Tuesday 19 August 2014

On the line...

So I finally got a taste of line flying... :-D

I've been sent "on tour" to a small town, in the Northeastern region of Kalimantan, called Malinau.
Up North
My first official operational flight was a short hop from Balikpapan (WALL) to Samarinda (WALS)... Literally a postage stamp in the middle of a large city...
Easy to spot
Looks shorter than it is
Not a bad day in Samarinda
We then had a delay due to weather at our next destination, Long Ampung.
Climbing enroute to Long Ampung
Sadly, the delays meant cancelling a couple of afternoon sectors to Data Dawai and back, so we headed to Malinau instead.

I learnt a lot on my first day... Thankfully, I have been paired with a very relaxed Training Captain who is happy to answer all my questions and offer some very useful advice from his 4+ years working on the line here...

Day 2 was a little wet to start with... Some overnight storms had left their mark and there was some light drizzle and low cloud... For me, it was a half day of flying. Headed off to Tarakan (WALR) and back and then up into the middle of nowhere to a place called Long Bawan (WALB) to pick up some passengers and one prize fighting roster!!?! Before coming back to Malinau to change over with the other FO based here so he could fly the afternoon portion of the schedule.

Daily Schedule
All in all, another good learning experience... And a couple of new places visited.

And with 3.4 hours yesterday and 2.2 today... I'm now over 900 hours Total Time... 900.1 to be precise ;-) w00t!





2 comments:

Ardmore Pilot said...

Cool insight into a completely foreign world! Keep the blog updates coming mate!

Flyinkiwi said...

Great stuff. I've been watching that British TV show about Susi Air, and I want to know how pilots are allocated to the Caravans and Porters? Do you apply? Are you simply told that's what you are doing? Is it a seniority thing?