Continued from Part 1...

There are a number of Maritime Academies in the US, one of which isthe federally operated US Merchant Marine Academy, and several otherswhich are run by one state or another. In particular, both New Yorkand Massachusetts have maritime colleges as part of their stateuniversity system -- Mass Maritime and SUNY Maritime. Each of thesehas a training ship, both of which are 1960's vintage cargo ships ofthe so-called "stick ship" variety; i.e., break-bulk ships that haveonboard derricks to load and offload cargo. These represent the lastgeneration of merchant shipping prior to the current container shiprevolution. The two colleges each acquired a ship of this kind andmodified it for use in training large numbers of cadets. Most of thecargo holds of each ship were converted into berthing spaces forupwards of 500 to 600 cadets, and the result was a ship that closelyresembled the troop ships of the World War II era. Our digs was to bethe SUNY Maritime ship SS Empire State VI.

Since some of the cost of modifying these ships came from UncleSam, the ships are considered a reserve asset, and are occasionallyused as floating hotels in disaster situations such as this where theycan dock close to the action. These two ships were used to house manyof the responders, volunteer and paid, who were working for FEMA toassist in the recovery and clean-up.

FEMA itself had commandeered an entire hotel adjacent to theirheadquarters at the Convention Center, and had also contracted for asmall cruise ship which also served as a floating hotel. Altogetherthere were accommodations for thousands of people. The ships wereself contained little cities, with power, air conditioning, freshwater and most of the amenities of modern life. As a long timedevotee of armchair nautical lore I was fascinated by this opportunityto spend some time on something other than a mega cruise ship.

We checked in at dockside, and then it was up the gangway and ontothe ship itself, whereupon we were met by members of the crew andbrought immediately to the mess hall. Now this was a crew that knewhow to treat airmen who have just spent an entire day in an Airvan!The food, as it turned out, was really good - I have been on twocruises where the food was not as good as on the Empire State! Dinnertime turned out to be the best time of the day. As for theaccommodations, we ended up in a berthing area that held upwards of 50men (women had their own areas, of course) in bunks three high thatlooked very much like the quarters for enlisted men on a modernsubmarine. I, fortuitously, got a bottom bunk, a necessity for one soun-athletic. Pete, though, ended up with the top bunk. Not only wasthis climb a strain, but the top bunk was right underneath the airconditioning vents, a situation that resulted in his eventually comingdown with a head cold after we got back to the States a weeklater.

Overall, I found the arrangements satisfactory. At 5'8" I was agood fit for the bunk, and the mattress was actually fairly new andcomfortable -- miles better than a cot of any kind. The blanket wasquite thin, but adequate to protect one from the maritime airconditioning. It turns out that air conditioning on a ship in thetropics is not like that which we are accustomed to at home. Thesystem cools the air nicely but removes little or none of thehumidity, so that everything in the area was always just a bit damp.It took a minute or two after crawling into the sheets for body heatto warm up the slightly cold and barely damp bedding. But once thingsgot warmed up a bit everything was fine. Indeed, the only problem weencountered during our stay was from several of the non-aircrewinhabitants who were apparently sorely afflicted with apnea. Thesnoring of one of these, berthed immediately across the narrow aislefrom me, was enough to awaken the denizens of Davey Jones' locker, tosay nothing of penetrate the industrial strength ear plugs that Ialways have available when sleeping en masse! But my slumbers, thoughoccasionally interrupted, were never put to such disarray as to makethe next day's flying unsafe, so in the end no harm no foul.

Early the next morning we awakened and made our ablutions, followedby an excellent breakfast. After that a quick van ride over to theCAP command post, which had been set up in a women's and children'shospital about a mile from Isla Grande. Our area was actually one ofthe nurses' locker rooms, and was painted a bright pink color, whichclashed with our blue polo shirt uniforms, and even more with thegreen flight suits which some of the CAP pilots wore (I rarely wearthe green bag in the tropics because it is typically quite hot anduncomfortable, but in the heat of San Juan it really mattered littlewhich uniform I wore - they would all be wet by the time the day wasdone).

