Baja Fly-in

Dan and all,

Happy to hear your decision. We are still planning to meet in Marana(AVQ) the morning of the 8th. That is Northwest of Tucson Int. and has cheaper fuel and a place to eat breakfast.

I use a WAC CH-22 for charts in the Baja. The only issue with flying into San Diego is they have to be an Airport that has Customs available and I believe they do. You want to check on that though because that has to be your first stop into the US.

One last thing to make sure of is bring your own oil. They very seldom have oil for sale down there.

Any other takers?

My Cell # is 505-699-7358 so call that number.
Gary
 
OK, this may be the longest and smallest Fly-in in BAC history. Gary Cavasos and I are doing the Baja Fly-in. I was hoping we might get another taker or two, but the rest of you will have to read about it.

I am off (Dad is coming along) on Tuesday for Laughlin. We will relax there for a few days, enjoy the casinos and fly on down on Thursday morning to meet up with Gary. From there on to Mexico for three more days! I am excited!

I'm thinking we should share credit with the South Central Region for this Fly-in. The Baja Fly-in idea was a Southwest Region idea (and that sucker isn't even going...I'll get him), but Gary is the South Central guy with all the experience and a trip that we could tag onto. And he has been very helpful with all of my questions. I'm looking forward to meeting him.

I hope that Gary has that South Central Banner, as I will have the Southwest Banner. We will get a few pictures of the Beeches at Mulege and maybe a few pictures of the beaches at Mulege too. I'm curious, is this the first BAC international fly-in/fly-out?

Dan Jonas
 
First national/internation fly in, probably not. Seems like Mike went to Canada last year... Also, seems like we had someone from Canada fly to BAC fest in Kansas.

However, I'm almost 99.9% sure that this is the first official fly in we've had where the military will greet you as part of 'standard procedure' and you get to pet whales.

Enjoy your trip, I can't wait to hear all about it.
Jay
 
Tom Corcoran has hosted a BAC fly-in at PEI in Canada the last couple of year. Mike Rellihan went there after going to an event up Jon Simik's way.

This is probably the first to head south of the border.
 
Not to detract from the Baja show but...

OK, who is the first BAC member, to attend (or show up) an 'official' BAC event in a foreign Country (to them)? :roll:

I was at Dayton, but Don was there first.

I'm not sure if Tom hosted 1, or 2 'official' BAC events. If only 1, point is moot..

I'm not sure what all Ed attended, but there were many events. Last years doesn't count.

Probably should go in another thread... :?
 
International Fly-out

I knew that some of our BAC members had attended events hosted across our northern border from both directions. I remember Mike R.'s trip last year. I was thinking in terms of the Bahama example of flying out of the country as "the" event.

I'm taking the camera so will have some pictures to post. I'm not sure I can do that prior to my return but will definitely do so then, as well as a write-up.

Dan Jonas
 
The Baja fly-in will get started here in just a few hours. I'm off at 10:00 am local to Laughlin and then on to Marana, AZ on Thursday morning to meet up with BAC member Gary Cavasos for the flight on down to Mulege, MX.

It looks like great weather for the trip both ways. Approximately 2000 nm round trip and I'm looking forward to the flying, new scenery for me and new experiences flying in Mexico. My first landing on a dirt strip, yeah hard to believe, 37 years a pilot and no dirt.

I will post pictures on my return as I don't think we will have the facilities to do so while there. If there are any stragglers who decide to join us drop me an email message here.

Dan Jonas
 
Good luck Dan and Gary. Keep track of all the airports you touch down so I can figure PT points later.

BAC to Mexico.

Looking forward to the presentation at BAC Fest.
 
First stop

Doing this on a Treo so will be brief. KAPC - KIFP in a few minutes over 3 hours. Smooth flight nice weather. So far the casino is hitting me harder than the fuel. Tomorrow is another day.

