Back to normality

After the last few weeks of travelling about on holiday, it’s nice to get back to the day job of flying the Porter in the mountains and jungles of Papua. It’s been great to see the reaction to the TV series whilst back in the UK even if I still can’t quite get used to the odd person recognising me whilst out and about. It was also nice to catch up with various friends and family on my travels which for me is what holidays in the UK are all about.

Meeting some fans at Colerne Airfield were I flew Bulldogs back in 1995/6

In case you didn’t catch it yet, I wrote the cover article for this month’s Flyer Magazine in which I write about why Papua, and flying the PC-6 in particular, is most certainly not the Worst Place to be a Pilot. The follow on story to this is that Flyer Magazine has signed me on as a permanent columnist; initially every other month and then each month from some time next year. Watch this space for updates!

Flyer Magazine October cover

Sadly it’s been rather quiet here in Nabire since I got back, especially as I’m sharing the base with another Porter pilot so am only working every other day. At least it’s given me plenty of time to enjoy my new toy, an inflatable kayak from Advanced Elements. Expect review of it some time in the future but initial impressions are great. It’s very stable in the water, easy to unpack and pack up again and bloody good fun. For me, exercise should be fun so between the kayak and my regular mountain biking, I should be getting pretty fit on each tour of duty in Nabire.

Advanced Elements AdvancedFrame Sport Kayak off the northern Papua coast

Flying wise it’s a case of getting back into it. It always takes me a few days to get back into flying after a few weeks off and thankfully the weather here in Nabire has been great these past few days. Blue sky days certainly make that transition into the routine that little bit easier than slogging though clouds and not being able to enjoy the view.

As I’ve only done two days flying since getting back there’s not much to report other than it seems I dropped off a load of tin roofing panels to the wrong airstrip. It turns out the customer chartering the aircraft gave the load-master the wrong location so the manifest was wrong. I merely flew to the location on the manifest where upon the locals were all to happy to help unload the aircraft. So I suspect I might be heading back to Bugalaga soon to pick them up and drop them ten miles away to Pagamba where they’re supposed to be!

Pagamba airstrip, Papua

In other news, it’s looking like I’ll have to head back to Timika some time this week as we’ve taken on additional work there and now require two Porters to be based there. Hopefully it won’t be for too long as I’m only just getting settled into Nabire and the airstrips around here; it’s been a whilst since I flew the Timika routes and airstrips!