We were quickly given our first flight assignments of the mission -I would take the Airvan and two photographers and photograph a grid of10 miles square over in the middle of the island just south ofArecibo, while Pete would take one of the Cessnas and fly as acommunications relay aircraft over the center of the island. I hadtaken the liberty of purchasing a San Juan sectional chart the eveningwe arrived, and so I had something a bit larger than the iPad withwhich to plan my first sortie. But I also programmed the grid on theiPad, and it was well that I did so. After we took off and headedwest, I discovered that the 480 GPS would not respond properly to theinputs I needed to make in order to fly our grid pattern with it.Since I had taken the precaution of plotting it out on the iPad, I wasable to use the GPS in that device to fly an accurate pattern over theground so that the photographers could do their jobs.

Almost immediately after takeoff the scope of Maria's impact onPuerto Rico became painfully obvious. In the dusk the evening before,we could not see that the hills were mostly brown, like New England inlate autumn, and not the tropical green normally associated with arain forest. Today it was obvious that just about every tree on theisland had either been uprooted or snapped in two, and every leaf hadbeen scoured off these trees to boot. The trunks lay askew like somegiant's game of pick-up-sticks. This was the situation just abouteverywhere we looked. On the other hand, the buildings appeared, fromaround 1000 feet agl, to be in much better shape than I hadanticipated.

Judging from pictures of the island of Dominica, which had beennearly flattened by the storm, and looked more like ground zero ofsome nuclear detonation than an inhabited island, the damage tostructures here was less intense. My first impression was thatroughly 80 percent of the buildings we saw appeared to have sufferedno major structural damage, such as roofs blown off or total collapse.Although there were a few structures in each village and town that didappear to be destroyed, most of the buildings, and just about all ofthe ones that appeared to be relatively new, seemed to be surprisinglyintact. Now it is admittedly difficult to judge structural damagefrom 1000 feet or more in the air, but overall the picture was muchbetter than I thought it might have been. Also it seemed that everypaved road we looked at, even in the mountains, had cars driving uponit, which seemed to indicate that a great deal of road clearing hadalready taken place by now, roughly two weeks after the storm hit.

We took our pictures and made our way back to Isla Grande, inbeautiful weather as my luck typically dictated. That sortie tookaround 2.5 hours, and we were not tasked to fly again that day, butinstead returned to the command post and set about planning the nextday's flying. FEMA wanted a complete survey of the islands ofCulebra, St. Thomas and St. John, so it looked like the sharks mightget another shot at a meal! Some quick iPad planning revealed that itmight take as long as three hours to get everything they wanted. Theairport at St. Thomas was open, but mainly for airliners, and we wouldhave to fly down to St. Croix to get avgas, were that to be necessary.On the plus side, the weather forecast was favorable and it looked tobe a great day for flying.

Next morning the weather did not disappoint us, and after anotherexcellent breakfast aboard the Empire State we headed back to theairport for our island tour. The distances involved are not great,and I recall flying between San Juan and St. Thomas in the 727 back inthe day, a trip which must surely have been barely longer than theLGA-JFK short haulthat I wrote about some years back. In the Airvan the times would benowhere near as short, of course; and rather than simply land, we weregoing to be circling each island several times to get completecoverage.

Every takeoff from Isla Grande gave us a front row view of downtownSan Juan, as we banked left after liftoff and flew through a small gapin the high rise hotels by the beaches. To go east, we followed thenorth shore of the island until we got to a point abeam the tower atthe big airport, and then we were cleared to fly directly over theterminal building, followed by a turn to the east that put us betweenthe two runways' departure paths. This course was held until weneared the light house at Fajardo, from which it was over the blue seafor 20 miles or so to the island of Culebra.

