Saint PA-14 follow up
Nate Saint PA-14 across the Caribbean - May 2004
Steve has been doing some writing since he returned from Panama, and we'll share with you some excerpts that tell about the adventures of Steve and Barry flying home in the little yellow PA-14 that played a vital role in the film: Walk His Trail
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, the filming was done and I had to get old 56Henry (the PA-14 used in the movie) back home to Dunnellon, Florida. We took 56H down to Panama in a shipping container. I didn't want to go through the long and painful process of disassembly, packing and re-assembly, so flying home was the only viable alternative.
Any way you look at it, flying from Panama City to Central Florida is a long way in a plane whose top speed won't keep up with my Honda Accord if I open it up. The shortest route is straight north to Grand Cayman on the South side of Cuba, with a second leg across Cuba to Florida. The safest route seemed to be overland, up to Texas and then around the gulf coast and down into Florida. Barry, my congenial pilot/mechanic/friend who maintained 56Henry during the filming in Panama suggested we compromise. We decided to fly up through Central America to the Yucatan Peninsula and then launch across the Caribbean, past Cuba to Florida. That way, we could take a chance on running into mountains without completely giving up the opportunity of ditching into the ocean. And we wouldn't miss the adventure of all the paperwork and uncertainty of flying over and through multiple foreign countries in the process.
We chose April 14th (2004) as our launch day. I took a quick side trip to Ecuador after the filming was done and didn't get back to Panama until the day before. Barry took a week off in the U.S. so he had just returned too. We kept a daily 12-14 hour work schedule for the three months of filming, so both of us were tired. By the time we got to the airport on the 14th, it was too late to hook up our long-range tanks. I had just put them in the back of the plane, and changed the climb prop for a cruise prop before taking off for Ecuador. I hadn't even had a torque wrench, so we had to torque the prop, put on the spinner, and get our life raft and life vest situated so we could get at them quickly. By that time, it was early afternoon and I knew we had to leave or postpone.
The government officials at Gelabert airport (It used to be the U.S. Albrook Air Force base) were not in as big a hurry as we were. We don't have any proof that this aircraft ever came into Panama they informed me in Spanish. I beckoned to one of them to join me at the control tower window and pointed at 56Henry sitting out on the ramp in all its tiny, ancient, bright yellow splendor. There you see, I offer you proof that it did come, I offered with lots more assurance than I felt. The plane was in Panama, therefore, it must have come. I followed up by handing out copies of a book, Through Gates of Splendor which show the original 56H in Ecuador and on the beach all torn up and told them we had been filming the book's story in their beautiful and hospitable country.
A few laughs, a few abrazos, a few fees and taxes and a few more abrazos and we no longer needed documents showing that 56H had entered Panama legally. Besides, if it didn't enter legally, who is going to care if it leaves legally. If there are no papers showing it arrived, then why have papers showing it left, as long as all the fees and taxes are paid and everyone is friendly.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I respect the laws of every country. But, you have to interpret the laws based on the culture within which they exist. Those Panamanian officials are there to make sure that planes are not used for illegal purposes such as drug and arms smuggling. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist or the sharpest tack in the box to see that we didn't have any room for either of those in 56Henry. They fulfilled their responsibility without paperwork.
We took off and set the GPS for Limon, on the East Coast of Costa Rica. 56Henry might be an antique, but thanks to friends with Mission Aviation Fellowship, our old steed had the nicest instrument panel I have ever flown behind; including a panel-mounted, color moving map, global positioning system. It painted a lot of water between us and Costa Rica. I started reviewing in my mind what we would do if we had to ditch.
I had thought a little about what would happen if we did have have to land in the ocean. Now as the GPS turned blue and the outline of land slid off the left side of the map, I gave it a lot more thought. The plane will no doubt settle quickly until both wings are in the water. That means that Barry and I will be underwater. No, wait a minute. When the gear hits, we will probably flip on our back. That means the wings will be under us and will keep us afloat for a few minutes. Yeah, but we'll be upside down and disoriented if we are still conscious. Get those shoulder harnesses tight on the way down so you don't kiss the instrument panel at 45 miles per hour or impale yourself on the control stick. It occurred to me that someone should write a book on ditching procedures. But who would read it? If the author had actually had to ditch enough times to know what he or she was talking about, who would trust them? And, if their advice was just based on conjecture, the same thing, who would trust them?
By the time we were approaching the coast of Costa Rica, we realized it would be too late to re-fuel and fly another leg. We decided to push on for the capital of San Jose. The map showed a big valley running from the East Coast up to San Jose. We figured we could pick up a major road and follow it up the valley between several towering mountain peaks. Unfortunately, there were no roads leading up our valley to the capital, and the river wasn't getting bigger as it made its way down toward the Pacific. In fact, the ground under us was rising and the solid overcast was getting lower and lower. Suddenly it dawned on me. The valley was rising under us to a continental divide. We would have to squeeze between the ground and the clouds before we could start down the valley that would lead us to San Jose.
By the time we reached what I thought was the continental divide, we were in a little tunnel with clouds above and on both sides. I stayed to my side of the tunnel and decided that I would turn back just before the tunnel got too narrow to make a 180 without running into clouds that might be harboring something much harder than air and H20. Finally, I saw what looked like sunshine on the other side of the ominous ridge just ahead. We only had about a hundred feet of clearance between the ridge and the clouds above, but the prevailing wind was coming from behind us so we shouldn't encounter any significant mountain rotors on the near side of the ridge. Once on the other side I could see we would have several thousand feet between us and the ground, and the sun was definitely shining over there.
