Beautiful weather over Malaysia
After this morning’s heavy thunderstorms, the weather has improved remarkably, so I cannot do anything else but pack my stuff and go flying. If the weather holds, I will fly to Pulau Tioman and return to Johor for an overnight stay.
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.
Ingo and his Piper Archer III
Ready to Fly in the Morning
It is some time now since our last flight around Malaysia. This is not a good state of affairs! The VFR lanes of Malaysia are deserted and the air traffic controllers haven’t heard a fumbling low time PPL for too long. Let’s go and change that. I am organizing a flight safari from the 13th To the 16th of October and look for company. Whether you are a licensed pilot or not does not matter, everybody is welcome.
We can go either East or West. If we go West, we would fly to Malacca, Subang, Pangkor, Penang and Langkawi. on the East coast we would visit Tioman, Kerteh, Terengganu, Pulau Redang and Kota Bahru. From Kota Bahru we could also go to Thailand and spend a day there.
It would certainly be easier to go West, especially if you are concerned about returning at a particular time. There are more bus and commercial flight connections if we are stuck because of bad weather. It will also be easier to get fuel.
Please have a look at the flight program and message me if you are interested in joining.
I was told at the club on Saturday, that a Malaysian registered (9M-BAI) twin-engine Piper Seneca II PA-34-200T had problems with the landing gear when landing in Tioman on Friday, the 7th September 2012. It was said that the nose gear collapsed on touch down, but this is not confirmed.
The media speaks of technical problems with the nose gear, which could mean there was something wrong with the nose gear even before touch down. Pictures of the plane on the runway in Tioman show that the nose wheel and the right main gear have either not been deployed or collapsed on touch down or during the movement of the airplane on the tarmac.
According to media reports, the pilot and the passenger are unhurt.
Piper Seneca II 9M-BAI – Picture taken in October 2006 at Seletar airport Singapore (copyright by George Trussell)
New VOR/DME in Johor
(Update, 9 September 2012: Corrected Lane Delta, added JB NDB data, Moved Ayer Hitam and Renggam reporting points a bit, training area North of Gunung Pulai is now West of the North South highway)
Effective 23 August 2012, DCA Malaysia will commission a new DVOR/DME at Senai airport. Currently the DVOR/DME of Senai airport is about 5 nm off the threshold of runway 16 on a bearing of 150° (i.e. you have to set course 150° from the DVOR location to reach the threshold). The new DVOR station will be closer to the threshold (1000m) and also gets a new frequency, which will be 112.5 Mhz (Ch. 72 x). Setting up a new DVOR station requires a rerouting of airways and relocation of holding areas and reporting points. For us VFR pilots this is only of marginal interest. However, the DCA also made changes to VFR lanes and the TMA, so take note. The changes are detailed in the AIP Supplement 09/2012 dated 14 June 2012. All changes are included in the new version of my “aeronautical chart of Johor”, which you can download here.
The VFR lane Charlie does not go from Kota Tinggi straight to East of JB Airfield anymore. Instead it is rerouted via South of Kg Semangar, to make sure aircraft stay clear of Danger Area 231. For more details on that have a look at my earlier post on flying to Mersing via Kota Tinggi. Lane Delta is also routed around the danger areas with a new reporting point “East of Kampung Sungai Tiram”.
The Eastern border of the JB TMA used to go through Kota Tinggi. It is now further West and goes through restricted area 229, which means that VFR lane Charlie (from JB Town East to Kota Tinggi) is now outside the TMA. On the Western border of the TMA not much has changed. It seems to go a little further North of Simpang Renggam than it previously did.
In case you cannot remember what a VOR is: VOR stands for VHF Omnidirectional Radio (Range). The VOR is a navigational aid that allows aircraft equipped with a receiver to measure on which radial from the VOR station the aircraft is located. The DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) on the other hand tells the pilot how far from the station the aircraft is positioned.
Asia Pacific Leisure Flying LLC – Logo
I guess some of you noticed that I haven’t written a blog entry for some time. And there is a reason for that. I was busy. Not the “lame excuse” type of busy, but the real sort of busy.
Last month Ace Yip, Ranjit Singh and I created a company with the name “Asia Pacific Leisure Flying”. For some time now we have talked about ways to serve aviation enthusiast in Singapore and promote flying as a recreational activity for everybody. And now we finally did it. We registered “Asia Pacific Leisure Flying” as a Limited Liability Partnership With the Singapore Authorities.
The company has a web site – “www.leisureflying.asia” and you can reach us by sending an e-mail to info@leisureflying.asia Read the rest of this entry »
Fly in Asia 