All of the Antilles are mountainous islands, volcanic in origin,and we had decided to use mountain flying techniques to do our photoruns. When searching mountainous areas, especially at high densityaltitudes (a condition which did not apply here, fortunately), it isalmost always preferable to begin at the highest elevations and workyour way downward. Small single engine airplanes rarely have thepower to weight ratio to conduct searches or photo runs uphill, if theslope is steep. Here, of course, we had some control over what theslope might be, by choosing our path over the ground. But it wouldstill be better all around to start at the top, and that is what wedid.

Arriving above Culebra, we circled leftward around the higherpoints and worked our way down in a spiral pattern. The camera windowis located on the left side of just about all of our airplanes, andthis dictated the direction of the turns. It also made it easiersince the pilot had a good view of the terrain. It took around 25minutes or so to cover the entire island, which is not too large, andRichard, in the back, was snapping pictures furiously as we flewalong. After satisfying himself that the images were of good quality,which is an outstanding benefit of digital photography, Richardcleared us to proceed to St. Thomas.

Now ATC got involved once again. They had let us do our own thingover Culebra, but of course the small airport there is uncontrolledand there was no traffic during the time we were busy taking ourpictures. St. Thomas (TIST), on the other hand, had several airlineinbounds by the time we broke off from Culebra, and we had to bevectored away from the approach path for runway 10. We conceived aplan which garnered the approval of ATC -- proceed north of the islandand start once again at the highest elevations, circling the highhills first, which would keep us away from the airport and theapproach path for awhile. This worked well, and by the time we gotaround to the west side of the island, where the airport is, all wasquiet on the arrivals front. There was a single departure while wewere working the area, but it was no problem for us to keep north ofhis path, a path I knew well since I had flown it myself manytimes.

Both at Culebra and St. Thomas the situation was much like that onPuerto Rico itself; namely, most buildings relatively intact but justabout every tree on the islands a casualty. It was obvious that a lotof work had already been done over on the Virgin Islands, because thefew structures that seemed to have lost roofs already had those blueFEMA tarps stretched tight over them. One again there was vehicletraffic on most of the roads, but what there was not was cruise ships.Normally the harbor at Charlotte Amalie is crowded with some of thelargest ships in the world, and the town is overflowing with thethousands of tourists each ship disgorges. But on that day, theentire harbor was empty, save for a few container ships.

St. Thomas, being larger than Culebra, took longer to photograph.But after around three complete laps of the island we had it all, andfrom there it was a short hop over to St. John. This was much easierto work, since there is no airport there, and the island is largelygiven over to a National Park, so the areas of habitation, which wereour targets, were fewer there than on St. Thomas. We made quick workof St. John, and as we did so I cast an eye off to the right at theBritish Virgin Islands.

We had to stay away from the boundary, since it is an internationalborder, and we had not been asked to take any pictures over there.But I well remembered several sailing charters I tagged along on backin the Pleistocene days of my airline career. A group of us newairline pilots chartered a big sailboat, and spent a week cruising themarvelous waters of the BVI. We did some diving on the wreck of theRhone, which was also used a few years earlier as the location forfilming some of the movie The Deep. I even made the acquaintance ofthe very barracuda that played a bit part in the film!

Pete had flown this sortie around the islands, and he wound up withone of the few landings he made that was not preceded by an instrumentapproach. After landing we made our way once again to the nurses'lounge at the hospital. Too bad the nurses were not there! Thehospital itself was open for business, since they were possessed of anenormous diesel powered generator that not only powered the entirehospital but also spewed out exhaust and copious quantities of rawnoise just across the hall from our temporary command post. Smallwonder the nurses seized this opportunity to be off to quieter digs.In the midst of this din, Richard and Mike downloaded and processedthe huge batch of photos we had taken. This can take awhile, and itwas late afternoon by the time we were ready to return to the ship.Late afternoon often means rain in San Juan, and today's downpour wastorrential. We ended up driving the van through water as deep as afoot and a half on the way to the docks, but we made it. Another day,another dollar!

