemental oxygen. He said there was not enough oxygen now and we assured him that the AC would start with the engine and it would blow lots of air on him throughout the flight. He seemed better and we went to start the engine. We got clearance from the tower and started to taxi. The tower cleared us to take off and we turned onto the runway. Right as I started to add power to take off the passengers started a commotion and were yelling at us. I began to roll and the captain turned and saw the person reaching for the exit door and saying he needed water! I shut down the engine, then aborted the takeoff. We rolled back to the gate and politely told the passenger that he might want to stay in Cancun a bit longer!
I am learning that being an airline pilot is about more than just the mechanics of flying!