Dan Jonas
 
Baja

The Baja Fly-in is real and exiting. We are in Mulege after stops in Laughlin, Tucson, and Guaymas.
 
Whales

Great trip so far. We all flew to the Pacific side today and went out on small boats and petted the whales. Unbeleivable!

There are 18 people here in the group, 5 aircraft, but only 2 aircraft and 6 of the people are BAC members. However one of the others is a former BAC member who now has a Cherokee 6.

Much fun and loads of dirt field experience.

I will write more wheb home and off the Treo....pictures too.

Dan Jonas
 
Baja Day 3

Visited downtown Mulege today. Great Pig roast tonight at Hotel Serinidad. We leave tomorrow morning for flights back to New Mexico and Calfornia. Will have pictures in fae days. This is a trip we neee to gwt more BAC members on.

Dan Jonas
 
Safely Back

I'll post more in the following days as time allows and as pictures come in from various participants. However, we made it back to Napa today after a fun but long day of flying. I can't complain to much because we did have tailwinds most of the way going and coming home....how often does that happen?

While this was a two plane BAC event, the group actually included five aircraft and 18 people. One of the other three is also a former BAC member who is now a Cherokee Six owner. More about everyone later.

We left Mulege this morning and all five aircraft departed around 10 am heading for Guaymus to check out and refuel. Then four of them headed towards Arizona and we headed towards California (Calexico) to clear customs back into the US. Our flight across the Sea of Cortez took about 30 minutes. Guaymus to Calexico was just over 2 hours 35 minutes.

Clearing customs was painless and done in about 15 minutes. We fueled, parked the aircraft and had a hamburger and then boarded for the flight to Napa. Travel time for the final leg was about 3 hours 20 minutes. We arrived right at 7:50 pm local.

There will be pictures posted and more detailed stories. Gary Cavasos did show up with the South Central Banner so we have pictures with both in front of our airplanes.

Mulege, or even other places in Mexico could make good future flyin destinations. The accomodations are basic but comfortable and affordable. The best part was sharing the experience with all the other participants.

Dan Jonas
 
Hello All,

Home safe and sound. Arrived at about 7:15 last night pretty tired and a little sun burnt. As Dan said, we have lots of pictures and some great stories coming. The best part of the trip was the people we shared it with. Everyone got along great and we all had a wonderful time. More later.

Gary Cavasos
 
Looking forward to hearing more and seeing pix.

Congrats on the first BAC fly-in south of the border.

Cloyd
 
I added the first picture to the photo section regarding the Baja Fly-in. More as I find time.

Cloyd indicates that this is the first Baja Fly-in, but that is not quite true. More on that a little later.

The idea of the Baja fly-in came up a number of months ago from a southwest region member. In context, the idea was to offer a side trip option to a future BAC Fest Fly-in. We also thought it might be useful to gain some experience in south of the border flying between now and then.

We posted the idea on BAC and Gary Cavasos, a South Central member from Loa Alamos, offered to allow anyone interested to tag along on his already planned March 2007 whale watching trip to Mulege. Gary was very helpful with information and coordination over the last few months to make the trip easier.

I wish that more BAC members could have gone, but we wound up with a pretty sizable group regardless. As it was, Gary and I were the only current BAC members, but one of the other pilots used to be a member.

Gary was part of a group of four aircraft headed south. Gary's Musketeer, an RV9 (also from Los Alamos), a Cessne T-182 and a Piper Cherokee 6 both from Tucson. Their plan was to fly out of Marana Airport (in Tucson) to Mexico on March 8. My plan was to join them there and make it a flight of 5 aircraft.

We all left Tucson near 10:30 am that morning. The Cherokee 6 was off first and beat us all to Guaymus. The Musketeer, RV9 and my Duchess went out as a flight of three (there will be pitcures) and the T-182 left a little later. The three of us flew along together for awhile, actually until we got tired of slow flight with Gary's Musketeer. We all wound up together at customs check-in at Guaymus, give or take 20 minutes or so.

