Ferrying a Beech Baron to Brazil: Part 1

By Steve Weaver

The view off of the wing. (Steve Weaver)A couple of years ago I got a call from a gentleman in Brazil, inquiring about a Cessna 210 that I was advertising. Roberto Martins lived near Sao Paulo and was a farmer who worked a 120,000 acre farm, raising cattle and soy beans, and he was also a pilot that needed an airplane to cover the vast distances of his country with it’s scattered population centers. 

Over the next few weeks we had several conversations by phone about the 210, and finally a deal was struck for him to purchase the airplane and begin the process of getting the ship ready to export to Brazil. 

First time aircraft buyers are usually surprised at the simplicity of the paperwork involved in purchasing an airplane in the US.  A Bill of Sale signed by the previous owner along with an Application for Registration and five bucks, the whole thing sent to the FAA in Oklahoma City and the deal is done. It is quite another thing to export or import an aircraft. Each country has its own rules and standards and only experience in doing it makes it routine. Neither Roberto nor I had sent an airplane to Brazil and we both struggled with the certification. Mistakes were made and corrected and the whole ordeal took longer and cost more than it should have, but finally it was finished. Roberto’s pilot came and collected the airplane and made the long flight to it’s new home, and that, I thought, was that. 

The total unpredictability of life has always fascinated me, sometimes horrified me, but never bored me. This time it pleasantly surprised me when I recently received another call from Roberto. He said I had done such a good job for him on the 210 that he wanted me to find him a Baron. It didn’t feel to me like I had done a good job on the 210, but I’d done my best and maybe that is what he was thinking about. I appreciated the second chance. 

I began looking for the Baron that would best fit his budget and his mission and at the same time be the best value for the dollars spent. The quest took several months, but finally I located the airplane that both Roberto and I thought might be the one. It was a 2004 model with only 375 careful hours on it since it rolled out the factory doors and it was owned be a national equipment company that had spared no expense to maintain it. It was based in Phoenix and Roberto and I agreed to meet there and examine it. 

In the meantime I arranged a pre-buy inspection and the airplane got kudos from the shop that looked at it. It apparently really was the airplane the specifications and the pictures said it was. 

Roberto and I met at the company’s hangar in Phoenix in October, a first meeting for us after many phone conversations, and he proved to be just as I’d imagined him; a courtly gentleman of my years, very much at home in the world. The hangar was the real surprise, as it turned out to be an aeronautical Taj Mahal and was worth the trip to see, even if the airplane had been a dud. Millions had been spent to make it a showplace and the Baron, far from a dud, sat gleaming on its polished floor, looking as nearly new as a five-year-old airplane can. 

The test flight proved the airplane to be every bit as good as it was represented to be and without any flaw that would demand haggling to be done. Very satisfied, we placed a deposit and made arrangements with the owners to pay for it and have me pick it up the following week. At the airport as we were saying goodbye, Roberto asked if I would deliver the airplane to him and be his guest at his farm in Brazil. Thinking quickly I said …OK. And a few weeks later, after applying and waiting for a Visa, I find myself southbound. The following is the story of that flight. 

Thursday, December 11 

Morning dawns gray and windy. A strong front has pushed through West Virginia overnight, bringing ferocious winds that still roar in the bare trees on the hill above the farmhouse. Russell brings me to the airport in his pickup and I ready the Baron and load my baggage. The weather briefer gave me little hope for a fast first leg of this trip and my destination of Fort Lauderdale lies some five and a half hours away, a distance that I could make in three and a half if the winds were behind instead of in front of me. 

The Baron’s engines start easily despite the brisk temperatures and the long taxi to the runway’s departure end warms and readies them for the run up. I go through the departure checklist as the wind tries to whip the control yoke from my hands, then I’m ready, and I line up on the runway and advance the throttles. I accelerate and lift off quickly into a troubled sky and I’m quickly immersed in the murk. The trip has begun. 

Direct from Philippi to Ft Lauderdale takes you quite far out to sea and as my flight left land behind in the Charleston, SC area, I decided to ask for lower than my eight thousand in an effort to reduce the relentless headwind. I asked for and received six thousand and no sooner was I there and my ground speed had started to increase, than I was given a turn to the west and even more into the wind. This in order to avoid an active military area, and my speed fell 20 knots from my speed at the higher altitude. Rats. 

Passing the Florida line the afternoon thunderstorms made their appearance and I was kept busy with the radar and with wending my way between the cells. Ft. Lauderdale was in the clear however, and I made the visual approach and landed.