Leg 11: MUHA-MUCU
Pilot: Bryan K.
The prop was still spinning when Tom and his guys jumped out of the plane. At the same time, at least ten more men poured out of the building and ran towards my Conquest. Within 5 minutes, the material in the cargo bays was taken out and replaced by more. At 11:00, everyone was back in the plane and I was starting the engines!
- “Hurry Flyboy”, Tom barked. “This is not the time to play the tourist and start taking pictures. It seems that your cowboy approach got some of the locals excited. The “cavalry” is on its way, so just get this damn plane in the air!!”
Quickly, I taxied to runway 6. I could hear on the tower frequency that a Cessna Caravan was approaching, but our guys in the tower delayed his approach as much as they could. Without even holding short, I turned onto the runway and slammed the throttles to maximum torque. At 11:03, we were off the ground, and on our way to MUCU… with twelve minutes to spare.
The plan was now for Teresa to operate the radios. For Havana Center, we were a charter doing a scenic flight with tourists from France on its way to Santiago Del Cuba.
The weather conditions were perfect for sightseeing, and I could sense that my passengers were quite more relaxed than 20 minutes ago! Tom peeked outside on occasion (that’s when I started figuring out he did not fancied flying that much), while his goons started dozing off.
I climbed to 12 000’ and let the autopilot do the rest. My heart was still pounding like crazy and I needed to calm down. With less stress for this 400 nm trip, I found a comfortable position and started looking at the surrounding scenery (… no, not Teresa!).
The flight was uneventful. It was bizarre being in such quiet skies, after the busy airspaces of New York, Atlanta and Miami. The radio was silent most at the trip. My main task was to monitor the gauges… and check the clock. We had to be on the ground and parked in MUCU by 13:00. Since we had a very nice tailwind, I figured it should not be a problem. En route, we crossed the Golfo De Ana Maria, and flew close to the Jardines de la Reina Islands.
After crossing the Golfo De Guacayanabo, we flew right over the city of Manzanillo. We were getting closer to Santiago Del Cuba, so me and Teresa started going through our descent checklist.
While descending towards the scenic Santiago Del Cuba, Teresa informed me that we would be landing on runway 09. This gave us a nice flying path close to the mountains that surround Santiago.
I started a nice approach to enter the downwind traffic pattern. When the tower cleared me for a direct landing (without entering the pattern), I decided it was time to have some fun with my “passengers”. At 5000’, I decided to cut across the mountains instead of coming in over the city. That meant a quite “abrupt” descent towards the sea side airport.
Only Teresa saw it coming, and flashed a quick smile as I…lowered the nose… cut the throttles… and lowered the flaps.
- “Holy Jesus!”, yelled Tom
- “Sorry, Tower had to change our approach quite urgently!!!”
- “Get this damn plane on the ground!”, he shouted back, while the blood slowly came back to his face!
At around 100’ from the runway, I reduced the throttles to idle, and began a slight flare at 50’, for a soft landing at 12:34.
Teresa pointed towards my “hiding” spot for the day and I could already see some of Tom’s guys waiting for us
At 12:37, I cut the engines and felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulder. Another part of this “operation” was done!
- “Okay Flyboy, this is the plan. You have to stay low profile until 8:00 tonight. The director will be gone by then, and you’ll be able to get out of here. Santiago is a beautiful city. Go do the tourist thing. Teresa is from this area, so she’ll be your guide…”, instructed Tom.
Since I had absolutely nothing else to do, or places to go, I “reluctantly” agreed to follow Teresa for the day!
After double-checking that my Conquest was properly secured, I left for town, before the airport director checked-in for work.
To be continued….