If you fly in the US, you probably know you'll need passports for
flights returning from Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. It's been a
while, but some years ago you just put "Notify Customs" on your flight
plan.

I have three stories about the Bahamas. In the first case, after
clearing customs in probably Hollywood FL and stopping for a cup of
coffee before returning to MA, I was approached by a guy who noticed
my Mooney had a MA Department of Aviation decal on its fin. "You from
Boston?" he asked, and I told him not quite, I'd be landing at KBED.
He made an offer. He had 200 pounds of delicate electronics he needed
to get to Boston, and if I'd take them, I could keep 10 pounds for
myself.

I declined. I mean, what would I have done with 10 pounds of powered
electronics?

The second case involved a return from Grand Bahama. We cleared
customs, then watched a family of 4, including two small kids, taxi up
in their Cherokee 6. They went into the office to talk with the custom
guys, and I noticed another agent come out with a dog who began
sniffing around the 6 and then he went crazy. A hit! Buy the time I
departed that airplane was having service panels taken off.

One final story. I was on Grand Bahama, decided to go to Nassau. They
like those flights done under IFR. About 50 miles out the Bahama
version of ATC told me there were some thunderstorms over Nassau, and
they told me to loiter.

I was over an interesting island and noticed a grass landing strip,
plenty long enough for the Mooney. I did the usual thing, dirtied up
the airplane, flew low along it, dragging the strip, checking it out.
It looked good. Swung around into a conventional cross wind, bent it
around to downwind, things looked good.

Base, then a half mile final, full flaps, all set for a soft field
landing, when some guys waving what looked like shotguns stepped onto
the runway. I didn't think they were waving 'come on down.' Throttle
forward, gear up, I bled off the flaps and opened the cowl and away we
went.

I guess that might have been some sort of Fed Ex distribution center
and they were expecting traffic. I mean, what else could it have
been?

Never had anything as interesting as that returning from Canada.






On Feb 13, 2:55 am, wrote:
How complicated is it to fly to another country, as opposed to staying within
the U.S.?

The usual answer, it depends.
It ranges from easy to impossible.

-Kees.