Flying Santiago, Chile to Easter Island, Part One

By Jack

[Another more technical flying oriented post. This is a long post because there are many details to convey, so I will divide it into three parts.]

The Mission

We knew all along that the flight from Santiago, Chile/SCEL to Easter Island, Chile/SCIP would be one of the most logistically challenging flights for the whole trip mainly due to the distance. The total distance from Santiago to Easter Island is 2,030 NM (2,340 SM) and there is typically an average headwind component of approximately 25 KTS in early December. The combination of distance and headwind would make a non-stop flight impossible in our unmodified plane. Most smaller general aviation (GA) planes that fly to Easter Island (which is rare) use special auxiliary fuel tanks, but we wanted to do the flight in a "stock" airplane. Thus, we would need a fuel stop along the way and the only option on that route was the small airport on Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile/SCIR.

Robinson Crusoe Island has an AFIS and a plenty long enough runway for our plane, but no instrument approaches and, critically, no fuel. The only substantial information on the airport in the Chilean AIP is this VFR arrival chart....

Thus one key logistical hurdle would be getting fuel to Robinson Crusoe Island.

Fuel at Robinson Crusoe Island/SCIR

Fortunately for us, we had developed a close working relationship with the folks at the Aerocardal FBO in Santiago during the preparations for our January 2017 Antarctic flight. In particular, Jose G. in Aerocardal's dispatch/operations department led the charge in getting us both access to fuel and the required Chilean CAA permits to make the trip to Antarctica. Jose even went with us on the first and last legs of the Antarctic flight and thus we had developed a good relationship. 

Giuseppe C initially worked to organize the fuel delivery, but when it turned out Giuseppe could not join us on the trip Josh took over the task of coordinating the fuel delivery at Robinson Crusoe.  Josh got Jose and Aerocardal involved along with our contact on the island, Marcelo. Jose sprang into motion to help us get fuel delivered in barrels to Robinson Crusoe Island prior to our flight.  It was very helpful that Josh is fluent in Spanish because this effort required a great deal of email communication that had to be clear. 

After much back-and-forth communication, delivery of two barrels (about 110 gallons) of jet fuel to Robinson Crusoe Island was confirmed about one week before our flight. Turns out that getting fuel to the island is just half the battle - getting it to the airport is another challenge. The only town and pier suitable for cargo vessels on the island is on the opposite side of the island from the airport and there are no roads between the two.

The only way to get from town to the airport is by a 10 hour donkey ride or the more common 1.5 hour boat trip to a small jetty just below the airport. 

In order to use the small airport jetty, tides must be taken into consideration which means the person handling delivery of fuel on the island, Marcelo, needed to know our ETA in advance. Problem was we could not predict which day we would conduct the flight until a couple of days in prior (see below).

Flight Planning - Robinson Crusoe Island

There were two big challenges to flight planning for this trip: 1.) the weather at  Robinson Crusoe Island given it had no instrument approaches; and b.) the winds along the 1,623 NM (1,860 SM) route from  Robinson Crusoe Island to Easter Island.

Robinson Crusoe Island airport lies in an area with Class G (uncontrolled) airspace up to 6,000 FT. Thus, ATC cannot issue any IFR clearance below 6,000 FT and you are basically "on your own" below 6,000.   If it is a day with clear skies, no problem, just continue VFR after passing 6,000 FT. The bad news is this time of year Robinson Crusoe Island typically has broken to overcast skies during the morning period when we were scheduled to arrive. The good news is the ceiling is normally 2,000 FT or more and visibility is good below. So, the procedure for arriving on an overcast day is to descend over the ocean in IMC (but not on a flight plan) from 6000 FT to whatever altitude you are comfortable with (we decided on 1,000 FT above the ocean) and then proceed visually to the airport as shown on the visual approach chart above. If you are still IMC at your self-selected minimum descent altitude (MDA), then you turn away from the island and climb back to 5,000 FT and call Santiago Center (on HF) for a clearance to reenter controlled airspace and return to the mainland. 

