South atlantic crossings

[ppppilot]

Strange comments...
First of all the route.
You will probably fly first over Canary Islands to Cabo Verde Islands and then to FNO or FZA in Brazil.
All the route will be on Upper Airways under radar control, except from the border of Cabo Verde to radar coverage range of Brazil. So the communications are most of the time VHF except the part I mentioned, where you will contact HF with Dakkar and later HF with Atlantico, an HF control center located at Recife. RVSM all the time. I will talk later about communications.
First and the more important.
WX.
Winds are difficult to be accurate predicted. If you are used to fly NAT you will see the difference. Also the bad wx areas are not so accurate located as in the NAT zone. So be prepared to burn extra fuel due to wx. You can trust on predictions until Cabo Verde. Further, trust on your radar. When changing from North to South hemisphere, from 10šN to 5šS there is an area ITCZ where bad weather travel from Africa to Central America. It is easy to find CB up to FL500 and turbulence not too heavy. The rest of the route it is now a benign season for the wx. Brazil is now at winter and the past week was nice the wx.
Comms
VHF until leaving Cabo Verde OK. From there Dakkar. HF, not bad coverage, very poor English, and better to be establish at a good FL, because they are slow to answer. Fly 1 or 2 NM out of the track while in not controlled airspace (google EUR/SAM and read about). Later you will contact Atlantico HF, and when in range VHF. Brazil controllers are not complicated. The only complication is to understand them. But Brazilian are happy people. Do not get mad on them, only take an extra pair of eyes. In VHF they use to give you a main frec and a secondary. If you hear them poorly, try both and stay at the best. Both are same controller.
Enjoy and Tailwinds