Cessna 208.com

Where's My Flying Car?

2012-02-02T23:06:00.001-05:00

USS George H.W. Bush - Flight Deck Operations

2012-01-29T09:17:00.000-05:00

Seaport Airlines Survives In Turbulent Economy

2012-01-28T14:28:00.000-05:00

Seaport Airlines Making Waves In The Airline Business.

Sea Port Air.com

Bahama Out Island Dreaming

2012-01-28T00:01:00.001-05:00

Shot On Location In Staniel Cay Very cool video shot out & about in the Exuma's on a GoPro HD HERO2: Outdoor Edition (New Model) and by the way,their is only one comfortable way to arrive in Staniel Cay-Cessna 208B

F-18's Gettin Some

2012-01-25T22:33:00.001-05:00

All the video was shot with the GoPro HD HERO2: Motorsports Edition (New Model)

Seaport Airlines Starts New Service

2012-01-23T09:31:00.001-05:00

This is essentially an air-charter service when it gets right down to it, but what does that mean to you? Its flying like it was in the past- Fast , Simple and Efficient. And not dealing with the TSA ..well that's priceless.

Lebanon & Iraq Increase Size Of Hellfire Equipped Cessna Caravan Fleet

2012-01-23T08:34:00.001-05:00

Alliant Techsystems is to delever a second Combat Caravan to Lebanon next year following an order from the US Air Force. The American company recently delivered a third AC-208B to the Iraq Training and Advisory Mission in Kirkuk.

The Combat Caravan aircraft is a specially modified Cessna Grand Caravan that incorporates an electro-optical targeting system with integrated laser designator, Hellfire laser guided missiles, an air-to-ground and air-to-air data link and aircraft self-protection equipment. ATK's STAR Mission System provides both day and night reconnaissance and fire control capabilities for the mission crew.

Flightglobal reported that the Lebanese purchase was funded by the US as part of an agreement to carry out operations against insurgent forces.

"ATK delivers cost-effective, integrated platform solutions, across a variety of mission areas, at a fraction of traditional cost and timelines," said Bill Kasting, Vice President and General Manager of ATK's Integrated Systems Division. "ATK's Combat Caravan builds upon our successful reconnaissance version of the C-208 aircraft, by providing a robust and versatile light-attack capability."

The aircraft has already been proving effective in Iraq. The Combat Caravan program was awarded to ATK in 2008. Within 11 months, ATK completed live fire testing and delivered its first aircraft to Iraq. The aircraft holds both a Military and Civil Certification.

The Combat Caravan is part of ATK's Special Mission Aircraft product portfolio. The Special Mission Aircraft business provides operationally responsive Intelligence, Surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities by outfitting various aircraft -- including Lockheed Martin C-130s, Bombardier Dash-8s, Hawker Beechcraft King Airs, Cessna Caravans and others-- with networked sensors and weapons that offer affordable, flexible and rapid fielding of capability.

Flying For Dummies

2012-01-17T13:24:00.001-05:00

From The "Perfecting The Art Of A Gear Up Landing" Aviation Series At least they remembered to keep the camera on ...

Cessna Caravans Of Saint Maarten

2012-01-10T18:08:00.001-05:00

Princess Juliana International Airport SXM

More Caravans of the Caribbean courtesy of Air Saint Kitts Nevis - DHL

Go Pro HD In A King Air B200

2012-01-05T23:29:00.001-05:00

My buddy Steve-O hitting a perfect landing out in Deep Water Cay Bahamas! Steve-O ices another perfect landing out in Deep Water Cay,Bahamas with his Go Pro HD running in the background. Check out the Cam on Amazon-GoPro HD Motorsports Hero

Cessna Caravan 208 Spotlight- Tropic Air

2011-12-21T13:21:00.000-05:00

Tropic Air - Flying High With Caravans in Beautiful Belize!

For Tropic Air, a domestic airline in Belize, something simple sealed its commitment to flying Cessna Caravans:
Once the company started flying the 208B aircraft, it started making money.