There is a terminal area forecast (TAF) for Robinson Crusoe Island airport, but it is typically issued just once a day at about 0730 local which is after our planned departure. So we would depend on the ECMWF forecast model of cloud bases and visibility for guidance as presented at Windy.com. The good news is we had plenty of fuel reserves for this leg of the flight. If we launched for Robinson Crusoe and could not land due to low clouds and/or visibility, we could easily return to Santiago. In other words, we had a good alternate. This was not the case with our next stop.

Flight Planning - Easter Island

Flight planning for Easter Island involved totally different considerations than Robinson Crusoe Island. Easter Island has a well developed airport with a long runway, plenty of jet fuel availability (no avgas), a control tower, and an ILS approach to the almost always used runway 10 along with various other non-precision approaches.

What Easter Island does not have is a good alternate. It is one of the most remote airports on the planet. The closet IFR airport approved as an alternate is almost 2,000 NM distant and the closest airport at all is more than 1,400 NM away. Thus fuel reserves are the big planning issue for Easter Island. Fortunately, weather at Easter Island in November/December is almost always VFR, so there is little risk of low clouds or limited visibility preventing a landing, but there is always the chance of passing thunderstorm, disabled aircraft on the runway, ot some other transient event that might requiring holding.

Getting the Permit to fly to Easter Island

Chile has a special set of rules for flying to Robinson Crusoe Island and especially Easter Island. A permit is required for a flight to Easter Island from mainland Chile even though it is technically a domestic flight. The rules are outlined in documents DAN 11-107 and DAN 14-06. We could only find Spanish versions of these documents, so once again Josh's Spanish language skills were valuable. 

While the requirements to fly to Easter Island are several, the most limiting is the need to have three hours (180 minutes) of fuel reserve. Technically the document says a private operator might be issued a permit with less than three hours reserve if it can be proven the flight will not interfere with any commercial operations. Our impression is it would be difficult to get a permit without proving three hours reserve, but perhaps if the scheduled arrival time was well after all the commercial flights (typically 2-3 per day) had departed for the the day a permit might be issued. However, this might require paying overtime fees of about $900 per hour to keep the airport open beyond their normal schedule.

The Chilean CAA folks do not just take your word that you have the three hours reserve...you must prove it to them with detailed calculations. If your plane has extra non-standard fuel tanks (which we do not have), you also need to provide them with all the technical specifications and regulatory approvals related to the auxiliary fuel tanks. 

In our case, I provided the CAA: 1.) a spreadsheet showing our maximum endurance at long-range cruise power (see below); and 2.) a computer generated flight plan based on projected winds for our intended flight day. Both showed more than 11 hours endurance and three hours reserve at a zero wind condition. With more than about a 10 KT headwind component the reserve dipped below three hours. Thus we needed to wait for a day with a forecasted headwind of 10 KTS or less. 

Importantly, the reserve is considered fuel available at cruise altitude and at "normal" cruise power (long range cruise power for this flight). While altitude does not make much difference in reserve calculations in piston engine planes, it makes a big difference in turbine planes. The three hours reserve calculated at FL300 (30,000 FT) diminishes significantly flying a holding pattern a few thousand feet above the airport. Thus, if holding is required, it is important to make that decision before starting the descent from cruise altitude. "Going down to take a look" significantly compromises reserves. 

The Chileans were satisfied with our calculations and issued our permit for flying to Easter Island Monday afternoon, November 26. That was a big relief because the whole trip depended on that flight as there were no other routing options in the southern hemisphere.  

Based on wind and other weather forecasts, it appeared Wednesday, November 28 would be an almost ideal day for our flight to Easter Island...almost a net zero head component (even a small tailwind was forecast at times); a reasonable 2,000+ FT cloud base at Robinson Crusoe Island with good visibility below; and excellent VFR conditions at Easter Island.

The projected winds, fuel, and flight time as of Monday, November 26 for the flight from Robinson Crusoe Island to Easter Island assuming a departure on Wednesday, November 28....

Josh and I planned to sleep late on Tuesday, November 27 and then devote the rest of the day preparing to fly to Easter Island the next day assuming no significant adverse changes in the winds and weather forecast

This post is far too long already, so I will pick-up the story in the next post with the description of the actual flight along with photos and videos. 

