AgAir Update to Brazil - Part Three

It’s now Thursday morning, Day 5. I’ve been remiss in keeping this blog up to date, my apologies. It may be hard to believe, but it is next to impossible to find the time to stop long enough in a quiet place to write it. However, let me back up to where I left off on Tuesday. 

We caught the flight early Monday evening from Ribeirao Preto to Goianas with no problems, if you don’t call paying $400 reais for excess luggage a problem. I had three suitcases of AgAir Updates with me. Shipping to Brazil with a guaranteed arrival for a trade show is not possible, so I “muled” the newspapers. I had already spent $150 for excess luggage with American Airlines on the flight to Brazil. I would spend another $400 reais Tuesday for the flight from Goianas to Florianopolis for a total of about $650 USD for excess luggage. 

Our host, Joel Rosado of AeroSafra met us at the airport and transported us to the hotel then took us to dinner for pizza. Tuesday morning, Joel met us at the hotel and we visited his operation north of town. This was at a public airport and not really where his 15 Ipanema aircraft flew from, but where he hangared and did the maintenance on them. 

AeroSafra has only one customer, one of the world’s largest cotton growers, SLC, with over 100,000 hectares (240,000 acres). His company only sprays about 2/3rds of the grower’s cotton, while another flying service handles the other 1/3. 

With 2p approaching fast, it was time to bid Joel farewell, although I would see him again at the trade show in Florianopolis where my next flight took me that afternoon. 

Florianopolis has a portion of it that is called “the magic island”, where it is an island, mostly for tourism. The hotel is located on the north end of the island, Costao do Santinho (coast of the small saint). This hotel is a 600-room resort voted one of the best in Brazil. I believe it. Nestled in the hillsides directly on the South Atlantic Ocean. The beach is unlike any I have ever seen, sugar white sand, crashing waves and “mountains” off shore. However, I am not here for the resort, but to work the largest ag-aviation trade show in Latin America. 

Every year the Mercosul Agricultural Aviation is hosted on a rotation basis with Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil. This year was Brazil’s turn. Also, Brazil has its own ag-aviation convention each year. In 2011, the Mercosul and SINDAG (Brazil’s national ag-aviation association) convention are held together, as they are every third year. 

Wednesday, Day 4, should have been a day of rest with it being the halfway point of the trip. Not so. My Brazilian representative, Gina Hickmann, met me in Florianopolis and had arranged for a visit to an operator a 150 kilometers (100 miles) southwest in the mountains of Luis Alves (a small banana community).

Banalves is a flying service owned by 25 banana producers. Formed in 2001, the producers wanted their own flying service, so they paved 400 (1,300-feet) meters for an airstrip surrounded by 1000-meter (3000-feet) mountains. As you can imagine, loads are limited to 100 gallons or less with the three Pawnees. 

In the Serra do Mar Mountains, near Luis Alves, there are 4000 hectares of bananas (about 10,000 acres) in 900 fields and that is not an exaggerated estimate. The Pawnee is ideally suited for this type of spraying, guided by SATLOC M3 GPS units. 

Wanting to beat the evening traffic into Florianopolis, we left our new friends at Banavel for the 2-hour drive back to the hotel. We would also see them again tomorrow at the convention. The convention’s Welcome Reception would be starting at 8.30p and we were going to barely make it back in time for it.