The Texas Contrabandidos

The business of hauling consumer goods (contraband) into Mexico on airplanes and landing on grass airstrips to avoid outrageous Mexican import duties has been going on ever since airplanes were put into commercial service, that is, until 1989 when Mexico repealed most 100% duties on imported goods, effectively ending the reign of the infamous Texas Contrabandidos -- a group of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants cargo and bush pilots, many of whom had flown in the service of Air America in the 1960s and 1970s.

Known as "Contrabandidos", pilots choosing this form of freelance employment had to know the limits of their aircraft operating into extremely marginal landing strips  -- and their own limits, operating under the most adverse conditions of unknown weather, overloaded, old unreliable aircraft without the benefit of navigation aids. Relying on the age-old method of dead reckoning navigation and pilotage, pilots had to make their own rules and follow them in order to stay alive. But with an over abundance of veteran war pilots returning and occupying all the "normal" pilot gigs, this kind of work was the best many could find.

A friend, lets call him Ron Fox, was one of the key pilots in a very successful contrabandido operation in Deep South Texas unitl it ended in the mid 80s. His adventures and those of his gallant and perhaps daring cohorts is a story deserving a book and/or a movie, and certainly has earned a place in American history. Get started reading the introduction to this short series and then progress through the chapters for a delightful and daring story I think you will love.
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