The next day we did not fly, but spent the entire day at thecommand post. The sit around time on a mission is usually nothing butboring, although the respite from flying is valuable. Things can beespecially boring in the absence of wifi and wireless data, both ofwhich were spotty for obvious reasons. It was something of a miraclethat the cell network was as functional as it was, given that only twoweeks before everything was down and out. By this time there was talkof setting up a network of tethered helium balloons each carrying acell antenna array, to provide broader interim service over a widerarea of the island. But this scheme was not put into effect when weleft, although it may have been set up later. (Author's note: it isbeing set up, although with tethered drones instead of balloons.)

There was also talk of providing solar panels and batteries to many ofthe homes, especially in the remote areas. This, too, was not inevidence when we were there, although perhaps something may come of itover time. The high tension electrical distribution lines that we sawduring our flights all seemed to be intact, even to the cables betweenthe towers -- I saw none missing. It was the local electrical linesthat had been impacted severely. It will take quite a while to fixall of that, due in part to the difficulty of getting a large numberof trucks and personnel to the island.

The following day we had a special mission. The southwest cornerof the island had not been photographed due to a restricted area theresurrounding an aerostat. An aerostat is a huge tethered balloon thatcarries a radar dish to monitor sea and low flying air traffic. Sincethe late 20th century a number of these balloons have been deployedaround the fringes of US territory, in places like Key West andsouthwest Puerto Rico. The Aerostat itself had been wound back intoits hangar for the hurricane and had remained there since, but therestricted area was not lifted for photo flights until our sortie onWednesday.

This was a very long flight, in part because FEMA wanted saturationcoverage of the grid, and that meant flying the entire grid from eastto west, and then again from north to south. That evolution took overtwo hours, in fact almost three counting the travel time from San Juanover to this farthest corner of the island. Then, once we were done,Pete (who won the coin toss to fly today!) could not fly us backdirect to SJU since the daily buildups were crowning the high terrainin the middle of the island. We headed back east, over Ponce, lookingfor a place to sneak through. Failing that we would have to fly allthe way around the island. Fortunately, there is a nice valley midwayalong the island that allowed us to stay VFR beneath the clouds withseveral thousand feet of ground clearance. We worked our way throughthis valley, which leads to Caguas and beyond to the southern suburbsof San Juan. Although the island was capped by buildups, it had notyet started to rain, so we arrived without getting soaked. The rainsoccurred, as they always do, later in the afternoon, as we were on ourway back to the boat.

The original CAP plan had been to keep the Airvans and the Cessnasin San Juan for several weeks, with aircrews rotating in and out viaairline or one of the by-now-regular military shuttle flights thatoperated several times per day to various bases in the CONUS. Indeed,we had originally been scheduled to depart Puerto Rico several daysearlier on one of these flights, with another Maryland Wing crewcoming in to replace us (a plan which was scrapped after it took usnearly a week just to get there). Several iterations of this dancewere expected to occur over the course of a month or so, at the end ofwhich a crew would fly down and get the Airvan, bringing it back toBaltimore by more or less the reverse of the route we took. But byWednesday morning we began to get messages indicating that theAirvans, at least, might be finishing up and heading home sooner thananyone thought -- by Thursday, to be specific. The question wasraised: since Pete and I had flown the airplane down, and knew theroute and the drill, might we be willing to take it back home? Thiswould obviate the need to fly another crew down to Puerto Rico.

After a bit of talking among ourselves, we agreed and volunteeredto fly the bird home. It would mean giving the sharks another bite atthe apple, so to speak, but we had gotten to be old hands at overwaterflying and the thought of another trip up the Bahamas chain, with allof the beauty attendant thereunto was enticing. After our marathonjourney to the southwest corner was done, we set about planning areturn trip. One of our photographers, Mike, had to be home bySaturday and, remembering the nearly week long slog it took for us toget down, decided that he would avail himself of military air, leavingthe same day we were going, tomorrow (Thursday). With only three ofus, the plane would be a bit lighter and possibly a knot or sofaster.

