Earthquakes, weather and ops normal

Despite a mid-week day off whilst the aircraft was undergoing it’s 100 hour maintenance check, it’s been a busy week flying out of Nabire. It’s definitely my preferred base to fly from with a decent variety of airstrips to fly to and hone my flying skills on. The 4:30am wake-up calls aren’t especially nice but the daily sunrises at 10,000ft are real pinch yourself moments.

Sunrise on the way back from Apowo, Papua

The weather is continuing to offer further challenges to the daily schedule, with large build-ups most afternoons. Big weather doesn’t concern me too much, as one can always just fly around it, however if it decides to build up over one’s home airstrip (i.e. Nabire), that poses a bit of a problem. As Nabire is over an hour from the nearest IFR diversion airfield, Timika (which only has a VOR approach at time of writing), returning with sufficient fuel for holding or diverting visually to another nearby airfield is the best solution. Usually that’s 60 gallons in the Porter which allows 1.5 hours of flight time to hold or divert.

Weather dodging back into Nabire, Papua

Medivacs are a fairly common for us but sadly the villagers tend to wait until the person requiring medical attention is very close to death before sending them off for help. The delay is mainly to do with the frequency and cost of flights. There’s often no way for the villages to contact the outside world, so they just have to wait until an aircraft shows up with an available seat, at a cost they can afford before going for it. I ended up taking this poor chap with a serious facial injury directly back to Nabire (along with a couple other passengers) rather than transiting Enarotali which I’d usually do to pick up some extra passengers.

Injured local being stretched into the aircraft, Pagamba, Papua

Bilai seems to have featured on the schedule more often than usual over the week, mainly flying in extra workers and supplies for the road being constructed between Bilai and Bilogai (about 15km to the east). Bilogai is a major hub with dozens of aircraft movements each day and links it to all the major airports (Nabire, Timika, Sentani and Wamena), so it’s not surprising the locals are keen to have a decent road link. Slowly and surely towns are being linked by roads but there’s always going to be a place for aircraft; the terrain dictates that as even with decent roads, it can take days to get from one place to another whereas an aircraft can do the same journey in hours.

Sudan registered chopper at Bilai, Papua flying supplies

Outside of flying there’s been a few earthquakes centred pretty close to Nabire lately. Nothing over 5.5 on the Richter scale but enough to wobble the room and it’s contents for a few seconds. The last couple were around the same time as the longer ones that hit Wellington, New Zealand at the weekend. Luckily for us, no damage was done. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to land during an earthquake, probably not the easiest thing to do but I don’t think you’d be able to tell one was occurring from the air unless is was a substantial one, flattening buildings. Anyone done it?

Sun rising over the PC-6 at Nabia, Papua