Back up and running in Malinau

Finally, after two weeks out of action in maintenance, the Malinau Pilatus Porter is back! And it's good to have it back and to be doing some proper bush flying again. There's nothing worst, as a pilot, than sitting on the ground looking up at the skies and wanting to get back there. However, I wasn't the only one suffering due to the aircraft being on the ground...

Dodging the weather climbing out of Binuang

Balikpapan Flooding

Very strange day yesterday. It started raining at about 4am. Nothing unusual there but it wasn't a light drizzle; no, it was a full on torrent from the skies. So, I put my ear plugs in and went back to sleep.

As I had the day off, I woke up about 8am. Still raining. Walked over the road for some breakfast (well ran actually, and still got pretty wet) and took another shower on the way back to my house. At about 11am I get a txt message from the Balikpapan base manager to say our office needed help as there was water coming into the house. I knew it was at the bottom of the hill but didn't realise it was prone to flooding. So a few off us headed down there to lend a hand moving things upstairs. The photos below tell the story:

Start of the road where our office/house is in

Cessna C208 Caravan flying from last year

Seeing as the Malinau Porter is still awaiting parts before I can get flying again, I finally got round to editing together a little video of the flying I used to do with the C208 out of Kupang. Had some good fun flying that aircraft. Enjoy:

Trip to South Africa to say goodbye

Once I'd come to terms with the events of last month, it was clear to me I needed to go to South Africa to say goodbye to my friend JJ who's life was so tragically cut short, doing one of the things he loved doing. There were many reasons I wanted to go; I needed some kind of closer, I wanted to learn a little more about where he'd grown up and above all I wanted to meet his friends and family to share some stories of our time together. The trip was only to be 5 days which proved exhausting, emotional but above all, totally amazing!

Loss of a friend and colleague

I'm sure many of you have read the recent events involving one of my company's Pilatus Porters and my good friend JJ and colleague Ian. I'm not going to go into any details here, as there's all manner of speculation in the press. Until details and facts of the accident come to light, I don't want to speculate as to the cause.

I've always know flying single engined aircraft around over jungles was risky but have always thought if the donkey at the front quit, I'd be able to get it down ok and survive. Recent events are making me seriously reconsider.

If you've not seen it, please take some time to have a read of JJ's blog here. He was a really great guy and an excellent pilot. It was a privilege to have known him and I'll sorely miss him. May he and Ian rest in peace.

Survey near Kisar Island

Finally, after a 8 days, I've gotten back to civilisation. Kupang to be exact, where I used to be based when flying the Cessna Caravans. And it's good to be home!

Following on from Sumbawa, the next survey project was to be a 1 day job (2 nights) surveying an island a few miles away from Kisar. I'd flown into Kisar many times, so knew it was pretty remote and had an idea of what to expect but figured for a couple of nights it'll be ok.

Post from Kisar Island

Apologies for the lack of posting lately. It's not through lack of wanting to post either. For the past week I've been flying a survey out of the island of Kisar. It was only supposed to take a couple of days. I'll be posting up a full article once I'm back in some form of civilisation but for now I'll summarise the experience thus far.

Kisar is a tiny Indonesian island off the north east coast of East Timor. It has one small village on the south east side, where we're staying in the best hotel in town. It features such luxuries as electricity from 5pm to 8am (approx), no running (or hot) water, no internet (hence my lack of posting lately) and limited cell phone reception. Apart from that, Kisar does have the most beautiful beaches and waters I've seen yet in Indonesia.

Full report to follow when I get out of here!

Powered by Telkomsel BlackBerry®