We squeaked through and it seemed like the whole world opened up before us. Besides that, our ground speed started to pick up. By the time we were cleared to land at the international airport in San Jose, we were doing about thirty miles an hour more over the ground than we were through the air. We had picked up a huge tailwind.
(With a Boeing 757 right behind them, waiting to land, their arrival in San Jose was safe, but not without the adrenaline rush that is part of living on the edge. But let's go back to Steve's story)
Friday was going to be our big jump. We were going to fly non-stop from Mexico to Florida. Our route of flight would take us close enough to Cuba to wave at Fidel. That would also mean that we would be within gliding distance of land for a short while during the flight.
By the time we had Cuba in our sight we felt like old hands at flying over water, but my inflatable life jacket was starting to rub my neck raw. My underarm was also raw from pumping fuel every fifteen minutes. Finally, I loosened my seat belt so I could swivel a bit and get my pumping arm in a new position.
I had just started pumping when there was an explosion of wind in the cabin. Everything in back that wasn't heavy or tied down began to swirl around like a mini tornado. My door had blown open. I cinched my belt down as tight as I could get it and took stock of what we had lost. One large pillow used to insulate my legs from freezing air blowing in through the cracks around my door, several navigation charts, a couple of rags was all my inventory showed missing. But, my door was still flattened against the underside of the wing and Barry and I were freezing in the blast of 38-degree air blowing over us.
This wasn't the first time my door has blown open so I knew the chances of getting it to latch in flight were not good. Every other time I could just fly with it open until I landed. But this time, that would be two hours away. By then Barry and I would both be too cold and stiff to land the plane. I had to get the door closed, even if I had to hold it closed with my arm out the window. I tried that for about a minute and realized I would lose my left arm. Barry and I would really be a team then. He lost his right arm after a motorcycle accident years ago. It is amazing what he can do with only his left arm. He has all his flight ratings including multi-engine and instruments and is a great aircraft mechanic. But he has had years to learn how to do all those things and I didn't want to go through what he has. So, I decided I would find a way to keep the door shut without having to hold my arm against the door, through the open window. Finally, I slammed it hard enough so that it latched.
By this time, however, Barry was shivering pretty badly. He was dressed in light shorts and a couple of t-shirts. I dug out all my extra clothes to wrap around him, filling in the openings with the rags that had soaked up the spilled gasoline from the boat tank. (Ask Steve or Barry about that story) Then I offered him the hot pink foam life preserver he had used as a mattress in Costa Rica. All that and his bright yellow inflatable life vest made quite a picture. I snapped a couple but I was pretty cold too and they turned out just well enough for us to get some laughs out of it when we are really old and have forgotten what it feels like to freeze to death in a rag-wing Piper off the tip of Cuba.
By the time Barry spotted Key West, we were ready to be home. It would be clear real soon that being back on U.S. soil, however, did not mean we were home. First, we had to face the U.S. Customs Service. It wasn't going to be a friendly welcome. I have never flown any illegal substances or other illegal merchandise across any U.S. border. I do know, though, how someone who does, and gets caught, must feel.
The tower cleared us to customs and a welcoming party was there waiting for us. Barry's and my enthusiasm at completing our longest flight across open ocean was not shared by one of the customs officials. Everyone else was polite enough, but agent x (I'll call him "Comedy" because he shares a last name with one of my favorite comedians) was almost hostile. We had not informed him that we were coming and had not given him the required one-hour minimum notice. Oh, no! I thought, until I remembered that we had filed a flight plan more than six hours ago, before leaving Cozumel. Then I also remembered that we had been talking with air traffic controllers for over two hours before landing. I told him all this, but he didn't seem to believe me. Where is your copy of the flight plan? I was surprised to find it was right in my hand. I offered it to him and he perused it, but he was not moved. You didn't put on your flight plan, "ad cus",or something like that which means that the air traffic controllers should advise customs that the plane on the flight plan will be needing to pass customs.
I had to call Ginny to let her know that we were safe on the ground. If I didn't call soon, she would surmise that we were down but not on land, or at least not on land with a telephone.
One of the other officials in the Customs office had seemed a little exasperated with the proceedings. I decided to ask her to call Ginny for me collect. She seemed happy to help me and I noticed, didn't make the call "collect". I hope you won't judge all of us just because one of us is a jerk, she responded when I thanked her profusely. Then, back to agent Comedy.
I'm going to have to write you up for this violation. There won't be any fine this time, but this will go on your record and the next time you will pay a five thousand dollar fine, he affirmed. I started to argue my case again but decided it was no use. We had flown in Panama for three months and then all the way back to the U.S. We had paid our share of fees and taxes but everyone had seemed happy to have us drop in until we got to Florida. O.K. so maybe we weren't home. But with a little gas and a few more hours of flying, we would be. But it was going to be dark by the time we got there and we didn't have any landing lights.
After flying in terrible winds and landing on sandbars and postage stamp airstrips for three months in Panama, landing in the dark without landing lights seemed like no big deal. But we would try to beat the dark anyway. We didn't make it.
We landed at X-35 about an hour after sundown and taxied up to our own hangar. The doors were open and two feminine figures were standing there in welcome. There's Ginny and Martha, Barry informed me. I had noticed. Now, we were really "home"!