Off to Easter Island

By Jack

The first leg of our journey is complete. We basically "sprinted" from Austin, TX to Santiago, Chile leaving Austin early Sunday morning and arriving  Santiago Monday night. We made three stops along the way including a quick overnight stop in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The trip was long (about 4,300 NM or 5,000 SM), but the weather was good and the plane performed perfectly. Only snag was getting timely permits to overfly and land in Peru which delayed our departure from Guayaquil by about three hours. That is first permitting problem we have had in more than 50 international flights, so I guess that is a decent record. Evidently Peru is notoriously inept in their aviation permit office.  We considered adding another overnight stop given the late departure, but after reviewing the weather along the route we decided to stick with the original plan. That meant a night time arrival in Santiago rather than the planned daylight arrival, but the weather was perfect in Santiago and we have flown there once before so it was not totally unfamiliar.  Other than a busy final approach (lots of vectors and runway changes), the flight was beautiful and easy.

Today was an "off" day which Josh and I spent largely getting everything set for our flight to Easter Island (SCIP) tomorrow. We will make a fuel stop on Robinson Crusoe Island (SCIR) on the way.  It is one of the more challenging legs of the trip in terms of distance, logistics (we needed fuel specially delivered in barrels to Robinson Crusoe Island for us), and permitting. But, we think we have "all our ducks in a row" and the forecast is good weather and very favorable winds aloft (as compared to the normal strong headwind) tomorrow. FlightAware will likely not be able to track us the whole way, but the InReach service (here) should be able to track us if you are following.

We will check-in from Easter Island next.

Tues November 27 Lo Barnechea, Chile

By Carolyn

After two long days of flying, we had our first planned layover in Santiago. Through her many world wide birding contacts, Becky found us a guide and we headed to the mountains east of Santiago while the pilots devised a Plan B for getting fuel after we leave Easter Island. (Plan A fell apart when we were informed that the boat delivering Jet A would be delayed until December 18.)

Fernando Medrano picked us up from the Airport Holiday Inn and we crawled through morning rush hour traffic before escaping into the foothills. As a professional birding guide, he knew exactly where to go to find the target species. The drive was beautiful as we passed through arid rocky terrain that looked like West Texas or Arizona.

It’s springtime in the Southern Hemisphere, so the birds were very cooperative, wearing breeding plumage, singing and gathering nesting material. Becky kept the lists and was allowed no shortcuts...Fernando monitors the Chilean eBird database and likes each stop to be documented separately. But, I can lump them together here:



3 California Quail
3 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
39 Black-winged Ground-Dove
1 Eared Dove
2 Giant Hummingbird
12 Southern Lapwing
3 Kelp Gull
13 Andean Condor
2 Variable Hawk
2 Mountain Caracara
2 Chimango Caracara
3 American Kestrel
3 Moustached Turca
1 Dusky Tapaculo
10 Rufous-banded Miner
1 Creamy-rumped Miner
1 Scale-throated Earthcreeper
1 Buff-winged Cinclodes
2 Plain-mantled Tit-Spinetail
3 Tufted Tit-Tyrant
3 White-crested Elaenia
7 White-browed Ground-Tyrant
2 Black-fronted Ground-Tyrant
1 Fire-eyed Diucon
4 Blue-and-white Swallow
1 House Wren
5 House Wren (Southern)
5 Austral Thrush
4 Chilean Mockingbird
1 Black-chinned Siskin
5 Rufous-collared Sparrow
1 Long-tailed Meadowlark
27 Austral Blackbird
15 Gray-hooded Sierra-Finch
4 Mourning Sierra-Finch
2 Band-tailed Sierra-Finch
4 Common Diuca-Finch
19 Greater Yellow-Finch
5 House Sparrow

Lunch was served at a rocky playground while grey headed Sierra finches and chestnut collared sparrows flitted around waiting for our crumbs. Up and up we climbed, above the tree line to the ski areas. We were rewarded with a whole family of Andean condors at 3,000 meters! They are beautiful birds.