The weather was not looking to be a factor until around Nassau andbeyond, so we could return via the more direct route. This would beSan Juan to Provo again (no getting around that leg!) followed by arun up A-555 to Nassau. That would most likely be our RON, since thewinds were not favorable enough to make the run all the way to KFXEnon-stop. Since we were westbound, 6000 feet would be a good cruisealtitude. I filed the flight plan with international FSS over thephone from the ship Wednesday evening and all was in readiness for an0800 departure on Thursday. Mike came to the airport with us to helpus repack the airplane, since he had signed for most of the photoequipment, and we were carrying all of that home with us rather thanburden him with it on the KC-135.

Once again, I volunteered to handle the radios on the Provo legwhich meant that Pete had another leg in the left seat. By this timeneither of us cared a hoot who flew! The torture was the same ineither seat. We took off, turned left between the Caribe Hilton andthe El San Juan and headed for CORAF again. The flight to Provo was amirror image of the flight down - long! We saw a number of cargoships on the ocean below us, but no cruise ships. Grand Turk was awelcome sight when it hove into view, since it meant that we wouldalways be in sight of land from then on. Arriving at Provo, we wereissued another hold, since several airplanes were inbound and there isno ATC radar. The lavatory was calling us, and it was with somereluctance that we headed for the holding fix rather than the airport.But luck was with us, for we were cleared to the airport even beforewe got to the holding fix.

We again had someone from the FBO go into town for some ham andcheese sandwiches, as we had on the way down. On that trip, a weekago, they were the best ham and cheese sandwiches we ever tasted!Today not quite so -- perhaps another chef was in town. But theystill hit the spot an hour or two later, when we asked Richard to takeup the role of flight attendant and pass them up. I had chosen to flythis second leg into MYNN in part because the original forecastsindicated the possibility of an instrument approach at Nassau. But myluck had not changed, and by the time we got there it was sunny andpleasant. We could see the Atlantis hotel complex over by the town,and the usual gaggle of huge cruise ships docked at this, one of thefew ports in the entire area that was not really affected by thehurricanes.

Once we cleared customs we got a cab to our hotel, a quaint littleplace near the airport and well away from the town and the tourists,called A Stones Throw. The accumulated fatigue of the entire missionwas beginning to show, and the meal we had there was outstanding andrelaxing. We had discovered conch fritters on the way down, in Exuma,and we once again treated ourselves to them in Nassau. We capped itall off with a good night's sleep - the first on a real bed since wehad embarked upon the SS Empire State.

By morning we were recharged and rejuvenated, and ready for theday's labors. A long day was facing us, since we were of a mind tomake it all the way back to Baltimore on Friday. This looked quitedoable, since CAP allowed up to nine hours of flight time in a 14 hourduty day. All of this had been waived for the mission, of course, buteven within the regs it looked like we could do it, and do itsafely.

We planned the leg into the USA to terminate at KPBI instead ofFort Lauderdale, since by going up to Palm Beach we could cut a cornerand save a few minutes on the overall flight time. The route Iplanned took us over Freeport, although shortly after takeoff we werecleared direct. This leg was complicated by the extra notificationsnecessary to alert customs to our arrival. In addition to theelectronic notification, which is done through a system called EAPIS,we also had to make a phone call to the KPBI customs office tellingthem when we planned to arrive. Thus far in the mission, accuracy ofarrival estimates had been mostly academic, but now it counted. Wewere expected to show up on customs' doorstep within an hour of whenwe told them we were coming. Since the flight itself was only around2 hours so in length our estimate would probably hold up.

