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Showing results for tags 'pirep'.
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My head hurts, and the room is spinning. That's how I felt waking up for my flight. It wasn't a hangover either. That I was sure of. Following on from our 'interesting' arrival into Male, Joe and I tried to relax with a quiet meal, discussing Brian's ever increasing expenses bill. (Four bottles of duty free whiskey in first class on the way home was pushing it.) We enjoyed our meal and although we shared a bottle of wine, neither one of us was feeling that tipsy as we headed to our hotel rooms. So i couldn't understand why I felt so ill. I ordered a pot of coffee from room service and I dragge
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Ah Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka and ancient trading port. Phew it was hot and sticky (31C DP 26C) and I had a couple of days to waste. I'd got word that Brian had blown the expenses budget again. The controller had suggested I took the Trike to claw back some cash-flow , and for a moment I thought he was joking! He wasn't. So knowing there was going to be some sort of delay on my flight, and as I was already in Colombo acclimatising to the temperature, I thought I would make some money running a taxi service from the airport to Colombo. So I invested in my pride and joy, 'Tina Tuk T -
It's a beautiful morning at the airport. It's really rather annoying. Having spent the last few days here with Uncle Brian, I've run though my supply of spf50+ sunscreen and I might add, most of my cash. Brian has been great fun to be around, but a few habits have sneaked in from his Scottish home. I'm not saying he's tight, but charging a three course meal to the hangar's credit account seemed the norm. I had to pick up the tip of course. Still it's been great to spend time with Brian. What to fly is always an interesting question, and Whist Brian was at the bar one night, I got talking
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At the end of leg 39 I found myself at the Ayres rock resort, with a Fiesler Storch and Mutleys credit card. Joe had met up with me and I had handed over the baton in the Bar. He asked me if I had his credit card, to which I replied in the negative. Now to be fair I didn’t have it as it was in my room, so technically I was telling the truth. There was no way I was going to hand it over as I needed it to pay my bill in this posh resort hotel, and there was also the issue of getting the Storch back to England. I saw Joe off and went about packing off the Storch to England in a container, so
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Well guys, John has left me with the Baton and the holy credit card which, I might add, is at rock bottom after the fun he just had. He's left hardly any funds available, needless to say, my leg is going to be a quick hop from Bangkok to Veer Savarkar International (Port Blair), by calling in one of my last favours from a good friend, who just happened to be in Bangkok on some sort of cultural fact finding busmans holiday. So without further ado, I collected the sacred Baton from customer services at the vip lounge, because I'd heard John was non too pleased at me arriving slightly beh
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Well it's time for me to make another baton run. I have been kicking around, visiting different places while I worked my way towards Indonesia. I sent Micke a phony postcard with me on a wanted poster so he would think I was in jail again. I had it made for a joke but I think it added more stress to him, poor fella has been sick and didn't look to well when I picked up the baton from him at Tunggul-Wulung Airport. He came flying in on some monster of a plane and looked like he has been near some poison or bad food, guess it wasn't me stressing him out. I waved to him as he left, looked
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Ahh life had been good to me.. Running a big event like the ATWC means that you at times need to pick up the scraps and fly the legs no-one wants. When no-one wanted to fly out of Bali I was a very happy man and picked the assignment without reading the fine print carefully. I headed down to Bali right away, and got almost three weeks of R&R soaking in the warmth, sipping Piña Coladas and Cuba Libres in the sun. But as I got word of the Baton moving closer I came to the realization that I needed to start thinking about that flight. Reading the flight briefing once again I s
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I was in the market for surplus military jet and a friend of mine told me of an old Northrop F-20 Tigershark that was for sale, located in East Timor of all places, so I decided to head down there to check her out. Upon arrival I inspected the aircraft and she checked out okay, looked almost like new actually, so I arranged for a test flight the following day and decided to relax on the beach for the afternoon. That’s when I got a text from Micke telling me they were short on pilots for section 5 and since I was in the area could I pick up the baton from Kasper and fly it to Bali where