Flying Guayaquil, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile

 By Jack


After an easy first day of flying on our "sprint" from Austin, Texas/KAUS to Guayaquil, Ecuador/SEGU, we were looking forward to another simple flight day on Monday, November 26 from Guayaquil to Santiago, Chile/SCEL with a quick fuel stop at Pisco, Peru/SPSO. The planned distance was 1,960 NM (2,250 SM) and both departure and arrival were scheduled in daylight hours.

Easy peasy.

The only problem was the Peruvian Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was not cooperating. We needed a permit to overfly and land in Peru. The Peruvian CAA is notorious for, shall we say, less than efficient operation. Although we had requested that our over-arching international flight planning consultant begin the Peruvian permit process two weeks prior, as of Tuesday morning Peru said they had no record of our application. I had even obtained an FAA First Class medical certificate (for our operations I only need a Third Class per FAA rules) to make the Peruvians happy (they say they require a First Class medical for all operations).

I am not sure who "dropped the ball," but we woke-up Tuesday morning without permission to begin our flight. I got this cryptic message when I attempted to file our flight plan from Guayaquil/SEGU to Piso/SPSO on Sunday night...

Our carefully planned 0724 local departure from Guayaquil in order to arrive Santiago/SCEL before dark seemed unlikely.  We called the handler and cancelled the 0630 local ground transportation pick-up at our hotel and set our alarms a little later. We would need to wait until the Peru CAA office opened at 0900 local to get any information on our permit.

The local handler at Guayaquil seemed to have a direct line to the Peru CAA permit office and hurried the process along, but it was still after 1100 local before we got the permit and could depart.

The modest, but comfortable Guayaquil handling office where we chilled for a couple of hours waiting on our permit...

The time waiting at the handling office in Guayaquil turned out to be useful. While waiting there, we got some fairly technical questions from the Chilean CAA regarding issuing our permit to fly to Easter Island. Basically, they wanted us to show them the data indicating we could arrive at Easter Island with at least three hours reserve fuel (based on cruise level fuel flow). I spent about 30 minutes crunching the numbers for them and got it turned around to them before we departed.

Once we launched, it was good weather and an uneventful flight to Pisco, Peru/SPSO. We went to Pisco rather than Lima because Lima now prohibits "technical" (fuel) stops. Turned out to be a good choice anyway because Pisco is a new airport and not very busy. We got a quick turnaround and were on our way to Santiago/SCEL. 

On the way we were treated to a beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean as we approached the coast of Chile...

The flight to Santiago was also in good weather and easy until the very last part of the flight. 

When approaching the airport we were told to expect an ILS to 17R which we dutifully loaded and briefed. Then they started vectoring us ultimately telling us to go direct to a fix we could not find on the approach plate. It seems the controllers had miscommunicated about which approach we were being vectored for as the fix they wanted us to go to was on another approach (17L). We finally said we just needed vectors to whatever ILS approach they wanted us to use. With that request, the controller vectored us back to the ILS for 17R which was good because it was still loaded and briefed. The weather was clear-and-a-million (although it was dark by this time) so we didn't have any concerns about finding the airport (we saw it about 30 MN out), but the confusing ATC instructions lead to some high workload in the cockpit. A good time to have a crew of two.

After landing, we taxied (using guidance from a "follow me" vehicle as the taxiways to the FBOs are very confusing at SCEL) to the Aerocardal FBO where we had spent a lot of time in January 2017 after our Antarctic flight. So, it was a familiar place to end the day.

We cleared customs and immigration right at the FBO (super easy) and were on our way to the airport Holiday Inn promptly for a good night's sleep. The next day would be an "off" day from flying that Josh and I would use mainly to confirm logistics and flight plans for the Easter Island flight.

Moral of the story if flying in this part of the world is triple check everything related to Peru permits and make sure they are finalized at least a couple of business days before your planned flight.

Flying Austin, TX to Guayaquil, Ecuador

By Jack

[This is a post on some of the technical aviation details of our flight. If you aren't a flying geek, you might want to skip]

The first day of flying on our third round-the-world (RTW) trip began early on Sunday, November 28 at our home base of Austin, Texas/KAUS and ended in Guayaquil, Ecuador/SEGU with a fuel stop in-between in Liberia, Costa Rica/MRLB.