Promptly 1.9 hours after takeoff we set the parking brake on thecustoms ramp at KPBI and presented ourselves and our paperwork forinspection. All of us had been through this drill many times - Peteis a seasoned international vacationer and Richard is actually aSlovak national. Customs and immigration personnel were friendly andefficient and we were cleared to proceed within 10 minutes or so (nodoubt also due to the fact that we were the only airplane there atthat point). This marked a significant milestone, since from thispoint on the flight was a plain vanilla domestic flight. Among otherniceties I could resume filing the flight plans from the Garmin Pilotapp!

One of the interesting aspects of a long series of flights likethis is that the only fixed points are the origin and the finaldestination. In my professional career, every leg was set in stoneand we simply followed our orders, or the schedule, with no deviationexcept for a diversion for cause. But these flights were our own toconstruct. We could have stopped in Exuma again, for example, orFreeport rather than Nassau, or any other airport in the Bahamas thathad fuel. Likewise, we could now stop anyplace between Palm Beach andBaltimore for fuel, since we could not make it non-stop and probablywould have been unwilling to endure the flight even if we could. Aswe planned the northbound journey we considered Savannah, Columbia,Fayetteville, Raleigh, and a few other places. But since the leg wasmine, I decided to drop in again at a place I had not visited indecades -- Charleston, South Carolina, the home of my Air Force almamater the 437th Military Airlift Wing as it was known then (simply the437th Airlift Wing today).

Our fight plan from PBI to CHS called for Victor 3 up to Craig VOR,and then Victor 1 to Charleston. Victor 1 lies just off the coast,but probably within gliding distance of the beaches from our plannedaltitude of 7000 feet. In any event, we still had the raft and thevests so we had no hesitation about planning the flight this way.Although we should have been feet dry up to CRG, departure controlvectored us a few miles out over the ocean before turning us north.We could again see the signs of hurricane Irma as we coasted out,although by around 2000 feet things on the ground resumed a more orless normal appearance. There were some scattered cumulus over theland but little in the way of clouds over the water. At 7000 feet, wewere pretty much in the clear, and able to avoid the scattered higherbuildups visually, although we also had once again the advantages ofboth ADSB weather and ATC radar to assist us.

We flew about 10 miles inland of Cape Canaveral, but could see themassive VAB building and the associated launch complexes in thedistance. By the time we got to CRG Center offered us the option ofgoing direct to CHS, a short cut that would take us well out to sea,but would also cut 5-10 minutes off the flight. Again, the decidingfactor was the lack of comfort of the sturdy Airvan. We had theequipment to go feet wet one more time, and we also had thenonchalance born of seven previous overwater legs. Why not? And so weturned 20 degrees right and set a direct course to the City by theSea.

We wound up having to dodge a few buildups on the new course, butit was no problem. One of the joys of IFR flying is the ability toget close to, or even inside of, clouds. Indeed, in the Airvangetting close to clouds is the only way one can get any sense ofspeed! Our cruise speed could only be considered sprightly bycomparison to something like a Greyhound bus, but close to a cloud weat least could savor the illusion of speed. And, of course, there isendless delight in dodging to and fro in the cloud canyons aloft.Cheap thrills, perhaps, but rare enough not to be ignored. I indulgedmyself for the better part of an hour in such pursuits, and if nothingelse it helped to keep my mind off the pains!

It took almost 4 hours to get to CHS, a portion of which was thefault of approach control, who decided, because of our arthriticspeed, to vector us all over the low country to keep the approach pathopen for faster and presumably more deserving traffic. By the time wehad shut down on the FBO ramp the Hobbs meter read 3.7 hours.

Over on the other side of the airport lay Charleston AFB, nowfestooned with C-17's rather than the smaller C-141's of my era, andsomewhat modernized over the course of nearly 50 years, but stillrecognizable. I spent a few moments in the luxurious FBO loungereminiscing about my life here in the early 1970's, and the manyworldwide trips that I flew from this very runway. I once owned asmall plane here, an early model Beech Bonanza, and flew it all overthe low country, mostly in pursuit of hamburgers, or more often goodseafood. There was not time for anything like that now, for we mustneeds be off fairly quickly to get to Baltimore before it got toolate. We contented ourselves with snacks from the FBO and a fewbottles of water for the last leg of the odyssey.

