Long Layu

Length: 830m

Runway: 18/36

Elevation: 2800ft

Located in the heart of the NW mountains of Kalimantan, Long Layu is a popular destination for people travelling out of both Malinau and Long Bawang. As far as bush flying goes, this one’s about as straight forward as they come for a Porter, being both long and flat. That’s not to say you should approach it with a laissez-faire attitude, as it’s still located in a reasonable sized valley and there’s plenty of terrain surrounding it, so again it’s a strictly visual only air strip.

The surface is grass/clay and becomes horribly water logged after rainfall (of which you get quite a lot of in the rain forests of Borneo funnily enough). This can make for some interesting roll-outs if you don’t land dead straight. The only other issue to be concerned with is dogs and chickens. The latter aren’t really a problem for the aircraft but best to avoid none-the-less. If anything runs out at the beginning of the runway, I tend to just delay the flare a little and touchdown a bit deeper to avoid hitting it (not something you’d want to do on a short strip though!).

On lookers watch as the aircraft’s unloaded at Long Layu

You can land in either direction with this one although there’s a large hill on the approach for 18 which means you can only really land with a left hand curved approach. 36 has no such issues and is my preferred landing direction unless the winds are favouring 18. 

As usual, touching down at the beginning is best to maximise the strip length available to you. This also gives you more room for a go-around if required.

Either direction is fine for take-off, so I tend to pick whichever is quickest for the direction I need to go after departure, unless there’s a wind favouring a particular direction. No need for a max performance here either, there’s plenty of length. Be ready to reject if something/someone decides to enter the strip though.