Because this was one of the few legs where we would be headed east, we departed on this 2,283 NM (2,625 SM) trip just before sunrise in order to assure a landing before sunset in Guayaquil.  We normally like to do these "long day" flights totally in daylight, but were comfortable with a night departure from a familiar airport. 

Our trusted chariot awaiting the start of another "big trip" at Austin...

The first leg to Liberia was good weather the whole way and somewhat familiar. This was our third trip to Liberia and I have flown many trips to other locations in Central America. The "turn" at Liberia was efficient and painless. We were on our way to Guayaquil in less than an hour.

The flight to Guayaquil was also easy and in good weather. We arrived just prior to sunset as planned and made an easy ILS approach to runway 21.

Overall, an straight-forward trip with no problems or unusual logistics to report. 

The next day would be more challenging. 

And here we go again!

By Carolyn

Another adventure begins! Jack’s blog entries will focus on the flying experiences and Carolyn’s entries will focus on the terrestrial adventures. Be prepared for lots of birds and botanical gardens, and perhaps some snorkeling, hiking, history and exploring. Since flying is always better in summer, we are headed to the Southern Hemisphere for our journey west and we’ll be traveling for two months.

People always ask “how do you pack for a trip like that?” With as little as possible! It becomes more trouble to lug a big bag around than to wash items by hand. Shoes end up being the challenge, so keep it simple: walking shoes, sneakers, and Tevas. 

My travel packing tips:

1. Three, three and three: long convertible pants, long sleeve shirts, short sleeve shirts. A fleece and sweater, a skirt, and a swim suit. A swim suit coverup can double as a bathrobe. Everything nylon or quick dry, like Exoffico, Eddie Bauer/REI shirts and pants. Check the weather for anticipated highs and lows to tweak the clothing.
2. Small 3 oz. container of liquid laundry soap.
3. A few wire clothes hangers. You can hang clothes on the A/C or air return and they dry in no time. Third world laundry service is inexpensive. 
4. Wool socks are great, can be worn for days, but take forever to dry. Hotels in colder climates often have warming racks in the bathroom for towels and these are also great for drying clothes.
5. Compression bags by Eagle Creek and packing pods by Blue Avocado. Unless you've got lots of cubbies built into your pack/suitcase these keep things organized.
6. Ziplock baggies - take a variety of sizes. 
7. Freeze some bottled water when possible to use as ice packs in a food cooler. Drink a little bit first so the bottle won't bulge.
8. Don't bring a reusable water bottle. You're going to be drinking bottled water anyway. Do bring an insulated thermos (s'well or yeti) to use for hot drinks.
9. Pack a couple of thin washcloths in zip lock bags.

And, don’t forget your safety vest!

Bon voyage

We must be crazy

By Jack

We must be crazy.

Specifically, I must be crazy.

We have flown our Pilatus PC-12 round-the-world (RTW) twice. Once in an eastbound direction (2015) and once over a very challenging polar route (2016/2017).  Seems like enough RTW flying for one lifetime.

However, it turns out there is another variation of a RTW flight recognized by FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) which is the authority for recognizing records and accomplishments in aviation.

Circumnavigation Westwards.

Well, darn.  We have the eastwards and polar diplomas hanging on the wall, wouldn't an westwards diploma complete the collection?

When I proposed the idea for a third RTW flight to my very level-headed wife, she rolled her eyes and said something like "Boys and their trophies."

And then, because she is the most wonderful women on the planet, she said "Let's do it."  She did add that the tagline for this flight would be "Last Time Around."

So, we are departing the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2018 on a new adventure. Our dear friends and steadfast companions on the previous two RTW flights, Josh and Becky, will be our partners in every way.

Here is the route as is stands on October 25, 2018 (might change).

First part of the trip, Nov 25 to Dec 12 (approximately), 2018

Second part of the trip, Jan 2 to Jan 24 (approximately), 2019

We will post updates as the date of the flight gets closer.  Posts "By Jack" will tend to be nitty-gritty technical flying stuff while posts "By Carolyn" will be more focused on our activities on the ground.