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Archive for the ‘Knowledge’ Category

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Pulau Redang Revisited

In Knowledge, Navigation on June 25, 2013 at 12:15 pm

Berjaya Air – Approach to Pulau Redang (Copyright Tino Dietsche)

Pulau Redang is a small island off the East Coast of Malaysia. It has a small runway and is a favorite flying destination for many pilots from Singapore or Malaysia. As with many of these small airports, the problem is Avgas supply and immigration facilities.

One of the WoA pilots stopped over at Pulau Redang on our way back from the APFT Air Carnival and he was kind enough to send me some new information about the procedures at Pulau Redang. (I had written earlier about Redang in this post.)

Avgas is obviously not available on the island. In fact, Petronas does not offer Avgas anywhere along the East coast. However, APFT, based at Kota Bahru and Terengganu assured us that they would be happy to sell Avgas at both locations as long as we tell them in advance. I have the contact details, but do not want publish them here. Feel free to contact me, if you want to get in touch with them.

One option to complete the immigration and customs formalities would be to stop at Senai Airport (for the Singapore crowd) or to do it at Kota Bahru. I am not so sure about Terengganu, but I have done it at Kota Bahru. However, you need to check whether they are open, because immigration is only around when international flights depart or arrive.

The much better option is to do the immigration and customs on Pulau Redang. The immigration officer is around whenever a Berjaya Air flight is arriving and departing. At all other times you will have to inform them of your ETA. You should use this form and fax it directly to the airport manager Mr. Fendi. In any case, you will have to arrive between 8 am and 5 pm local time.

Your aircraft can be parked over night at the airport. With the aircraft tail hanging over the edge, there should be space for a maximum of three small planes. Parking is free for the first three hours, How much it is thereafter I don’t know. I know however that the landing charge is Ringgit 15.50.

Well, there it is. I hope this helps a bit. Please let me know if you have information about any of the other flying destinations in South East Asia.

(BTW: The title picture was taken by Tino Dietsche who graciously let me use it on my blog. He has written a nice article on his flight to Redang here.)

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Using Mogas in Malaysia

In Knowledge, Navigation, Ownership on June 23, 2013 at 6:24 pm

Petronas Fuel Truck at Senai Airport

After my post on aircraft choices, which touched on the subject of fuel availability in South East Asia, I got a few questions whether it is possible to convert an Avgas CofA aircraft to Mogas.

Common wisdom in the Malaysian GA community is that the DCA of Malaysia does not permit Mogas for CoA aircraft. There is an Airworthiness Notice No 42 dated 1 April 1987, which does not seem to close the door to the use of Mogas altogether, but sends the message that any attempt to get this approved for an aircraft on the Malaysian register will cost more than what you can ever hope to save by switching to the cheaper fuel.

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Flight Plans in Malaysia

In Flight Bag, Knowledge, Navigation on June 16, 2013 at 10:54 am

DCA Tower Penang

The Malaysian ATC expects you to file a flight plan for all VFR flights, unless you just stay in the training areas or do a few circuits to practice your landings.

Most pilots will fill in a flight plan form on paper and fax it to the ATC unit of the departure airport. ATC will forward the FPL using the usual data exchange network. That means most of the formatting will be done by the controller and the pilot does not really need to know much about the FPL message formats.

As soon as you are crossing borders, this changes, however. Suddenly you are confronted with the need to send your flight plan to all control units along your proposed route and you have to be careful with the formatting and completeness of your flight plan message.

I have found two flight plan filing systems that work very well for me. The first one is a web based system from the UK, which is available under www.eurofpl.eu. The second one is a Java application that is provided by the Singapore CAAS.

All three methods (fax, web, application) have their benefits and issues. I personally prefer the web-based system, followed by the Java application and finally the fax.

I usually combine the fax method with an online fax application called eFax. With my iPhone acting as a personal hotspot for my laptop, I am able to fax flight plans from anywhere, including the parking apron.

