PIREP Leg 49 WMKD - VTBD

[J G 927]

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 thanks for picking up the bill there Joe. My next and very important job was to utilise the Resorts facilities to the best of Joe’s credit cards ability.  I am glad to say I did this very well indeed. Thanks again Joe, I didn’t feel guilty as after only a few days of relentless luxury I saw a copy of Joes PIREP in which he described me as “a rather strange man”.  I’ll grant you unusual, or even eccentric, but strange? That’s going to load up your credit card Joe, only my wife and kids get to call me strange.

 

However, soon I began to question the fundamental basis of many religions: I had done Ayres Rock, (twice), swam in the pool, (countless times), done the Spa, (several times), looked around the Aboriginal Art Gallery (several times) eaten gourmet food every day and fine wines every night. Paradise was actually getting boring. If I had to do this for eternity, I would be forming an escape committee!

 

So it was with some relief that Mikael’s call came through. I was to be on leg 49 from Malaysia to Thailand. He then went on to try and get me to part with the Storch, at some length, some considerable length actually. I steadfastly refused, and he ended the call muttering some dark Swedish curses and threatening me with some difficult legs in the future.

 

I was sitting at the pool at the time, and as the leg was half way through the next section, I was in no rush to get things started. The trouble is, a board mind is sometimes difficult to stir into action. So a couple of hours and a few pints later, I finally started to mull the leg over. The thing is, I didn't know anyone in Malaysia who I could get to help me with procuring an aircraft. Clive had gone back to Rusty to supervise her restoration prior to flying her back to the UK, so I was on my own. I could come up with nothing, and just turning up with the hope of finding something as I had done on the last leg was a non-starter. this was because I would be flying out of an international airport and not a back of beyond airstrip with GA aviation to spare. Thailand would have been a completely different kettle of fish, as I had a long-time friend who lived in Bangkok whose dad was a retired General in the Thai police and, therefore, not without a considerable influence that I could tap into. At least I could crash at his gaff whilst in Bangkok.

 

I made a few call with nothing to show for them, and later when I was sleeping in my deck chair, my mobile buzzed. I answered it to find it was my old mate Bill Windsor, you know the guy, he flew with me on leg 15. The first thing he asked me was “Had I signed the official secrets act?” Well, as it happens, as a part of my day job, I had.  “Great he said. Can you get us out of a bit of a jam?”

 

“What gives” I said.

 

It turns out that the powers that be needed to extract some special forces quickly from somewhere in Borneo with one man badly injured, but the Chinook crew due to pull them out had dodgy curry the previous night and both pilot and co-pilot had ended up in hospital, So the extraction aircraft was ready to go but with no one to fly it.  What is in it for me I asked?  Help on my next leg from WMKD to VTBD was my price. “I will sort it and get back to you” said Bill, “In the mean time here is want you to do...”

 

 

 

Some of my cargo walking out of the jungle.

 

 

 

Rescue Mission over Borneo

 

I can’t tell you where I went and what happened, but the upshot was I ended up in Singapore with a bunch of very heavily armed squaddies, festooned with winged dagger badges, one of which had a broken leg. I parked the Chinook in a remote corner of the airfield and we were quickly joined by a minibus, an ambulance and a car.  My instructions were to put the squaddies into the minibus the stretcher case into the ambulance, myself into the car, which I duly did. The car took me across the tarmac to a waiting RAF Airbus A400M, and I was airlifted to Kuantan.

 

 

Landed in Kuantan’s Sultan Ahmed Shah Airport

 

We put down at Kuantanand taxied to a waiting black limo, into which I was guided and I was soon whisked off to a small building away from the main airport buildings. As I was stepping out of the limo, I noticed a bit of a disturbance near a Malaysian Air force Hercules, I then saw Brett was the centre of attention!  I hurried over with my Malaysian driver to see how I could help. Talking through my translating driver, I soon ascertained that Brett had violated the bases security in some way. After some negotiation I managed to take position of the baton, but was powerless to prevent Brett’s detention.  Good luck with that Brett, I thought as I turned back towards the car, aware that Brett was being frog marched away. I was then shown into a Malaysian Air force briefing room.... where I had a bit of a surprise!

 

Waiting for me in the briefing room were a bunch of RAF pilots. These were no ordinary service personnel, they were wearing red jumpsuits. Red jumpsuits, thinks I, equals Red Arrows, I wasn’t sure what was going on here.  One pilot was wearing a regulation RAF green jumpsuit was introduced to me as Dave, stood up and greeted me.  Introductions made all round the guys said they had heard of my adventures in getting the Pongos out of a dicey do, not to mention getting their pranged comrade back to civilisation.  It was a Jolly good show all-round apparently. They just happened to be here on a liaison trip with the Malaysian Air Force who fly Hawks out of this base and so were on hand to repay the favour.  

 

 

Briefing Room

 

Then they went on to confirm that, as requested from very high up, they were here to repay the debt..... And would I care to put these on?  The Dave, (referred to as Dave the deposed in briefing room banter), handed me a complete flying kit.... with a red jumpsuit! I was to take Dave’s place for a flight from here to Bangkok where they were due to give their next display on a world tour. I wasn’t to take part in the display, but I would be ferrying the aircraft there, however, the guys had cleared some fun and games for the trip. 