It fell to Pete to bring it all home, as I resumed my role ofcopilot. I had told Pete earlier in the mission that he was gettingthe opportunity to sample an airline trip. Indeed, our journey didbear a striking resemblance to a multi day airline pairing. We twoworked together like an experienced airline or military crew, whichwas not surprising since those virtues are exactly what CAP preachesand teaches, and for the same reason -- safety. It was gratifying tothink that CAP's training and procedures had equipped Pete to become atrue crew dog, since most of his flying time is actually single pilot.But we had all the duties split down the middle as we dronednorthward, measuring our progress as much by the ATC centers we werehanded off to as by the waypoints we passed. Actually, I had simplyfiled direct to Martin State Airport; and since Pete was in the leftseat, and more often than not possessed of the luck of the Irishinstead of his actual heritage, we were cleared direct to KMTN. Therewere, therefore, no actual waypoints passing, but we could seeCharlotte, Raleigh and Richmond both out the window and on the GPS asthey drifted slowly by.

Up around the Richmond area we were treated to a magnificent sunsetoff to our left, a fitting coda to the long and arduous mission. Bythis time we were able to get the reports and forecast for KMTN, whichnow indicated that the fun was not yet over, because a 600 footceiling and one mile visibility meant that once again Pete was goingto get some instrument time. Indeed, by the end of the trip he prettymuch had his instrument currency updated for another 6 months! Butbefore he could inscribe all of this in his logbook, he had to flythis last approach; which, although not really to minimums, wouldstill be demanding.

As we closed in on the Washington area we were rerouted, as isusual, to the east of the SFRA. By now an undercast had formed belowus and we could only see a glow of light through the clouds to confirmthat we were nearing our destination. Clearance for the approach tookus down into the clouds, and as so often happens on the line, we hadto earn our way to the ramp by finding the airport in the clag.

Martin State was using runway 33, which has an LDA approach with aglideslope. This, for all intents and purposes, is similar to an ILSapproach, and flown in the same manner. At the end of such a long dayit is often challenging to keep the needles together on an instrumentapproach, but Pete had us positioned nicely at the point where Icalled the tower and asked for the runway lights to be turned up full.This is an old pilot trick, and behold -- in an instant the runwayappeared from nowhere, directly in front of us! It was then merely amatter of landing upon it, and we were down and home.

We taxied in light drizzle over to the ramp, where we were met bythe same CAP people who had given us our sendoff almost two weeksbefore. Fortunately, the drizzle stopped by the time we were ready tounload the airplane, which took almost as long as it did to load it.We refueled the trusty Airvan and I sneaked in an affectionate pat onthe cowling as a thank you for her long and faithful service on thismission. Over the course of 12 days and nearly 60 hours of flying shehad performed flawlessly, with no maintenance issues whatsoever --just when we needed such a performance most! Final box score - Fliers8, Sharks 0. A perfect game indeed!

Every generation or so, CAP is involved in a major mission thatserves to define it in the coming years. The Steve Fossett search,the hurricane Katrina recovery, and now the hurricane Maria recoverywill always be front and center in the legacy of Civil Air Patrol.But this one was unprecedented -- a long overwater trip that crossedinternational borders. It demonstrated that CAP is capable of flyingwith the best of them, in every circumstance that our equipment andtraining will allow. Pete, Mike, Richard and I are proud to have beeninvolved in this one.

Happy Landings!

Afterword: If you think you may be interested in getting involvedwith the Civil Air Patrol, I encourage you to take a look atwww.gocivilairpatrol.comand visit a local squadron. We would love to show you around andencourage your participation. A flight simmer has a lot to bring toCAP, and we do a lot that would no doubt be of great interest to you.I look forward to seeing some of you on my crew someday!

Tony Vallillo

www.gocivilairpatrol.com