Steve Schulte, CEO and co-owner of the Central American airline, says he launched a personal campaign to get the Caravan after joining founder Johnny Greif III in the business in 1991. At the time, Tropic Air flew Twin Otters and had difficulty making money with the two-engine aircraft. Getting the airline’s first Caravan took until 1994 when a local businessman bought one and leased it to them.

“That turned the tide as far as making money,” Schulte says. “It was immediately apparent that the Cessna Caravan was economical.”

Caravan is Perfect Plane for Their Mission
Tropical, tourist-attracting Belize is just 180 miles from tip to tip, nestled along the Caribbean between Mexico and Honduras. Tropic Air flights are nearly all short hops, with missions running about 12 minutes, and the airline averaging 5.3 cycles per hour.

Most flights are to points dotted along the coast or on barrier-reef islands, as well as to the inland capital of Belmopan and to Flores, Guatemala. Outside of Flores and Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport serving Belize City, the strips it reaches are unimproved and just 3,000 to 6,000 feet long - a perfect environment for Caravans – Tropic Air flies nine, including two delivered in November.

“We fly into some pretty rugged, poorly maintained runways,” Schulte says.

“We needed its stall characteristics-
The Caravan is about the only modern, in production aircraft we can use.”

The international flights streaming into Goldson provide a tight window of operation, as they all arrive between noon and 4:30. That means the airline, operating day VFR, must get passengers up and down the coast quickly before sunset. Up to five Caravans operate on some flights, with up to 200 daily missions.

“One thing we didn’t realize at first was that the Caravan’s higher speed gave us more cycles to work with,” Schulte says.

Tourists Come for Sea, Sand, Culture, Archaelogy
For such a small country, Belize has incredible environmental diversity that draws sightseers from around the world.

“Our business is up 20 percent this year,” Schulte says. “Belize has retained its natural beauty, and is a destination for environmentalists and people in love with the sea. We have the largest living barrier reef in the world, and the water is crystal clear.”

Tourists can snorkel, sail, swim and fish in the blue waters off Ambergris Caye, the largest and northernmost of Belize’s 200 coastal islands, and its main town, San Pedro, is Tropic Air’s home. Caye Caulker, just south, is more laidback and less developed, a draw in itself, Schulte says.

To the north along the border is Corozal, which draws tourists backpacking from Mexico and Belizeans taking day trips to shop in Chetumal, Mexico. Belize City, a port, is the nation’s transportation, culture and economic hub.

Down the coastal highway lies Dangriga, called the “cultural capital of Belize.” The area is home to Sittee River resorts, which draw divers and travelers hoping to observe the world’s largest fish species, the whale shark. The coast has some of the country’s best beaches, and visitors can travel inland to a preserve and try to spot the elusive jaguar.

A bit farther south is Placencia, on a peninsula with miles of sandy beaches, diving and snorkeling on the nearby reef. Placencia also is a habitat of the whale shark, and is the fastestgrowing resort community in Belize. Tropic Air’s southernmost destination is Punta Gorda, which has native Mayan villages and cultural and fishing resorts.

In addition to those stops, Tropic Air also flies to Flores, Guatemala, a launching point for visits to the immense Mayan ruins at Tikal. Except for a Cessna 172 used for charters and two Gippsland Airvans, passengers fly on Caravans, and like it.

“Belize is a fairly new destination and is still drawing a lot of tourists who haven’t been to places where they have to fly in small planes,” Schulte says. “They say, ‘I never flew in a small airplane before but I’d rather fly in a small airplane than in a big one because I can see everything.’”

Growing an Airline
Schulte’s first trip to Belize convinced him to become a pilot. He’d gone through ground school when younger but hadn’t pursued his license until seeing the pilot of a Beech Baron become ill over the Gulf of Mexico. After that unsettling experience, he got his ticket back home in Moline, Ill.

Schulte ran a medical practice there but retired to Belize in 1990 – “and when I failed at that I got into the airline business.” A friend of the Greif family, he became co-owner in 1991 and found an airline quite like a medical practice.

