Weather reporting

One of the hardest things to get out here is a decent weather report. All but a couple of the airstrips are out of phone contact and don’t have a radio operator. However, a cunning way to get a report is to see if any of your passengers have a friend in the area you wish to fly to with a satellite phone. It’s surprising how many people seem to actually have one.

The trouble is, you’re then relying on a report from someone who usually has very little idea what sort of conditions are required for an aircraft to safely get into their airstrip. And worst still is someone who’s very keen to have the aircraft get there; so you can get some pretty optimistic reports…

My Indonesian is not too bad and I can usually get a reasonable idea as to the conditions by asking key questions (in Indonesian):

1) Can you see the sun?

2) Can you see the mountains?

3) Are the clouds broken?

4) Can you see any blue sky?

5) Is it raining?

However, today was a classic example of how unreliable a weather report can be. I was told that “yes the sun is breaking through and the clouds look pretty thin and high with a few broken sections”. Sounded promising, so off I went only to arrive overhead to this:

Weather overhead Long Alango today

Ok, I’ll give him the broken clouds but thin? And sun?!? I didn’t see it at all today. Not once! Anyway, I found a hole big enough to circle down into for the approach and landing, so all was well. Unlike the rest of the day which was a total write-off. I heard one of the MAF Cessna 206s managed to land at another air strip (Long Bawang) further north but the weather closed in shortly afterwards. He spent the whole day there and only managed to get out at around 16:30. Glad I opted to go home after getting continual bad reports from Long Bawang all afternoon. 

I’ll attempt to rescue the schedule tomorrow.