In my next posts on this topic, I’ll give you an overview of how the three methods work and how flight plan messages are formatted in general.

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Airspeed – Dead or Alive?

In Airmanship, Equipment, Gear, Knowledge, Ownership on May 19, 2013 at 4:47 pm

As they saying goes: it only takes two things to fly – airspeed and money. However, while it is usually better not to think too hard about the money you spend on flying, it is a great thing to know your airspeed.

Recently, I found out what it takes to fly without knowing your airspeed. After take-off, the airspeed seemed to come alive very late and be stuck at about 60 knots. By the time I decided that something is wrong with my airspeed indicator, I was already airborne and not enough runway left to abort the take off. I figured it is safer to fly as planned and use power, attitude, ground speed and eyeballs to fly at a safe speed. It turned out to be rather easy to achieve a straight and level flight without airspeed. After all, what speed can you possibly fly at with a 70% power setting without climbing or descending? The real question was, how would I achieve a reasonable approach speed and probably for the first time in my flying career I actually listened to ATC telling me wind speed and direction in their landing clearance.

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Two Countries in Ten Minutes

In Flight Bag, Knowledge, Navigation on April 7, 2013 at 9:55 pm

9M-DRJ in its parking spot at Seletar Airport (Compact Parking A2)

5 April 2014: Note that for flights between Seletar and Senai airport the first reporting point in Malaysia after Point X-Ray is not the small hill (East of JB town) anymore.  The new reporting points are now Tebrau City Mall and Felda Ulu Tebrau. I have updated my VFR reporting point files (click here)  and you can also have a preview on Google Maps (click here).

1 May 2013: Updated the process to file general declaration forms for departure.  It is now necessary to bring three GenDex forms to the Apron office.  Apron will keep two forms and hand back the third one with a big stamp on it that proves you have paid the passenger fee or that you do not have passengers.  The GenDex with the stamp need to be handed to the immigration officer.

Since I started to fly 9M-DRJ, which has a parking space in Singapore, Seletar airport, I routinely fly between Singapore and Johor.  The flight is very short (15 to 20 minutes) and I think it is pretty cool that you can hop over to Johor for a quick chat any time you want to.  Of course, flying to any other place in Malaysia is also more convenient.  The immigration and customs control in Seletar is very fast, friendly and efficient.  From leaving home (East Coast) to taking off can be accomplished in less than an hour.

Before I started flying from Seletar I heard stories about inflexible ATC procedures, but I have not experienced this.  Of course, safety is paramount, but within the confines of the procedures Seletar tower is very accommodating and flexible.  If they can make it happen without compromising security they will.  Just asked nicely and with proper radio protocol and you will be fine!

I only know ground operations West of the runway. The assumption in my post is that you will fly between Seletar and Senai airport. For Tioman and other directions over the Malaysian peninsular, just change the reporting points after “East of JB Town”.

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Watch your Weights

In Airmanship, Flight Bag, Knowledge on September 18, 2012 at 12:13 am

This pilot has become rather heavy. Time to brush up on W&B!

During our flight training we have all learned how to do the weight and balance calculations and we have been told that this is something we must do before every flight.  Of course, even then, many of us thought this exercise was only good for watching the instructor’s reaction when you filled in his weight (for the examiner your estimate better had to be on the low side).

For me this was the state of affairs for the first 100 hours of my PPL “career”.  However, lately I am flying more and more with passengers and luggage, so I thought I’d better brush up on my W&B knowledge. As things go these days, my first thought was whether there is an App for that, and sure enough there are plenty.  In one of my next posts I will review an excellent application from Angell Development LLC by the name of WnB Pro.

Let’s talk first about the theory of W & B.  As usual the FAA has very good materials on their web site (Aircraft Weight and Balance Handbook, FAA-H-8083-1A).  I recommend reading this document if you are really serious about this stuff.

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