“It was very similar to managing doctors,” he says. “It’s a time-sensitive service and if that time passes and nobody’s in that seat, the income is lost forever. It’s a service-oriented business and a high-tech business. And you’ve got about the same liabilities.”

The purchase of the airline’s next and subsequent Caravans came via Cessna Finance. “After we got the second Caravan, our two competitors chose not to buy Caravans. The Caravans were faster, more comfortable with better seats and nice windows to view the reef and sea.”

“Within a matter of four or five years, as we added Caravans, our competitors shrank away.”
On most flights Tropic Air uses one-man crews, carrying 14 passengers, including one in the co-pilot’s seat. “We’ve met a lot of Cessna pilots over the years. They say, ‘I’m a pilot, can I sit up front?’ We like to have fellow aviators in the right seat.”

Flying in Belize poses its challenges. The frequent cycles ask a lot of any plane, of course. Then there are localized storms and the extremely high-salt environment, especially at its San Pedro base, where it does its maintenance. Schulte says they’ve been amazed at how well the corrosion-proofing works.
Tropic Air is on its 16th and 17th Caravans, and currently operates nine. Recently it sold one with 50,000 cycles.

“We don’t really see a specific useful life of the airplane. Our only decision for replacement is technological,” Schulte says. “You’re buying something that will last our lifetime and the only reason you’d want to replace it is to upgrade the technology.”

For them, that new technology is the Garmin 1000 cockpit. Schulte and Greif are longtime converts to GPS – dropping out of the clouds on a charter flight, lined up with a mountainside, tree-lined airstrip will do that.

The Garmin 1000 takes technology and safety to another level with Terrain Awareness and Synthetic Vision, the field is on the screen while you’re still in the clouds.

The airline intends to extend its route into Honduras, to San Pedro Sula and Roatan, and would like to develop an inter-line agreement with La Costena, the Nicaraguan airline and Cessna dealer.

“Our expertise is in the Caravan and in small, emerging markets, and I see a lot of growth potential for that, without penetrating the mountain chain of Central America,” Schulte says.

And Tropic Air has just the equipment to serve its coastal niche. “We can attest that, at five cycles per hour, the Caravan is a nearly bulletproof airplane,” Schulte says.

Cessna Caravan Crash-Two Walk Away Unhurt

2011-12-20T16:51:00.001-05:00

View Larger Map
Another drop zone Cessna Caravan bites the dust.
I am still trying to figure out how this dude ended up on the golf course , but either way he's got some explaining to do to the FED's.

Seaport Airlines Opens New Market

2011-12-16T09:56:00.000-05:00

In my mind their is no finer aircraft that could be used in any Essential Air Service market ..period.

Lets go over a few reasons why.
The Cessna 208B is without question the most fuel efficient aircraft compared to other contenders.
The Cessna 208B has no rival with its state of the art avionics suite and radar.
The Cessna 208B is the newest air-frame next to the PC-12 ..
All others like the Beech 1900 or the (God Forbid) Cessna 402 -JUNK ..
Anything bigger makes absolutely no sense at all ..

The Cessna 208B's Pratt & Whitney PT6A-114A Turbine(jet)engine is in two words-Bullet Proof.

If anyone from any local government with a pending EAS contract would like to tell me why they think the Cessna 208 is inappropriate, please leave a comment ..

CNN Essential Air Service article -Click Here to read more.

Why I Like Alec Baldwin

2011-12-11T12:53:00.001-05:00

American Airlines (should use Deltas old slogan) - They Love To Fly ..And It Shows.

Go Mokulele Grounds Cessna 208's

2011-12-10T13:31:00.001-05:00

Its called a "jackscrew" and the problem is bad pilot technique-Lack of training or both.
Using the wing flaps as a speed brake is never a good idea.
Mokulele's pilots need to slow down the aircraft before deploying flaps and the company may want to reconsider the "30 degrees flaps" on landing SOP. If I had a nickel for every Cessna Caravan that I've seen with destroyed flaps and burned out flap motors , I'd be a millionaire.
No on wants to follow a C208 doing 90 knots (or less) on final into a major airport.
Teaching pilots to fly a C208 fast should be part of the training program at any company...

