A day (or three) off... with internet!

And electricity... Something of a luxury here in Indo...

And just to prove the point... The power just went out and the guys have turned the backup generator on! Haha...

Anyway, between the "full on" 6 day tours in northern Kalimantan, where electricity, nevermind internet access, is a "sometimes" thing... A roster that can (and does) change daily... Flights cancelled because of smog/haze caused by locals burning native forests so they can create palm oil plantation... Waiting days/weeks for government departments to issue various pieces of paper... And crazy weather that seems to follow no logical pattern... The last 6 months can be best described as "chaotic" ;)

Still... Beats sitting at a desk 9-5! :P

Some of the highlights so far:

• Smashed through the 1000 hours total time, having racked up over 200 hours on the line
• Had my photo taken with countless random passengers... Including ones who have just got off another airline and were just walking across the apron! ;)
• Carried a 43kg "strong" box... Full of cash... That was strapped to the back of a scooter on arrival and driven away! :-/
• Flew my first emergency "medivac"... An elderly gentlemen from a village in the mountains who had been shot in the abdomen with an arrow!!?!
• First prisoner transport... Not exactly sure what the guy had done, but they slapped him in cuffs after he was onboard.
• Carried live baby chickens...
• Crossed the equator...
• Strapped a woman into a separate lap and shoulder belt harness... While she was breast feeding!!?!
• Had a tower controller try to vector me right through the middle of a 12 mile long wall of VERY active thunderstorms and CBs... That was within view of the tower! "Errr Negative, cannot comply due weather!"
• Learnt Indonesian maths... Captain: "Max load is 980kg”... Ground crew: "thats Ok, we only have 1020kg total"... ??!?
• Found a place that has decent coffee (harder than it sounds!)
• Discovered that you can "shower" using wet wipes... For the record, about 20-25 should suffice...
• Successfully negotiated the Indonesian banking system to get an ATM card replaced... Only took 2 visits to the bank, my passport, long stay visa, 3 forms, 5 signatures and about 6 hours of my life!
• Spent more than 5 minutes in direct sunlight without burning to a crisp!
• Got given a pineapple as a "thank you" gift, from one of the remote villages...

2nd best "Thank you" gift I've ever received...

Nice view from an outdoor urinal...

Basically my life for the last 6 months...

From this...

To this... In the space of 5 minutes!

Windows? We've heard of them... "Luxury" crew accommodation

Right on the profile... Right on sunset curfew! ;)

Indo airforce trainers... 2 seat Su-30's

Crossing the equator! 

Zoom zoom zoom... Around 380kph!

Smoke dropped the vis to less than 2km

OSH poster boy... Fixing an aircon unit... On the 35th floor!!?!

An "islander"... Literally!

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!