Flying over Puerto Rico in a little bitty propeller plane

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 04/28/2016 at 11:36 • Filed to: None

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I recently went on vacation to San Juan and Vieques, Puerto Rico. Vieques is an island off the east coast of the main island, and can be reached by either: a) driving 1.5 hours from San Juan to Farjado to catch a 1.5 hour ferry to Vieques, or b) a 25 minute flight in a little bitty propeller plane. We took the plane.

The trip overall was fantastic. We did lots of awesome things, some touristy stuff, lots of beach stuff, got sunburned, ate too many carbs (Puerto Rico loooooves rice and beans and plantains) and oh yeah, got engaged.

We spent the first couple days in Old San Juan, then 3 days in Vieques, and then 1 last day at a resort back in Isla Verde, a resort-y part of San Juan. Vieques is great! There are beaches like this:

And there’s this rooftop bar where you can drink and see views like this!

There are a few different companies that fly to Vieques. We took !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who judging by the assorted planes I saw at the air strip in Vieques, actually had the biggest planes. Big is of course a relative term since these little propeller planes had 8 passenger seats in 4 rows, but they’ve got 3 engines and a ton of legroom. The “ventilation” consists of these little inlets in the windows that you can shut if you want it to be less windy.

I was a little nervous on the flight from San Juan to Vieques, because we got the row right between the two under-wing propellers. Sure, in a jet you can sit near an engine, and it’d suck if the engine exploded, but at least you’re up above the wing and don’t see the damn thing spinning right outside your window like these propellers. But I put that out of my mind and was able to enjoy the view.

On the return flight, we got to sit in the row right behind the pilot, so I was waaaaaayyyyyyy happier. Plus I got to shoot these couple videos, one of the nice pretty northern coast of Puerto Rico, and one of Old San Juan and landing.

Both flights were totally fine, so if you’re going to Vieques, I can highly recommend flying Vieques Air Link. Pro tip: if you’re going from San Juan it’s way cheaper and easier to fly out of the little general aviation Isla Grande airport rather than San Juan International.

Enjoy!

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 11:40

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Plane is a Britten-Norman Trislander, according to my vast and sophisticated knowledge of planes use of Google.

Rico > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 11:43

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This is awesome! Congrats on your engagement and I’m glad you got to enjoy yourself in Puerto Rico, I’ve only been once like 10 years ago but it was a blast and I got to finally see where my Grandmother was born and raised, overall a great place with some of the best people.

Textured Soy Protein > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 04/28/2016 at 11:47

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Interesting, it sure looks like the photo on the Wikipedia page but our planes were definitely not configured for 18 seats like that page describes. I suppose with how much legroom there was you could probably fit a couple more rows of seats in there.

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 11:50

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It’s listed as being one of the three types of planes that Vieques Air Link operates, and the other two look nothing like it. I’d venture that yours had some of the seats removed.

Flyboy is FAA certified insane > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 11:50

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The tri-islander is an interesting aircraft. One of the only three-engined piston aircraft since wwII

Future next gen S2000 owner > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 11:53

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Why can’t I telecommute from the Caribbean!?!?!?! Stupid boss.

Svend > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 04/28/2016 at 11:54

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Ye’, Trilander. Not a plane I’d want to fly in. My old boss bought two of them and a spare engine and I worked on one of them (I still remember the pain in my arms of working on the underside of the wings, unscrewing inspection panels). The inside was tiny, narrow body and low roofline.

ttyymmnn > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 11:56

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Too bad you didn’t have this variant:

BN-2A Mk III-4: Mk III-2 fitted with 350 lb rocket-assisted takeoff equipment.

With a separate door for each row of seats (right?), they likely removed seats to accommodate luggage etc.

Textured Soy Protein > Future next gen S2000 owner 04/28/2016 at 11:58

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Vieques had surprisingly good cellular coverage, especially considering its location:

Textured Soy Protein > ttyymmnn 04/28/2016 at 12:02

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Haha I saw that on the wiki page, that’s awesome.

There were two doors, one for each 2 rows of seats. Luggage went in that little door towards the tail, and that hatch in the nose.

If you look in the picture at the seat you can see in the open front door, that’s the first row behind the pilot, and the next row is between the propellers, probably at least 4 feet back. You can’t even see it in this pic.

TheJWT > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 12:30

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I was just in Vieques last winter! It’s such a beautiful place; did you have a chance to check out the bioluminescent bay?

Jason Channell > Future next gen S2000 owner 04/28/2016 at 12:47

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I did about a month ago in P.R. . I was on a conference call, and they couldn’t hear me well. I told the client I was in P.R. and they were like “well then, thats awesome.”

Jason Channell > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 12:48

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I’m with Metro/T-Mobile and the coverage on the north side of the island was great.

Wacko > sm70- why not Duesenberg? 04/28/2016 at 12:50

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http://flightaware.com/resources/regi…

Wacko > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 12:51

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http://flightaware.com/resources/regi…

registered as 10 seats for some reason. More room for luggage and supplies for the island most likely

Textured Soy Protein > TheJWT 04/28/2016 at 13:26

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Yup! We did a kayak tour, and we were the only people in our group of 4 kayaks who knew how to use a kayak.

There was another tour company with way more people. Some friends we made at our hotel went with that one, they said it was kind of a mess with that many people who didn’t know how to kayak in the same place.

TheJWT > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 14:14

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Yeah, there was one group with us that just didn’t get it. Also, walking through the mud barefoot at night to get to the bay was a bit sketchy but totally worth it in the end.

Glad you enjoyed it though, I definitely want to go back soon!

Textured Soy Protein > TheJWT 04/28/2016 at 16:48

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Whoa, I just realized that picture is Playa la Chiva. I’ve walked right past that tree trunk or whatever it is. Those two palm trees in the top left corner of your photo, that’s where we camped out for the day!

TheJWT > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 18:01

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The island is so small it’s pretty easy to see most of the beaches!

I’m assuming you went to Caracas as well

kanadanmajava1 > Textured Soy Protein 04/28/2016 at 19:22

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That’s the wonkiest looking aircraft that I have seen for a while. I do trust that even silly looking aircraft will fly and even land safely but I would have problems trying not to laugh while traveling in one of those.