“Cabo San Lucas- Flying South of the Border”

By Ozell Austin, Redtail 55

(7/9/98)

On June 21, 1998, I set out on a trip to Baja California, destination Cabo San Lucas.  Hayward Airport (HWD) was VFR and 04P was ready to go, or so I thought.  I was scheduled to lift off at 1000hrs.  I performed my usual preflight, then closed the hangar door, jumped in 04P, and started the engine.  After getting the "ATIS", I called ground control and was cleared to taxi to the run-up area.  During the run-up, my right magneto caused a larger than usual RPM drop.  I tried my usual “leaning" technique to no avail.  The problem did not go away.  I asked for and got clearance to return to the hangar to check out the problem.  I opened the cowl to look for obvious problems, i.e. broken or loose wires.  What I saw was a big surprise; three of the four screws for my magneto housing were missing.  I went to Flight Craft to consult with a mechanic and to get some replacement screws.  The mechanic replaced the screws and I was on my way, again, so I thought. 

  Back in the run-up area for a second try, the run-up was only slightly better than before, so back to Flight Craft I went.  This time, the mechanic not only removed to inspect the spark plugs, but cleaned, check and ended up replacing them. 

  Back to the run-up area once again, the check was good.  So finally, I made my take-off for my trip, or so I thought.  After I took off and made the left turn from crosswind to downwind, I noticed that the engine was developing good power but it just didn't sound right to me. About three miles out, I asked ATC for permission to return to the airport.  Upon returning to the hangar and opening the cowling, I found that one of the exhaust manifold gaskets had burned through and a exhaust stud was missing.  Why I hadn't noticed this before puzzled me; this problem must have existed during all of the issues with the magneto and spark plugs.  After two hours of locating and replacing parts, I finally departed Hayward for a few days vacation.

First stop, Los Angeles to pick up Darryl Mack.  I had flight planned for two hours to Hawthorne.  The ride was smooth and the sights were beautiful.  I stayed the night in L.A and made an early departure the next morning.

On the next day, the plan was to fly from Hawthorn to San Felipe, which would be our airport of entry.  It is necessary to check into an airport of entry upon arrival into a foreign country.  San Felipe was an hour and a half flight from Hawthorne.  Darryl brought along his new GPS to play with and barely took his eyes of it.  One day when my "ship comes in", I’ll buy one of the marvelous things.  Some of the VOR's in Mexico are 200 miles apart, which makes for weak and sometime un-receivable signals.

We cleared customs, gassed up, filed our flight plan (which is something that you have to do at each stop in Mexico) and took for Cabo.  The flight to Cabo would be a four hour leg (almost 600 miles).  Our flight path would take us over the cities Lareto and La Paz.  Sixty miles from Loreto, the sky became very hazy.  Soon, we were flying solely by reference to instruments.  Later we found out that all the fires in main land Mexico caused this haze, a few hundred miles away.  After a little consideration, we decided to land at Loreto for the night; there’s no sense in continuing on to an unfamiliar airport for a night landing in low visibility caused by smoke. We informed Loreto tower of our intentions and was cleared to land.

The airports in Mexico don't have tie down ropes. I bought some a few years ago for my first trip to Mexico but forgot to bring them for this trip, so, we bought some rope from one of the local taxi drivers to secured the plane for the night.  A $15 cab ride got us to a nice motel on the beach where we ate, had a couple beers and got a good night’s sleep. The room cost about 520 pesos ($65).

Loreto is a small town which caters to tours.  The fishing in that area is outstanding.  Many Gringos go there to fish and scuba dive.  We were just passing through this time around.

The next morning, we got up bright and early ready for the next leg of the flight.  On our way out of the room, one of the guest noticed that I was wearing a tee shirt with the Tuskegee Airman on it.  He was with a film crew making a film there and informed me that the producer of the film had recently produced a film about the Tuskegee group.  I knocked on his door and chatted with him for a while.  Apparently, the film is a documentary that will be released later this year.

The next leg of this flight would take us to Cabo San Lucas, approximately two hours way.  The sky was hazy but the mountains were visible.  So after filling a flight plan ($8 charge each time) and gassing up, we took off for Cabo.  The GPS works really well for direction and distance but not for terrain clearance.  Make sure you know the safe altitudes in your area when following a GPS.

Flying in Mexico is a little different than in the States.  There is no such thing as flight following.  I think radar is very scarce in Baja.  Pilots call into the tower when they’re within 30 miles of the airport and give a position report.  When leaving an airport, the pilot reports 10 miles out and that's about it for ATC contact.

We landed at San Jose Int'l (Cabo San Lucas) two hours after takeoff.  The flight was uneventful until during the final approach when I had to do a 360' turn to get down and land with a commercial airliner on my tail.  Apparently, the jet liner wasn't as close as I thought.

Checked in, closed flight plan, picked up rental car and headed off for the town of Cabo San Lucas....  to be continued.