SPHI - SEAM
Capitán FAP José A. Quiñones González International Airport - Chachoan
It’s a beautiful, warm, sunny day in the coast of Peru, and the day is perfect to fly out:
The engine performance is so different when taking off from sea level, it’s almost magical. But we are continuing our journey to the Andes. We landed in Chiclayo in the Peruvian coast only because our andino airport (Chachapoyas) was affected by bad weather and landing there was impossible.
Now, we are flying back to the Andes to Chachoan, a VFR-only airport in Ecuador, which sits at 8501ft of elevation.
As we head east away from the coast and towards the mountain range, the weather starts to turn bad.
It should be as bad as Chachapoyas, so I am expecting to break through the clouds at the descent and be able to make a visual approach to Chachoan.
It is raining, and the wind is terrible. I’m trying hard not to botch the final approach.
Chachoan serves the town of Ambato in the Ecuadorean Andes and takes its name from the nearby Ambato River. As you can see from the image above, the city lies in a bizarre topography, due to the deep basins cut by the Ambato river. It is surrounded by high mountains, which will make the departure at this altitude a bit challenging.
This is our first and last stop in Ecuador. Next up, we are moving up to Colombia.
