Update & exciting news

Hello readers! It’s been a few years but the blog is back. It took a bit of a hiatus after I left Indonesia but I’m bringing it back to share some exciting news with you all. I am in the process of finishing up writing a book about my time in Indonesia which I’m calling Flying from Shangri-La. I know many of you have been asking me when will I write a book and so I have finally gotten round to it. Like many authors, I wrote the original manuscript in 2020 during the first lockdown but once life got back to normal I mothballed it and went back to normal life.

Normal life these days is flying a Pilatus PC-12 executive turboprop from a London based airport which is exactly what I wanted to be doing when I left Indonesia in 2016. My love for Pilatus aircraft is no secret and the PC-12 is a testament to their status as the manufacturer of the world’s best single engine aircraft. I do miss flying the Porter, of course, as nothing can compare to that aircraft or the places I used to fly them but the PC-12 is about as interesting flying as you can get in Europe whilst still being able to cover distances. I still get to fly amongst mountains (although the Alps are a bit less green and a bit more white that the ones in Papua) and thus far have landed on many alpine airstrips includes Gstaad in the Swiss Alps and St. Johann in the Austrian Alps. Both not a patch on what Papua had to offer but I think my passengers these days appreciate being able to step out of the aircraft onto a sealed surface rather than a muddy patch of grass.

I still fly the Catalina flying boat although since the Loch Ness adventure, I am no longer a shareholder. Instead, I am now a qualified TRI (Type Rating Instructor) and help teach new shareholders how to master flying these magnificent machine. I do however own a share of a Piper Supercub. Some of you might recall me harping on about how lovely Cubs are from my Flyer Magazine writing days and so I had to back that all up with owning one. It doesn’t disappoint and, when it’s not broken, allows me to keep my tailwheel flying hand in.

Coming back to the book, I’m hoping to source an agent and publisher in the coming months but if that doesn’t pan out, I will be going down the self publishing route. It turns out writing a book is the easy part but getting it out there to you all is proving somewhat more work than I imagined. Fear not however, as I will persist with it as the stories within were very cathartic for me to write and I know you’ll enjoy reading them.

To keep up to date with how it’s progressing, please subscribe to the blog on the pop-up that appears on this page or using the link at the top. The more subscribers I can generate, the more likely I’ll be able to convince an agent my book’s worth publishing so please share with your friends and families. I’ll also try and post some other updates on what I’m getting up to these days including Catalina flying and Supercub shenanigans (if it ever gets fixed again!).