Danika’s Trip Report – First Section

Danika gazed out the cockpit window at the clouds that were stacked in cotton-ball mounds around the little island to her left. The powerful beat of the engines permeated the cabin. She sub-consciously reached her right hand up to the throttle levers mounted on the ceiling and minutely adjusted the settings. The vibrations caused by the two big radial engines being slightly out of synch subsided and the engine noise became a harmonious thrum. Her hand dropped back to the control yoke.

From nine thousand feet the Caribbean Sea looked inviting. Around the little island the color of the ocean varied from indigo in the deeper water to multiple hues of aquamarine where it washed over the reef and bathed the coral formations that inhabited the shallows.

Waves swept ashore, leaving crescents of surf on the fringes of the white beaches that wreathed the island. It appeared to be uninhabited.

The little island tugged at her. It was so perfect as to be almost surreal.
Danika hadn’t been to the Caribbean for almost a year. She yearned to put her feet in the warm sand and feel the tropical sun on her skin.

She studied the lay of the waters that surrounded the island and mused. She could pull back on the throttles, dip Buccaneer’s Bliss into a shallow descent, circle the island once, seek out a calm place to land on the water and put down. Such were the benefits of flying an amphibian. Her airplane could land and take-off on the water.

Once down, she could taxi close in to the beach, throw out the anchor, open the door in the rear of the aircraft then wade ashore and do some exploring. Or maybe she would just kick back on the beach and soak up some rays . . .

But today she didn’t have time for such indulgences.

Danika was en route from Key West to Montego Bay. As the crow flies (or the Goose, she thought), it was about four hundred twenty-five nautical miles. Throw in another fifteen miles or so for the dogleg that she’d made to hit the trans-Cuba air corridor, and this would be a four hundred fifty nautical mile jump. About two hours and forty-five minutes of flight time, well within the maximum range of the Goose.

She still found it hard to accept that the vintage airplane actually belonged to her. It was even harder to come to terms with the fact that her father had passed away, leaving the aircraft to her in his will.

The airplane was a Grumman Goose, type designator; G-21. Her father, who had completely rebuilt the airframe from nose to tail, had christened the airplane just prior to its maiden flight six months prior. Until he’d proudly pulled away the bunting that concealed the name stylistically painted on the nose, none of the dozen or so people gathered on the tarmac for the impromptu ceremony outside the hanger knew what he’d named it:

Buccaneer’s Bliss

Even Danika, who’d toiled several hundred hours working with her father on the airplane, had no idea what name he’d chosen. At first she was ambivalent, but the name had grown on her. It was true that since the airplane now belonged to her, she could do whatever she wanted with it, including a change of name. But it was generally accepted that changing the name of an airplane (or a boat – and Buccaneer’s Bliss was a flying boat) was bad luck.

Buccaneer’s Bliss had been her father’s labour-of-love (and money pit) for four and a half years. He’d built the airplane up from two wrecked G-21s that he’d recovered from the coast of British Columbia. He’d commissioned space on cargo barges that ply those waters to transport both airframes back down to the hanger that he and his business partner owned and operated at Vancouver’s seaplane base.

From the first wreck, which he located up in Buccaneer’s Bay, he’d salvaged the rear section of the fuselage, the tail section and both engines. The second wreck, located a year later in Bliss Landing, had yielded the nose section, a good set of wings and the landing gear. The rest of the airplane had been cobbled together from parts harvested from both wrecks and the many new parts that he’d acquired. Notably, a new set of retractable floats had been installed, replacing the old fixed floats that had originally come with the airplane. This modification not only improved the aerodynamics of the Goose but also gave the airplane a sleeker looking profile when the floats were retracted into their stowed wing-tip positions.

At the completion of the project, Danika’s father was the proud owner of what appeared to be a vintage aircraft. But, in many aspects, Buccaneer’s Bliss was a shiny, spanking new airplane. Her father called it a ‘38-45-11 G-21’; the airplane recovered from Buccaneer’s Bay had been manufactured in 1938, and the one from Bliss Landing in 1945. The ‘11’ part of the sobriquet represented the myriad new and refurbished parts that had been incorporated into the build.

After the overhaul, there remained various Goose airframe components and a rack of spare parts that was the envy of other G-21 operators. Even though the Goose was an old airplane, many were still in daily commercial use up the coast of British Columbia and in Alaska. The venerable aircraft was built like a tank and could take a ton of abuse, which it was often subjected to when flying in and out of remote and otherwise inaccessible locations.

Below, the enticing little island slid slowly rearward. Danika returned her attention to the cockpit. She scanned the instrument panel, something that she did automatically every few minutes.

Her father had spared no expense on the instrument panel while refurbishing the Goose. It was thoroughly modern, including a Garmin aera 560 GPS that told her pretty well everything she needed to know about the aircraft’s current location in space at time. It displayed every highway, river, shoreline, airport and navigational aid that was in the aircraft’s vicinity. It also indicated the aircraft’s groundspeed, track and its GPS altitude. Navigation made simple thanks to modern technology.

