I have heard, with profound sadness, that you have done your last take off. My heartfelt condolences to your family.
I don’t know what you believed in, but if there is a God and if he is just, you will get to fly any airplane you want, there will be no maintenance schedules, no license renewals and the weather will always be CAVOK.
In fact, I think you will open a flight school and teach the angels how to fly properly.
Only recently I thought of contacting you to get my Malaysian PPL renewed. This will not happen anymore. It shows, that there is no time to waste chasing ones dreams the way you have lived yours.
The Indonesian island of Batam is barely 10 nautical miles away from Singapore, but practically nobody ever flies there. I think there are three reasons for that. Firstly, the city of Singapore and the busy airspace of Changi Airport create a barrier between Seletar or Senai and Nadim Airport on Batam. Secondly, it is somewhat inconvenient to get a flight permit from the Indonesian DCA and thirdly, parking, landing and ground handling fees at Nadim Airport are rumored to be excessive.
My mission this weekend was to find out what it is really like to fly to Batam from Seletar Airport. (I had help from KC Lim, who occasionally flies with me while he is waiting for the DCA Malaysia to issue his SPL so that he can start his training.) (Please click here for more pictures)
More than 60 children became Young Eagles this weekend.
Much has been written about the lifelong passion that many pilots have for aviation and how this passion was ignited by this one flight when the pilot was still a small child. Even more has been written about the need and the pleasure to give back to the community what we have received from aviation over the years. The Young Eagles Day organized by the Malaysian chapter of the EAA (Captain Siva and his crew) was a rare occasion at which we could do both. The EAA invited children from Community Children Homes and anybody who wanted to come along. The response was overwhelming and while I didn’t count, I am sure we had close to 70 kids. (see picture gallery here) Read the rest of this entry »
Picture taken at LIMA 2013 – Kids sitting in the shadow under the stabilator of 9MDRJ
EAA Malaysia is organizing an aviation day for underprivileged children at Subang Airport on Saturday, 7 September 2013. I will fly to Subang on Friday morning to help out. The main attraction of the day for the kids will be the flight with one of the participating aircraft. The event will go from 0900 am to 1800. The young pilots will get a certificate and I believe there will also be an opportunity to visit the control tower and fly an airplane in a simulator.
I thought it would be nice to take pictures of the kids in the airplane and share it with them later. If anybody wants to join me to help with the pictures and the safety around the airplane, let me know. You would need to be at Seletar on Friday morning around 9 am. I am coming back on Sunday morning.
I had a nice dinner with the Extreme Midlife Aerobatics team at a restaurant call Berliner’s , named after the city in Germany I am coming from. It was great to catch up with people who are as passionate about flying as I.
Graham told me that despite all problems they may have had, Bernam River Airfield is open for business. This will be one of my next flying destinations. Bernam River Airfield lies half way between Subang and Ipoh (it is included in my VFR reporting points list) and should be an excellent starting point for excursions into Pangkor, Penang or even Langkawi. I believe they have a few cabins for overnight stay. Given that Subang has become rather inconvenient for overnight stays, this little airfield is becoming attractive for weekend flyers.
Subang Airpark is going to be closed for small airplanes
It was good to be back in the air today. For the first time I took the inland route from Singapore to Subang. That route shaves off about 10 minutes from the flight time. If everything goes according to plan, it is possible to fly from Singapore to Subang (block on/off) in about one hour and fifty minutes. In most cases it will be an honest two hours however. You have to watch you altitude however. There are some hills on the way that reach more than 1,500 feet. In my flight route some of the hills stand right in my flight path. (Download the flight log and AFTN Flight Plan here.) Read the rest of this entry »
The Annual Aviators gathering of Wings over Asia was a magic weekend of flying and meeting like-minded people. The crew of WoA did a great job in the friendly and efficient manner that we have all come to expect from them. They put together a great program, which started with a flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and a dinner in a new aircraft hangar at Subang airport.
Dinner at a new aircraft hangar at the GA area Subang Airport
I usually keep the aircraft at the Skypark and had no idea that there is a whole GA area further down with parking stands, hangars etc. There is a lot more going on in GA flying in Malaysia than meets the eye. It was pretty cool to sit between helicopters and airplanes while eating, drinking (no alcohol) and listening to talks about general aviation in Asia.
Is there a good reason to fly to Malacca, have a coffee and a Nasi Lemak and fly back straight away? No! When you find the only coffee shop closed and left with the option to buy a Fanta, there is even less reason to do so.
Is that going to stop us pilots to do exactly that anyway? Of course not. We do it for the flying and for the surprised looks on our friend’s faces when we tell them that we will fly for a coffee to Malacca on Saturday. Read the rest of this entry »
Almost 15 hours of flying time and one of the best days of my life at LIMA 2011, Langkawi – can it become any better that that? Hard to imagine, but I sure hope so. We went with an AT-4, a PA-28 and our good old Charlie Foxtrot (C172) to Langkawi to be an exhibitor at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace show 2011. Our aircraft were the only GA planes on display together with fighter jets (SU-30, MIG-29, Eurofighter etc), massive transport planes and military helicopters. While it is hard to compete with this sort of hardware, at least with our 41 years old Cessna 172K 9M-WCF we had the oldest aircraft on display. The pictures and movies don’t do justice to the excitement of this adventure, but have a look here if you are interested. Alvin also has a blog entry with lots of great pictures, which is worth looking at here.
Alvin, a fellow pilot from Singapore, has started his own blog. That does not surprise me, once you start flying, you want to tell other people about it.
I met Alvin at the club and at pilot gatherings. He is a very nice chap (no surprise here – pilots are like that) and he is a wizard with photos and videos. With his permission, I am going to use a lot of the pictures and videos he produced during our latest aerial photo shoot. It is the friendship with people I would have otherwise never met in a million years, which makes being a pilot in Asia such a great experience.
We have regular pilot gatherings in various places (pubs, Raffles Marina etc). Everybody with an interest in aviation and flying is welcome! You can look out for new events on this blog (or Facebook or Twitter) and contact me if you have any questions.
Fly in Asia 