January 2010 - Southern Chile Rogaine

After meeting up with Tony and Bill in December (pict1), I shuttled Bill and family (pict2)up to Everett, WA and Boeing Field. (pict3) It was there, at Boeing Field that Peter said we should head to Santiago Chile, so we loaded up the Flight Club's 787 and headed south from Boeing Field. (pict4) (pict5) (pict6) After an over-nighter in Panama, we arrived into Santiago New Year's Day. (pict7) (pict8)

On Sunday January 3rd I picked up my aircraft of the month, an "Angel-44" in 2010 Rogaine livery and made the nearly 400-mile flight down to the area of our challenge. (pict9) (pict10) (pict11) Along the way to SAZY I looked for the areas indicated on the map but had no luck finding anything. Maybe he could have given us a GPS coordinate? (pict12)

SAZY = I found nothing. (pict13)
SAZS = I think I found a box. On the West end? (pict14)
Another spot on a vague map (pict15) = no luck there either.
SCLD = I took several laps around, just like I did in August but there was nothing. (pict16)
At this point I was questioning my sanity so hopped over to SCTE (El Tepual Base) to be sure I had everything installed properly. Yep, it was all there. (pict17) Okay, back to work ....
SAVB = Another four laps around and I found nothing. But, these airports do offer some good places to land! (pict18) At this point I was really feeling defeated, just wasn't getting "The Vibe", wasn't feeling motivated to go FIND anything - but, I was having great fun (and an education) flying through and over the high mountain peaks and landing at the various airports!
There were some steep climbs over the mountains into SAVD where I checked the river and roads quite thoroughly - again I found nothin'. (pict21) (pict22)
Next up was SAVE. (pict23) Wait, that's not even on the list. What happened? Oh well, at this point it was time for lunch so I landed, got some food and topped-off the fuel tanks. (pict24) I was ready to get back on track by 13:00.
Seven hours since departure and I was only going to claim 30 points so far...."Hey!" Look there off the end of the runway! (pict25)
My next airport was SCAP where ... lo-and-behold ... I FOUND ONE! There in the river SW of the airport. (pict26) And speaking of the airport ... a picnic table too! (pict27) Great!
Next up was SCPH (pict28) ... woah, cool bridge. (pict29) Hey! Another box! (pict30)
SCFT = Nothing, again. (pict31) (pict32) (pict33)
SCTN = While on finals I noticed the boats out in the bay and remembered that someone had found a box on a boat that was miles from water back in August. (pict34) A quick circle over the boats and sure-enough, another box was located.
Then, I really needed a rest room so I landed and found another picnic table in the hangar. COOL! (pict35)

Now, this is just my opinion but some of these airports provide for great scenery and are cool places to land. So next time, what I want to see, are little treasures (boxes or tables or blondes ...) around AT THE AIRPORTS. Not 2 miles away under some tree or back over the hill but put the things to find at the actual airports so that we'll have to actually land the plane and go check things out. That's what I want to see next time! Anyway, back on task here ... Setting out with 310 points - just 25% of my August score.
SCST =
SCAC =
SCPV =

To read my final score and see the photos - this time I'm going to make you go to the website and check out my Pilot's Report. It will be visible at: www.toomuchfs.com after 01-Feb-10.