¡Viva Mexico!

Last week I spent 3 days pressing my headset earcups to my head while listening intently for garbled ATIS transmissions read in Spanish and rapid-fire broken English. It's usually an exercise in futility, and only provides an unfamiliar pilot his first clue as to how Mexico flying is different from flying in the States.

Flying in the U.S. is tame. Every approach is a vector to an ILS. Every radio is clear, the controller is easy to understand, and every route has radar coverage. We operate with a large margin of safety that is often unmatched in other parts of the world. For the part of the flight we're in U.S. airspace, we're spoiled.

Mexico, on the other hand, is a completely different animal. The controllers speak Spanish to Mexican aircraft and English to everyone else. This often creates a distinct lack of situational awareness for those of us who don't speak the language, and can cause us a great deal of concern if we're unsure what another aircraft is supposed to be doing in relation to us. The radios are also generally very scratchy, and for lack of a better example, much like talking to the controller through two tin cans attached with a string. Added with a language barrier and somewhat different phraseology (i.e. "position and hold" is "line up and wait" in ICAO-talk), miscommunication is common. Mexico is also by and large a very mountainous country, and cities are often wedged into small valleys that wreak havoc with aircraft operating at jet speeds. Careful attention to minimum IFR altitudes is necessary, and ATC will often leave terrain clearance the responsibility of the crew (a company aircraft once misread an approach plate and missed a mountain top by 200 feet. They were saved only by the GPWS.). DME arcs, teardrops, and steep descent gradients are the norm on instrument approaches, and weather reporting has been known to be sketchy and unreliable.

But, even with all of those pitfalls, it's still by far the most fun flying we do. It's a throwback to the days where pilots weren't hand-held throughout a flight by ATC, and pilots had to actually watch out for themselves. You fly full approaches (vectors are rare), which is a return to the basics of instrument training. It's decidedly not boring, and it's outstanding flying for those of us who welcome a bit of risk and excitement to keep things interesting. The terrain is spectacular, with mountains dropping off straight into the ocean, and volcanoes towering to 18,000 feet.

It's an experience not to be missed.