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After a short Easter holiday it was time to get cracking. We were already falling behind schedule and flying some exotic propliner was probably not what was called for this time. Besides: I promised Micke that I would be flying a regular airliner this time. I decided to use the A320-214 for this trip. It has excellent short field performance and can fly the 896 Nm in a little over 2 hours. I accepted the dispatcher’s route and fuel load calculations and made my way to the plane. At 05:17 local time we were ready to take off. This way we could have the baton at the next
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ATWC 44 It was incredibly late when I arrived at Madang airport. Having been enjoying a quiet holiday in Australia, visiting my fellow mod and friend Andrew Godden, I got a call early a few days before. The call was from Mickael at challenge control asking if I could pick up an extra leg due to pilot shortage. Leg 44 had been delayed a week as it was. I told Mickael I'd do it, although my choice of aircraft was limited to say the least. On previous legs, I've been lucky to have a few friends lend me an aircraft. British airways let me 'borrow' Edgar the T7 and mount cook kindly donated me
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What a place. Twinned with Jinan in China, Palm Desert in the US and Townsville in Oz, this place with a population of 307,000 and an average temperture of 31 degrees Celsius in March, it's quite different with from Portlaoise. There, it rains and rains and rains, and the temperature is rarely in double figures. It also has no airport, but does have a railway, unlike this place. Port Moresby was where I had to be, to meet a Welshman with the infamous baton. Sitting in the local hotel, reading about signalling systems and Traffic Management Systems, the phone buzzes and disturbs the humid p -
Welcome to sunny Weipa, epicentre of bauxite mining in Northern Australia. I'm here, looking after Seair's contract with Rio Tinto. Not the most exciting job on offer - I thankfully missed out on the MH370 scramble, last I heard was that Sam had a 'plane load of reporters to be delivered to Perth. Today, I'm taking an RTZ exec up to Skardon and then to Horn Island to pick up a Queensland Tourist Board official bound for Murray Island. And, before returning to Seair's base in Cairns, there's a package to deliver to our PNG agent at Port Moresby. Here's the plan (Thanks, Tim): Well, th -
You're LATE! Joe did not leave any doubt about how he felt about it. And he was right, I was late by a big margin. Flying an event like the ATWC in classic prop planes was possibly not the brightest thing to do - but here I was in my Boeing Stratocruiser. The plane did give me some headaches getting here and I sure hoped all issues with those big radials were now solved. I apologized to Joe, gave him a peace offering containing lots of alcohol and made my way to the plane as soon as possible. I did wonder how Sharon would feel about me flying with Heidi as head stewardess, but hopefully she
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I have been in the country for the past few weeks flying special charters for my employer on behalf of Iluka Resources, they have a mineral mine near Ceduna that they are expanding rather rapidly so since it is the largest town around, we fly people, items and big wigs in there. When the Hanger bunch came around looking for folks to fly the baton, well I guess you could say I was in the right place at the right time. Our flight plan today consists of the HAWKY3 departure and from there essentially direct to Ceduna, its a short flight, just a hair over 300 miles so we are planning clo
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The message from the controller was received as I was resting up in the Maldives with the PML (Present Mrs Lawford). It read… Get your ass down to Australia I need you to fill in for James… So I gathered up my donkey and headed for Male International. I had no idea of the route but I had to bring plenty of water, shorts and thongs. (footware). I was taken to my destination overnight via a short stop in Darwin. My first indication of where I was came from a map pinned on the flying club wall. Looking closely I was in the middle of nowhere, roughly midway between the giant rats, baby killer d
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Leg 39 Warburton to Ayres Rock Firstly, this tail is a work of fiction and any places mentioned, particularly those portrayed in a slightly less than rosy light, bare no resemblance to their real world counterparts. Probably. The end of leg 27 I was in Kaltaia handing the batton over to Jess. I saw her leave with a flight attendant that looked a bit of a goer, if you know what I mean (nudge-nudge). Waving her off from the tarmac I happened to remark on the fact to a local. He grinned and said, “That’s Randy Mandy, the CEO of Mount Cook Airlines daughter, she can get away with anything and
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As I sat on the tarmac taking in the afternoon sun and watching Brett arrive, an old man with silver hair and bright blue eyes approached me with a tatty book in his hand. 'Hello sir, my name is Jack Devon and I am an explorer from New Zealand. I found this book in a cave not far from here last week and it's contents are leading me north of here towards the Bunyip State Park. Are you able to help me with my quest? I will pay you generously for your assistance as my quest is very well funded' After thinking about it for a moment, I realised that some company would be very welcome on thi