Iranian Air Show

2011-12-08T19:12:00.001-05:00

Iranians Showing Off Their New Toy .. Beautiful design .
I think just maybe, they wanted them to have it?.
Luv those skulls !! Only six?? Nice touch guys .
Trojan Horse ?...

Cessna Caravans In Paradise - St Barth

2011-12-06T22:11:00.001-05:00

The French West Indies

Magnifique!!
Now that's some flying. My hat is off to the boys at Winair and St Barth Commuter.

Young Woman Walks Into Spinning Aircraft Propeller

2011-12-06T20:45:00.001-05:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

This one has me scratching my head as I'm sure the local FSDO guys must be doing the same.
Where the hell were the ramp guys and why did the pilot have his passenger disembark with the aircraft engine running?
I hate to be the judge, jury and executioner on this one but the pilots negligence has left a very beautiful woman horribly disfigured. I'm sure he does not feel good about it, but that's no conciliation for the young woman or her mother & father.
Remember what the FAA say's about "Pilot In Command".
This dude can kiss his Pitts good bye and say hello to a lawsuit .
For all those pilots flying props and especially all my Cessna Caravan brothers and sisters, don't let this happen to you...

PAC-750XL The Ultimate Utility Aircraft

2011-12-05T12:20:00.001-05:00

The P-750XL is a purpose built bush plane if I've ever seen one.
I haven't had a chance to get any stick time in one of these bad boys but man, I want to!
This also seems like an excellent choice for the Spec-Ops crowd ..

Jumping Out Of Good Airplanes With Sky Dive Las Vegas

2011-12-05T12:07:00.001-05:00

Although I'm not a big fan of jumping out of airplanes with running engines .. still a cool video.
Luv your slogan guys .. "Why Gamble With Money When You Can Gamble With Your Life" .

Fun Flying With Icon Aircraft

2011-11-29T13:19:00.001-05:00

Tropic Air Adds Two Brand New Cessna Caravans

2011-11-23T07:47:00.001-05:00

Click Here To Read More

2001 Cessna 172S Skyhawk SP For Sale

2011-11-21T20:35:00.001-05:00

Click Here For More Details

Bahamas Flying Procedures

2011-11-14T15:37:00.001-05:00

Just a few more caveats to add:
#1-Life Rafts .. You will be flying over some of the most shark infested waters in the world. If you would rather tread water in the unlikely event of a ditching, be my guest ..I'll be in the raft.

#2- Throw out your FAR-AIM. The runway in use will very rarely be dictated by the wind and Bahamian pilots aren't afraid of a tailwind take-off..
No one cares what your N# is, so keep it brief and keep your eyes open.

Chub Cay traffic -Cessna Caravan 10 west of the field-4000 descending- inbound 12 Chub Cay

#3-Don't talk to much on the radio, get a vibe for whats going on. Try and listen to the ctaf as far from the field as you can.

#4-No low flying ..Their is nothing worse than listening to the guy calling Miami center begging for flight following , and everyone but Miami can hear him .. 8 thousand and up seems to be the magic number for MOST areas in the Bahamas- In the Exumas I would recommend 10K or higher.

#5- Don't get snippy with the Bahamian controllers around Nassau .. Their are better ways to ingratiate yourself to the natives .. The Bahamians controllers are super cool and will let you do almost anything within reason . Piss them off and they ~~can~~ will make your life miserable .

#6-Always File IFR flying into and out of the Bahamas ..It is a million times easier to be on file with Miami and drop it ,then it is to be D/VFR and try to pick one up in the air ..

Adventures In Aviation Nostalgia- The Grumman F7F-Tigercat

2011-11-05T17:09:00.001-04:00