 

Together we went over the flight plan:-

 

Flight Plan

 

 

Flight Plan Map

 

In short, we were to fly to the island of Penang, where we would do a low flypast across the north of the Island such that we would be clear of traffic landing at Penang’s southern airport, and pass by the popular tourist beach of Batu Feringgi.  From there we would fly to Ko Samui and do another, more extensive fly pass for the tourists there, before heading off to Bangkok.

 

 

Batu Ferringhi Fly-past

 

 

Ko Samui Circuit 

We were to fly in a “V” formation with me at the point of the “V”.  I am not sure if this was an honour or not. Being in that position, I had no worries about keeping in formation as everyone used me as the mark, and if I did something stupid, the other aircraft had the option not to follow me. On the other hand, although we weren’t to do any stunts, I would be the only one carrying the coloured diesel fuel for smoke effects (they were saving the rest for a display) and was to lead the Red Arrows. With the retelling of this tale I would be able to bore people to death when I reached my senile days. (And we will have no cheeky comments on that statement, thank you very much!).

 

Fully briefed and kitted out, we headed out for the aircraft, but not before I had a chance to have a word about Brett’s situation with Dave the deposed. He said he would do what he could for him after we had gone. To my surprise, the Red arrows aircraft were lined up outside a massive hanger not far from the briefing room. I am sure they weren’t there when I landed. Seeing my confusion the nearest pilot to me grinned and said “we hid them in the hanger so as not to give the game away when you landed!”  

 

 

Me, looking like the cat who has got the cream!

 

We taxied in line astern formation with a strict two aircraft lengths distance between aircraft, two by two we turned onto the runway.

 

 

 

Ready to go!

 

Then it throttle forward and off down the runway, taking care to stick to the assigned side of the runway as we took off in pairs.

 

 

Take off!

 

We formed up into our “V” at angels 5 (For the uninitiated of those reading this, that’s Battle of Britain speak for five thousand feet), and then climbed at 350 knots in formation to our cruising height of 20,000 feet.

 

 

In formation.

 

 

Cruising

 

Passing over VIH at 20,000 feet we made contact with Butterworth ATC. We were to transit their airspace at 5000 feet and we had to get the timing right for this to make the low transit in our allotted window. After a brief conversation with ATC we started the first stage of out decent to 5000 feet. It would be interesting to see Butterworth and the island of Penang from the air. I have once flown in to Penang as a commercial passenger, but that was in poor visibility. When I left, it was from Butterworth station to take the train to Kuala Lumpur and then on to Singapore so I never did see it from on high.

 

It would also be interesting to see the Penang Bridge from the air. The bridge connects the Island to the mainland and is over eight miles long! When I drove across it back in the early ‘90’s it was up there in the top 10 of the world’s longest bridges. I think that now it isn’t even in the top thirty.

 

 

Butterworth and the bridge.

 

Penang’s biggest town is Georgetown, named in 1786 after King George the third when the island was ceded to Great Britain (via the East India Company) by the Malay Sultan of Kedah for the sum of 10,000 Malaysian Dollars (now Ringets).

 

 

Over Gorgetown, Penang.

 

Having flown through Butterworth airspace, we quickly dropped to 1000 feet over the sea just to the north of the Island of Penang, and prepared for our pass along Batu Ferringhi, or translated into English, Foreigners Beach. Apt, as this area has a high density of tourist hotels. As we made a small turn around Batu Ferringhi’s eastern headland the command came, Smoke…….ON!I flicked the switch that started pumping diesel oil into the hot gasses of the aircraft’s exhaust and my white smoke trailed out behind me.

 

Smoke…….ON! At Batu Ferringhi.

 

Seconds later we were at the western end of the beach and accelerating into a steep climb. At the10,000 ft. mark the command came Smoke…..OFF! And we continued our climb up to our cruising altitude of 20,000 ft. turning towards TRN as we did so. Twenty minutes later we executed a starboard turn of forty degrees and headed towards NKS. A further ten minutes later we reached NKS and, heading towards SMU where we started our decent for the next fly-past. Red leader (not me, but my right hand wing man) called up Kok Samui ATC to start obtaining clearance to cross their airspace. This time we would be going across at a mere 2000 ft. to set us up for our low level circuit of the Island. The island in site we dropped our airspeed to 250 Kts.

 

 

Crossing Samui Surat Thani Airport.

 

Having crossed the Ko Samui airport we dropped down to 500 ft and started the fun. 

 

 

Smoke ON! At Ko Samui

 

The order Smoke…ON came and on went the red smoke. Racing across the first two bays in only a minute, we came to our first course change to port, changing from red to white smoke as we did so.

 

 

Blue smoke.

 

Another minute later came a much steeper turn as we headed south down the west side of the island, banking sharply, we switched smoke from White to Blue for this leg. Crossing the coast in half a minute and to our next turn, south eastwards, a further half a minute later, we climbed to 1000 ft. to cross the Island, switching back to white smoke as we did so. 

