You could almost sense a sigh of relief from New Caledonia air-traffic control when Comanche-5 flew out of their airspace and into the control of Vanuatu.
The short 35 minute flight from Ile des Pins airport to La Tontauta International Airport required us to traverse no less than four separate blocks of controlled airspace and with five Comanches flying at 2-minute intervals the French controllers were kept very busy. Fortunately, or perhaps it was by design, we had been allocated 1:00pm for arrival at Tontauta at this time the sky was ours alone. Perhaps this was doubly fortunate as the weather had improved only to Special VFR conditions along a route with unpronounceable reporting points and unfamiliar surroundings.
A walk through immigration formalities followed our arrival at Tontauta and within an hour Comanche-5 was back in the air again for the 1 hour 45 minute flight to White Grass airport on Tanna Island. True to forecast the weather greatly improved as we traveled eastwards and at a cruise altitude of 8,500 feet we enjoyed a pleasant flight in BAZ as it purred along religiously adhering to the GPS derived flight path displayed as a magenta colored line on the GMX200 screen.
White Grass airport is a small facility that would normally see perhaps a couple of domestic flights a day coming down from Port Vila and who knows how long since there had been an international arrival. Such events are not common and even less so was the arrival of five aircraft at one time. So Comanche-5 was received at the terminal with marshaling services and a great many spectators. It is said Vanuatu is the Happiest Country in the World….our welcome to Tanna Island and immigration processing by the sole official only served to reinforce this wonderful status.
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