Flying in to Mexico was interesting. You file a flight plan with the FAA that simply ceases to exist once you cross the border. No need to call back and close it. We talked with Hermosillo approach on the way, reporting 30 out, overhead and 30 out the other side. Guaymus approach, tower, and ground are all the same frequency.

Once landed at Guaymus all the aircraft are placed in a line, nose to tail, and an official determines what bags you need to bring into the check-in building. All went very smoothly, but there are a number of steps. We showed them our aircraft registration, pilots license, medical, Mexican issued insurance, and passports. We paid a landing fee, wing span fee, fuel charges and visa fee. All told my check-in (for two people) came to about $280 including the 125 liters of fuel.

Once through all of that we all departed to Mulege, which is about an 80nm flight across the Sea of Cortez. Mulege was my first dirt-strip landing and it all went very well. There is a runup concrete pad at the approach end that I was advised to land beyond, which I did. Apparently someone made a mess of their aircraft sometime back because the concrete is not exactly even with the dirt.

I said earlier that we had five aircraft. In those aircraft we had a total of 18 people. this is really the best part of a trip like this. Besides all the good flying stories, there was plenty of friendship and comraderie. Gary's kids (young adults) and wife came along and it was great to meet them.

More in next post.
 
Whale Petting!

On Friday we all flew over to the Pacific side of Baja to Luguna San Ignacio, a nice little dirt strip that was a little softer than Mulege which was hard packed. It was a beautiful ride over the mountains (again about 80nm) and landed right next to the water. My landing was very soft (probably helped by the loose dirt) and you had to keep a bit of power on or the aircraft would stop rolling in the dirt.

Once we all arrived (all 5 aircraft and 18 people), we boarded a van (two trips) to take us a few miles to where we would depart for the wahle watching adventure with a lunch of Fish Tacos scheduled after.

The whale watching is done from small boats that can carry 9 people. We dicided that we only wanted 6 per boat and paid the extra for the third boat. It was a short ride to the lagoon where the whales are hanging out.

There is no question that you will see whales close up. If the whales elect to approach the boat, you are allowed to pet them. And pet them we did. We had one mama and baby whale who could not seem to get enough petting. The baby was bigger than the boat, and mama was really big. At one point the mama whale was under the boat about 10 feet with her tail on one side and her head on the other. They seemed to understand that we were friendly and perhaps as curious about us as we were with them.

At one point the baby whale worked its way down one side of the boat and then the other letting everyone pet it. Yup, we will post whale petting pictures too.

After about an hour and a half of whale watching and petting we headed back to the point of departure and enjoyed a nice lunch and then headed back to the airport for the ride back to Mulege.

This was the first time I did a true soft field take-off. That all worked well and my Dad and I took a little diversion to the south on the way back to see some different scenery than on the trip over. I know that the RV9 did a little run over the lagoon (had to be above 3,000) and they reported that they could see the whales in the water.

The trip back to Mulege was uneventful for all and the airstrip was much more crowded than when we left. A bunch of medical types were flying in for the weekend to do a clinic in the area. The equipment ranged from the homebuilt RV9, to tail draggers, to a Ceesna Golden Eagle and just about everything in between. By the way, Mulege is reported to be about 3800 feet long.

We enjoyed dinner that evening at the Hotel Serenidad with all 18. There were a few Margaritas and Pacificos enjoyed as well.

Oh yeah, I said I would say something about this not being the real first BAC Baja. It seems that Gary and former member Carl (Cherokee 6)met through BAC and Gary tagged along for his first Baja trip. While not an official fly-in at the time, it was a BAC connection that got the original group together.

More later.
 
Great write up, Dan! Sure wish LeeAnne hadn't gotten sick so we could have come along. Maybe next year.

How did things go coming back across the border? How did the advising customs thing go? I'm sure it is similar to my Bahama experience.

Welcome home and we look forward to all the photos!

Chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top