 

 

White Smoke… Have we got a new Pope?

 

 

By now the adrenalin was really pumping, everything was happening so quickly. Passing the fifth way-point and making a small correction to our course to head east, we flipped back to red smoke to say goodbye, hurtling back over the sea.

 

 

Red Smoke Farewell

 

I finally switched off my smoke before turning north and climbing back to 20,000 ft. for out cruise to Bangkok.

 

 

Back at cruise

 

The cruise to Bangkok took 40 minutes or so, just slightly more than it took my heart rate to settle down to normal. 

 

 

My bus

 

As we started our decent into Bangkok we broke formation for the first time since leaving Kuantan, and lined up in pairs ready for our final approach. I was to be one the first pair down, and was to lead the line astern taxi in to the designated parking apron.

 

 

Bangkok decent.

 

 

Bangkok landing.

 

 

Bangkok Taxi

 

After the last man had parked up, we powered down in unison from a ground handler’s signal and opened up cockpit canopies. My ride with the red arrows was over.

 

 

The end of an adventure!

 

I wandered over to the debriefing room for the post flight chat, and to my surprise found my Thai mate already in the room. Apparently Bill had tipped him off about my arrival and so he had come down to meet me.  We debriefed, all had gone exceptionally well and asI was going to change back into my civvies again, when I was told that that wouldn’t be necessary, and that I could keep the red flying suit as I had flown with the Red Arrows.  I was chuffed to pieces!

 

 

We were about to leave when one of the lads said that as there was to be no flying tomorrow, why don’t we all get stuck in at the nearest bar. So we decided to do just that and agreed the last man in the bar was buying. There was, However the small matter of immigration to be handled.  In Bangkok this is a nightmare, it can take hours.  The Red Arrows lads were lucky they had it pre-arranged and didn’t have to go through normal channels. I didn’t qualify. They teased me and told me which bar they were headed for and said I could get the third or fourth round, as that is what they would be at by the time I got there. We parted with them thinking I was stitched up nicely and grinning. 

 

I have been to Thailand several times before to stay with this very influential friend, and so knew the drill at the airport. Sure enough a small man in a grey suit appeared and took my passport away whilst a similar man guided us to a door to the right of the massive passport and immigration queues.  He opened the door for us and we went through directly into the arrivals hall. Seconds later the small man in the grey suit was with us again, handing me back my stamped passport. We were in my mate’s chauffer driven car in just under three minutes from leaving the debriefing room.

 

Twenty minutes later in the bar, just as my mate and I were finishing our first beers, the lads came in. there were gobsmacked to see us already there. The beers were on them!  We had a great night out, boy oh boy can those guys knock the beers back. One joker amongst the arrows pilots had his phone ready to catch some very different formation work, guess which one is me…..

 

 

Formation flies

 

Eventually I said my goodbyes to the lads and got a cab back to my mate’s house to sleep of the excesses. Far too early the next morning, with crippling hangovers, we headed off back to the airport and sat in a coffee shop. Through dark sunglasses we tried to spot Brian so that we could hand the baton on. It shouldn't be too hard to spot him as I expect he will be wearing one of those tartan dresses or skirts or whatever they call them in Scotland. That should go down well with the Thai lady boys, I expect he will be quite popular when he gets here.

 

Relaxing with a double espresso with an extra shot to kick start my complaining liver, my mate suddenly broke into a wicked grin.  “What’s up?” I said.  “Well John” said my mate, “this is your first visit to Thailand without you wife. There are some great places I can take you to where you will see things you wouldn't have thought possible.” I groaned inwardly and started thinking of how to avoid the sleaze that was inevitably going to be pushed at me.  But that is another story.  

[hurricanemk1c 195]

Superb PIREP there John - fascinating and took some time with those formation shots!

[brett 2,315]

Outstanding PIREP John, well done. Loved the aircraft, storyline and picture work.

 

All I can say is I'm glad you're connected. Dave came to the rescue, negotiated my release at a reduced bribe rate and bruises from the initial beating I received should subside within the week. Your ability to get things done worldwide are surprising from such a strange unusual and eccentric fellow.

 

(btw-my guess is you are the one having to be closest to the urinal  )

 

 

[J G 927]

Superb PIREP there John - fascinating and took some time with those formation shots!

 

Actually no, not really.  I use a handy little add-on called AirTrafficFX.  Take a look at it here:- http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=airtrfcfx

[ddavid 149]

Some intersting 'screenshots' there, John! Great storyline - Thanks for the ride.

Cheers - Dai.

[stu7708 244]

Top notch PIREP from you once again John!

 

It's always interesting to see what your imaginative mind will come up with  

 

As for the Storch I've given up on it, so don't worry... I'll make do with my Lanceair Legacy  

[needles 1,013]

How the hell do I follow that John?

Great PIREP, very entertaining and a thoroughly good read.

Got to get my thinking cap on now.

Cheers

[hlminx 301]

Wow..what a ride

Really enjoyed the PIREP John. The red flightsuit suits you

Minx