Last night we united with the group and Sophie.
The arrival at the Lima International airport was great and Peruvian Handling did a great job to take us thru the maze of the International airport.
Rita and Behn Wilson in their Cirrus SR22
Not often you see a Cirrus taking off from Lima International (SPIM)
The same great job was waiting for us in the morning. We were pick-up and taken to the airport about a 50 minutes drive. Lima airport has no facilities and no special channel for Private Airplane. So we had to go thru the passenger process with security, boarding pass etc… The Air Journey made Crew Card were very helpful and the all process took only about 15 minutes, then private bus to the plane. Amazing how easy it was to end up on the taxiway, very close to the airliners….
The beauty of the Garmin 696
Clearance was given and we received what was filed. FL 290 (29,000 feet and a route along the coast of Peru with the majestic Andes to our left). We even got direct Ilo to Iquique over the ocean. The whole flight took 2h45 minutes. The TBM is the ideal personal airliner.
The flight plan was: LIM UT224 TCA. Very simple.
N850WM parked in front of the control Tower in Iquique waiting for the refueling
The main export of Chile is Copper and we did fly over a couple of the main spots.
The next short leg was toward the Calama, in the heart of the Atacama Desert at an elevation of 7600 feet. We were a little concern about the possibility of high wind on landing since the differential in pressure was in excess of 20 millibars, but it was a non event and the landing was spectacular.
Then it was the driving from Calama to San Pedro de Atacama, where we are staying for 3 nights with plenty of activities. Along the way we were greated by a beautiful full moon rise.
We are getting ready for the adventure....San Pedro is at 8500 feet and the goal is to visit the Altoplano at an elevation of 16,000 feet....more to come....
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