Completing the scan of the main instrument panel she glanced up at the engine instruments which were mounted in a cluster on the ceiling panel next to the throttles. Everything looked nominal.

The little island hadn’t completely relinquished its grasp on Danika. Curious, she tapped the controls of the GPS display to see if it had a name. It did: Cayos de Dios. Good thing she hadn’t yielded to the temptation to drop in; Cayos de Dios was Cuban territory. The Cubans would not have looked favourably upon an unapproved visit. She recalled an incident that had taken place in the mid 1990’s where two American civil aircraft, which Cuba claimed had been operating without authorization over Cuban territorial waters, had been brutally shot down by one of the Republic’s MiG-29 jet fighters.

Cuban air traffic control requires a minimum of forty-eight hours prior approval for requests to enter their airspace. This had delayed Danika in Key West for two days while she awaited her authorization. Her Cuban over-flight request had been granted, costing her fifty U.S. dollars – another means of generating foreign currency income for the Cuban state. Her permit allowed Buccaneer’s Bliss one transit of the island, north to south, via the Giron Air Corridor, one of three such trans-island flight paths. The Giron Corridor is a ten mile wide pathway across the island from just west of the Hicacos peninsula on the north shore to the Zapata marshland in the south.

Danika was pleasantly surprised when the Giron Corridor was displayed on her GPS screen. Her father had updated the unit with Caribbean data but, for some reason, she hadn’t expected the Cuban data to be accurate.

Her transit clearance had a thirty minute validity window, which she’d hit with no problem. When she checked in with Havana Air Traffic Control she’d been handled promptly and courteously.

“Havana Control, this is Canadian civil Charlie-Foxtrot-Mike-Papa-Golf, IFR, thirty-five north of Varedaro at niner thousand, heading one-seven-zero.”

Immediately, and in impeccable English, Havana ATC came back, “Foxtrot-Mike-Papa-Golf, this is Havana Control – check you at niner thousand – squawk ident.”

“Mike-Papa-Golf, identing now . . .”

Danika leaned forward and pushed the little button labelled ‘Ident’ on the transponder module mounted in the instrument panel. This caused an electronic identification signal to be transmitted from the Secondary Surveillance Radar antenna mounted on the Goose’s fuselage. The signal was picked up by the Cuban radar receiver and processed by the ground-based equipment, ultimately causing a target that represented the airplane’s position to blink on the radar display that the Cuban controller was monitoring.

“Foxtrot-Mike-Papa-Golf, Havana, you are radar identified – altimeter is three-zero-one-four.”

“Havana, Mike-Papa-Golf . . . check the altimeter three-zero-one-four.” Danika turned the little knob on her altimeter to adjust it to the local barometric pressure. “I’m requesting clearance to transit the Giron corridor . . . I have my request approval number when you are ready to copy,” she said.

“Foxtrot-Mike-Papa-Golf, go ahead your transit authorization.”

“My request approval is Golf Sierra Bravo . . one, one . . dash . . six, four, seven.”

“Mike-Papa-Golf, thank you, you are cleared for a Giron transit, report entering the corridor inbound.”

Danika thought it curious that ATC wanted her to give them a call at the inbound point since they had her on radar and knew exactly where she was. Must be bored down there, she thought. Indeed, there was very little radio traffic on the frequency. She also recognized that it was not uncommon for male controllers to be chatty with female pilots, not that female pilots were that much of a rarity these days, but boys will be boys . . .

As a young, single and attractive redhead Danika had received her share of sometimes unwanted male attention; although, to be truthful, most of it wasn’t that unwanted. She enjoyed the occasional flirt and appreciated those that were well executed. Danika stood five foot seven inches, but her slim frame made her look somewhat taller. It was when she was wearing her uniform that she garnered the most attention. Some men seemed to be attracted to women who were in positions of authority – or maybe it was the uniform fantasy thing. And the fact that she’d had her uniforms tailored to hug her athletic form did little to discourage them.

She keyed the control yoke’s transmit button to respond to the Havana controller’s request, “Cleared the Giron transit, and I’ll call you the corridor inbound . . thank you . . Mike-Papa-Golf.”

Back home in Vancouver, Danika was a commercial pilot. She flew right seat in a thirty passenger turbo-prop short-hauler for a small regional airline that operated out of the South Terminal at Vancouver International Airport. They serviced numerous small communities up the coast from the Lower Mainland. For the most part, Danika found the job routine and boring, except when the weather was down, at which point it became a pain in the ass. Boring it may be, but she was building hours and experience. Soon she would be promoted to the left seat of the Saab. She would put in a year or so as Captain and then apply for a First Officer job with one of the big airlines.

But for the next three weeks she was on a leave of absence. She just wished that it was under better circumstances.

you have my attention!

great potential here. we seem to be rich with great storytellers of late.

Love stories....gwan now!

Wow great story!