After a medical leave of their own, John Ruley and his wife Kate have resumed their volunteer work for medical missions in northern Mexico.
February 2015-
From my notebook:
Nov. 7, 2014, Hotel La Herradura, El Fuerte, Mexico – I can’t recall ever being so tired at 7:45 p.m. A couple of margaritas probably had something to do with it, as did nine hours flying yesterday and today…
We started out from Modesto, Calif. (KMOD) yesterday. It was a nice flight down with surprising weather: marginal to IFR in the valley (three miles at surface, a lot less at pattern; tops 1,500) and clear in the Los Angeles basin (at least, as clear as it gets). I didn’t see Hawthorne (KHHR) approach lights until we were five miles out.
We were met by a friend who took us out for dinner and we bedded down for the night at a house owned by the Mission Doctors Association (MDA), where we met our passenger for departure the following day.
Our departure was almost an hour late, compounded by the FBO failing to fuel the airplane overnight. We made up some of that lost time when ATC gave us shortcut vectors, and instead of setting our usual 21 inches of manifold pressure at 2,300 rpm, I looked at the performance charts and bumped up the power to 22 inches at 2,400 rpm for 75 percent power at 9,000 feet. That increased our fuel burn to over 14 gph, but we picked up about five knots ground speed.
I wasn’t sure what to make of Mexicali International Airport (MMML). This was my first arrival ever at a Mexican airport where we weren’t met by an armed soldier or Marine, which I found a bit disconcerting.
The folks at the local Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC) office at Mexicali did their best to be helpful but with customs and immigration stops, the process still took an hour—and the fuelers wouldn’t take a credit card, so I burned a bunch of cash.
Once again in the air, we were faced with a potentially serious problem: we were now two hours behind schedule and there was a serious risk we wouldn’t reach El Fuerte (XFTE) by sunset.
I had anticipated that, which is why we stopped at Mexicali (just south of the United States-Mexico border) instead of Calexico (KCXL) or Imperial County (KIPL) on the U.S. side. (Readers may want to make note that “FTE” is the local, Mexican identifier, and “X” is the national designation. The author was told this—at great length—at Mexicali when he handed in an arrival report using MM79 as the airport ID for El Fuerte. —Ed.)
We had enough fuel to make XFTE without any additional stops, which would save an hour. However, it might not leave us with enough fuel to fly the first leg of our return trip on Sunday.
A few weeks earlier, one of my partners told me that he’d had good luck running lean of peak with an O-470 engine. He told me that partial carburetor heat might help.
I climbed to 9,000 feet and experimented. It turned out the engine did run smoothly when lean of peak, burning just under 10 gph. But that cut our ground speed to less than 120 knots.
I flew about half of the 511 nm leg at that setting, and then got concerned about landing before sunset (El Fuerte is unlighted and near high terrain) so I went back to best power, which pushed up our speed to over 130 knots.
We arrived about 20 minutes before sunset with 22 gallons of fuel—enough to reach Ciudad Obregón (MMCN) with an hour’s reserve.
Two unexpected issues came up: we reached El Fuerte just behind a Cirrus that had wandered off to the north. Fortunately, we were in radio contact. I wasn’t sure exactly where he was, so I widened out to the south.
Then I had trouble finding the field and wound up on a very wide (two-mile, at least) downwind and so high on final that I almost went around—all while the Cirrus pilot was hurriedly turning off to clear the runway.
I cut power, set full flaps and made a perfect short-field landing (greaser with the stall horn on), then followed the directions from soldiers on the field and did a full-power turn to park next to the runway, blowing dirt to line up beside the Cirrus. I’ve never seen so many planes at XFTE (30 on the list)!
Flight times so far: KMOD-KHHR: 2.7 hours; KHHR-MMML: 1.9 hours; MMML-XFTE: 4.4 hrs (and that’s as long a leg as I ever hope to fly!)