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Last time you saw me was in Norfork Island, I stayed with my new friend Pappy, in a small back bedroom, for a little over a week doing odd jobs around his home to earn my keep. His wife was an excellent cook and I was sorry to leave when an old college buddy called me, John was traveling around the world for the past 12 years in a beautiful old deHavilland Beaver. He is not exactly rich and supports his trek buy working spare supply runs along the way until he saves enough to move on to his next dream spot. He happened to be in Ceduna and knowing that was my next ATWC leg departure point I fi
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After a nice morning spent with Richard at the Avalon F1 motion simulator, adrenalin is sure high! Luckily, I didn't forget to take the baton. Richard told me that a local girl he knew some days before, needed to get to Adelaide to join her boyfriend. "You'll like her, believe me", he said. I thanked Richard and payed the F1 Motion Simulator for both using the boss' credit card. Really not so happy, I like to fly alone and not with a girl who I'm sure will do nothing but talk during the whole trip! Anyway, staying in the taxi to the airport, I thought how nice it would be
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I’ve been enjoying a nice vacation in Tasmania, relaxing on the beach and doing some diving and fishing, but it’s time to head over to mainland Australia and deliver the baton for Joe. So after a checking out of the Old Bakery Inn (a very quaint place to stay) and having a good meal at the Levee Food Co. Seaport Restaurant overlooking the marina, I hopped in my rental car and headed to the airport. I am not too familiar with the area but I think that sign is a pretty good indication that I found Launceston Airport. Boy, that lot sure is full, hope I can find a spot to in which
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The phone rang, and I picked it up “Captain Porter?” the voice asked “yeah what can I do for you? “ would you be interested in a little ferry job?” , well I had not much to do at the moment so glibly responded “why not?” , I enjoy the odd little challenge, Carry a baton from New Zealand to Australia? How difficult can that be? little did I realise just how Big a challenge it was going to be! I had flown in from Christchurch (that is another tale to tell) Into what can only be described (politely) as the bottom of the world ,awaiting hwmbo , I know he likes things low and slo
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Ah, ATWC leg 32 is upon us. We had now reached the antipodes and it has been an exciting journey so far. Brian had rung ahead to say Mandy was on board the Twotter and on her way back to her workplace at MT Cook Airlines. How can I avoid a situation between Mandy and Sharon who was here with me? Like a true coward I decided to keep a low profile and sneak the baton from Brian when they weren’t looking. We had filed the flight plan down to Invercargill via Pukaki and Queenstown as we had some errands to run in exchange for the loan of the Turbo Porter that had been dumped here by an ANZAC pi
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So, I decided to take a flight down to New Zealand to get a little hill walking under my belt, when I get a call from some Swedish guy asking if I could make a rendezvous at Woodbourne airbase, with a young guy called Kieran. He would have a very important package to hand me and would tell me all I needed to know, if and when I could get there. This Swedish guy is very adept at convincing people that they are the best person for the job blaa blaa blaarrrr! As I was already down that way, how could I refuse? I got myself to Woodbourne airbase and lo and behold, there was Kieran sat at the
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PIREP Leg 30 - New Plymouth (NZNP) - Woodbourne Airbase (NZWB)
hurricanemk1c posted a topic in PIREPS
Having arrived in a rather warmer New Zealand, it was time to go and find Mikael. Lounging about in a near-by hotel, I noticed a rather wierd aircraft fly low over. It particularly caught my attention, as I thought someone could be taking my plane! Luckily, this was not the case. About twenty minutes later Mikael phoned up and told me about his little test flight in the Optica. While listening to him, I thought 'Bugger - there goes my aircraft choice!'. Having said our goodbyes and, of course, passing on the famous blue piece of wood, we parted company and headed to our hotels for the night. -
Time for another ATWC-flight, but unlike so many times before for once I had a very good grasp of what to come. I actually had a plan!! But before we get on with the flight I had to wait for Jess to arrive with the Baton. While hanging around the airport and getting briefed on my upcoming mission I got word of an inbound Twin Otter from Kaltaia, so we decided to continue the briefing later and I headed out to the apron to see Jess arrive. Coming in with full flaps she executed a text book landing, and was soon taxiing in to the hangars. After securing her aircraft Jess came over to me
