The Mexican state of Tamaulipas is small by United States standards. At roughly 31,000 square miles, it is similar in size to Maine, stretching from the border with Texas 250 miles south along the Gulf of Mexico to Tampico. But Tamaulipas’ size is deceiving. With unreliable roads, mountains, and an ever-changing security situation, it’s an ideal place to use aircraft.
Carlos Gonzalez grew up in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital, and he’s proud to now be flying for the state. Thanks to a drug seizure more than 20 years ago, the state operates a 690C, as well as a Cessna 206, Piper Navajo, Cessna Citation, and Bell 430. Gonzalez is a captain on the Navajo and Commander, having worked his way up from the 206. “The Commander is fun to fly and more fun to try to taxi it,” he said. “It requires some finesses to keep the passenger happy while taxiing.”
The state primarily uses the airplane for executive transport, and is in the beginning stages of a cloud seeding program. Operating like the world’s fastest bus, a typical mission for Gonzalez and his fellow pilots is flying around the state picking up officials, delivering them to a meeting, and then dropping them off again on the way back to their base. They are busy days of short legs that are usually less than an hour, and as little as 10 minutes at each stop as they quickly load or unload passengers.
The Commander is well suited to the job, in part because of its long legs. Such quick turns don’t allow for fuel stops, but the crew can easily tanker fuel from their initial departure point and then refill while they wait during the meetings.
They also operate off narrow, police-operated strips in remote locations, an environment where the Commander excels.
Gonzalez said taking the Commander turns a 12-hour drive from Nuevo Laredo on the border to Tampico in the south into a 90-minute flight, and it’s also more secure. “Security is a problem for them,” he said. With state secretaries, senators, and other officials on the airplane, sometimes going by road just isn’t feasible.
In addition to executive transport, the department is also now flying cloud seeding with the Commander. They hired a contractor to create a system consisting of a tank in the cabin, connected to a hose that snakes its way back to the tailcone, where a proprietary liquid is ejected out of seven nozzles. A brushless motor operates the pump that ejects the liquid. By adding condensation nuclei into the atmosphere, the hope is to bring more rain to each weather system that’s seeded.
The team started by flying around cumulus build-ups, but didn’t see any results. Now they go up to the freezing level, search for saturated clouds, and fly a grid pattern while spraying. The hope is to get 20 to 30 percent more rain out of a weather system.
The climate in Tamaulipas is similar to south Texas, and the lack of rain impacts the local economy, making the project vitally important. “We’re in the improvement phase,” Gonzalez said. “We’re doing the operations and they are collecting the data.”
The mix of missions keeps the job interesting, but it’s the airplanes that keep Gonzalez coming back. “When I was a little boy there was a park in my city that had a Commander that had been used for smuggling and it was on display. I would go there and play in it and pretend to fly it. Now that I’ve been flying it for real, it’s a dream made true,” he said.
All told, Gonzalez is flying about 150 hours a year, which is less than he was prior to Covid. And unfortunately, most of it is now on-call, whereas the previous administration scheduled flights far in advance. It can be difficult for the staff’s ten pilots.
Initial and recurrent training takes place at Simcom’s simulator facility in Florida. The state is a longtime Simcom client. Different generations of pilots have followed the simulator around the United States. It turns out that the sim is a great replacement for the aircraft because the panels are so similar. The airplane is largely original with the addition of a Garmin GNS530. The interior was redone when the state seized the airplane, but it’s otherwise relatively standard.
“The Navajo has a better GPS,” Gonzalez joked. But he doesn’t care. “I’m in love with the Commander.”
