Chapter 20 - FAA checks and Export documentation

Waiting on the weather. While it looks promising at the end of the weekend, Lyn wants to be more certain that the high will stay there and give us the option of a couple of days on which we could depart USA. The aircraft are at Torrance airport, a few miles south of LAX and need to be flown north to Santa Maria.

The FAA have yet to inspect the aircraft and approve the installation of the tanks, HF radios etc. but that is expected this week.

Just filling out the export documentation. As best I am able to ascertain, there is a general export licence in US which covers most goods. Exporters don't need to get a specific licence except for items such as nuclear warheads and goods to specific countries which are on the USA watch or 'don't like them' list. There is not much paperwork involved in getting the aircraft out of the country. A form is required for goods worth more than $2,500 but this is required for statistical purposes. Pretty easy. Much easier than trying to get 1000 grams of HFC (refrigerant gas) into Australia.

Noticed a comment to the last Chapter from 'David'. He had the same problem with a yacht. David commented that they removed the refrigerant but it didn't matter too much as the crew were Poms and didn't mind the warm beer. I suspect that if it had been sailed by Australians they would have paid the fees and gone through the pain of the paperwork, just to make sure the beer was cold. Alternatively, they would have let the gas go into the atmosphere just before they sailed into Australian territorial waters and saved the fees and the pain of paperwork.

I plan to put up an image of Google Earth with the individual routes and with a flight plan for each leg. Haven't checked with Lyn, but I planned with maximum fuel for the long leg from Santa Maria to Hilo, and for the other legs planned to have 3 hours fuel in the tanks on landing. Also planned other than the first leg at higher power settings and air speeds which will obviously use more fuel, but we are not so restricted in fuel consumption after the first leg. Lyn will no doubt have slightly different plans, but mine are good enough for this exercise. We are fortunate that the Saratoga, the Bonanza and the Mooney are about the same speed and we can to stay relatively close to each other.