Two days later…
Nov. 9, 2014, Mission House, Los Angeles, 5:50 p.m. – Totally beat! Landed after sunset. Today’s legs: XFTE-MMCN: 0.8 hours; MMCN-KCXL: 3.9 hours; KCXL-KHHR: 1.8 hours. Total flight time 6.5 hours, which will make just about nine even with tomorrow’s flight home to KMOD.
A couple of surprises on the way north: Los Angeles Center wanted us up at 10,000 feet MSL over Julian VOR, even though we were safely above the IFR minimum en route altitude at 8,000. I balked at that—we didn’t have the portable oxygen out, and I don’t like flying at or above 10,000 feet without it.
Center handed the problem to SoCal Approach; they compromised on 8,600 feet and gave us a shortcut vector direct to the Oceanside VOR where we rejoined the airway to Seal Beach (SLI).
When we got there, I asked for the KHHR localizer approach, and they asked me to slow to “minimum practical airspeed,” which was about 100 mph with one notch of flap. They vectored us here and there, and eventually requested a maximum rate descent to 1,500 feet followed by a turn onto the localizer.
After all that, I didn’t make a perfect landing, but it wasn’t bad—the passengers were happy. On the ground, one of them told me, “Flying a small plane isn’t easy!” Tonight, I’d have to agree.
Nov. 10, 2014, Mission House, Los Angeles, 7:30 a.m. – I get to fly some IFR today. It’s overcast here, and Modesto is currently two miles in mist with a forecast that improves some, but is never expected to completely burn off.
Fortunately, there are good options for alternates. I’ve been trying to outguess ATC again (I did a good job yesterday—cleared as filed, and no amendments other than shortcut vectors) and according to ForeFlight they’ve been clearing folks over Gorman. This will require going up to 10,000 feet MSL.
Nov. 10, 2014, Modesto, 4:07 p.m. – Got to the airport at 10:00 a.m. and were airborne about an hour later. Spent about two minutes in the soup for tops at 3,100 feet. I’d filed direct Gorman V23 CZQ direct, and that’s what I got—except that I was vectored initially to intercept V23 south of LAX and eventually cleared direct to LAX at 5,000 feet.
In contrast to last night, I was asked for a maximum performance climb to 8,000; a very smooth ride against 10- to 20-knot headwinds. The valley was full of haze with tops at 6,000 to 8,000 feet.
I asked for direct Modesto when we were approaching Fresno and noticed that took us near El Nido (HYP) VOR, so I requested the RNAV 28R approach; HYP transition. We got vectored around a bit for other traffic (instrument students and VFR folks flying in the haze).
At one point ATC advised us to pop up to 3,000 feet for separation from someone they weren’t talking to. We eventually rolled onto the GPS glide path and rode it to a bit of a thump on 28R (full flaps; I was determined to make the first turnoff). I had planned and asked for a sidestep to Runway 28L, but changed my mind when I saw how hazy it was.
Total for the trip: 18.3 hours, including 0.1 IMC and about 0.4 at night.
Nov. 11, 2014, Modesto – Yesterday, while fueling at KMOD while my wife and a passenger opened up the hangar, I made an interesting observation: it was the first time I can recall being better rested at the end of a long trip than before we left!
Probably a comment on how hectic things have been more than anything else, but clearly overnight stops on both ends of the trip helped. Obviously I need to fly more, and hope to do that in the new year.
Overall, it was a good trip and a much-needed ego boost for me. My wife, an ovarian cancer patient, got a lot of hugs, and that made it all worthwhile.
John D. Ruley is an instrument-rated pilot and freelance writer. He holds a master’s degree from the University of North Dakota Space Studies program (space.edu) and is archivist for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) operational history project. Ruley is a volunteer pilot with ligainternational.org and angelflight.org, two charities which operate medical missions in northwest Mexico and provide medical patient transport, respectively. Send questions or comments to editor@www.piperflyer.com.
