Bahama’s Cargo flight MT-CI-EX-MI
Alphabet soup? This is a flight from Matthew Town (Great Inagua island) to Miami via Crooked Island (Colonel Hill), and Exuma Intl.
Have we lost our mind? What kind of cargo could possibly come from Crooked Island? Flying over enroute to Grand Turk from Exuma, it looks like a sleepy little place inhabited only by fisherman and sailors. In good time. But let me tell the tale as it progresses.
Matthew Town International is the southernmost airport in the Bahamas. Cutoms has officers on duty to clear flights to and from Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica and points to the north and east. The industry of Great Inagua is salt, and most all of the residents are employed by the Morton Company. Gathering sea salt is one of the oldest businesses in the Bahamas. You may have noticed the large white area east of Matthew Town and thought it was sand. No, it is the salt pans that are 16 inches deep when full of sea water and crusted with 3 inches of salt when ready for harvest.
The salt is transported by ship. It is a low value commodity and very corrosive to aircraft components. Out freight today is made up mostly of equipment form the Morton Company being sent to the States for repair.
Normally our flights from Matthew Town to Miami are non-stop, but occasionally as on this trip we make a stop at Colonel Hill field on Crooked Island to pick up a load of bark from the cascarilla tree. The bark is the main ingredient in the Italian apertiff Campari. I don’t know how the Italians found out about the cascarilla trees on Crooked Island, perhaps Christopher Columbus picked some up on his first voyage when he supposedly stopped at Crooked Island on his way from Long Island to Cuba.
Colonel Hill does not have any customs agents, so we must stop at another international airport before leaving the Bahamas. The nearest one, and the one with the most direct flight between Crooked Island and Miami is Exuma Internaltional.
Since Crooked Island has no navaids and is out of range of any VOR’s I’m including a simple flight plan if you’d like to try this flight:
Feb 10 1955
Aircraft Convair 440
Matthew Town 08:05 (1305z)
Heading 340 climb to 4,500’
Tune to ZIN 376
Upon intercepting ZIN 170 deg turn to 350
At 8:25 you should see Acklins Island ahead. You will fly over the western part of the island.
By 8:35 you will see Crooked Island ahead, and loose contact with Great Inagua NDB
As you cross over the island stretching out west of Crooked Island begin to descend to 3,000’
Tune in Stella Maris ZLS 526
Looking to your right you can see Colonel Hill along the eastern shore.
When Stella Maris becomes active and reaches 320 degrees turn right to 90 degrees and begin your final descent.
Colonel Hill 08:45 (1345z)
Colonel Hill 09:15 (1415z)
After taking off Heading 320 and climb to 4,500’
Track to the Stella Maris (ZLS) NDB station until the Great Exuma VOR 112.20 becomes active then track to it ususally a heading of about 290 degrees.
You can also track the Great Exuma NDB 328. If the winds are favorable you can make almost a straight in approach to RW 30. Begin your descent about 15 miles out.
Exuma Intl. 09:57 (1457z)
How long you spend here is dependent on customs. Since we only have two shipments and our paperwork is all in order we were cleared quickly.
The plane is refueled and ready to depart.
Just a note: This flight was flown using the Golden Wings enhanced FS98 with the Bahamas scenery add on by John Varney available for download from the bga main site hangar. It is well worth waiting to download the 1.7 mb file.
Exuma Intl 10:30 (1530z)
After taking off follow the 310 degree radial from Exuma 112.2 and when losing contact tune in Bimini 116.70
Your route will take you across Andros Island. By 11am you should see Andros.
11:05 Exuma VOR faded out at about 105 miles dme. Andros Town visible ahead. Nassau visible about 20 miles to the right.
11:17 passed just north east of Andros Town. Picked up Bimini VOR 96 miles DME.
11:35 It’s a clear day and we have Cat Cay and Bimini in sight. 36.7 dme from Bimini.
Bimini is an international airport, so we could have flown directly here from Crooked Island, but customs gets busy with private pilots and the workload taking off and climbing and then immediately descending into Miami is best avoided.
We fly over Bimini and tune in the Dolphin VOR 113.90. when we intercept the 270 degree radial we follow it in for a straight in approach to Miami Runway 27R
If the winds and ATC were not favorable we would fly a 280 heading until north of Dolphin then turn left to 90 degrees to land on 9L
11:45 passed just east of the BGA Cat Cay airport and float plane base.
Begin your descent when about 30 miles DME from Dolphin (note Dolphin VOR is about 4 miles beyond the touchdown point of RW 27R.
11:55 Miami Beach in sight 34 miles dme to Dolphin.
12:10 (1710z) arrived Miami
The Morton equipment is unloaded and transferred to a truck for shipment to final consignees. The cascarilla bark is sent over to KLM for a flight to Italy via connections in Jamaica and Curacao before heading across the Atlantic.
Elapsed time 4:05 Logged time 3.1 hours
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