Exactly 30 hours ago Jean and I were settled into a ‘Dang Beach Bugalow’ room planning dinner on the beach at the beautiful Nai Yang, just off the threshold of runway 09 at Phuket Thailand, followed by an early night.
Then the Taiwan the Singaporean permissions came in over my cellphone, the weather suddenly looked propitious, our Taiwan handlers wanted us in promptly to avoid rethinks and it just seemed the right moment. In two and a half hours we faxed in a carefully structured flight plan (fourth flight plan submitted in the hope of that leg, though Pocket FMS makes it pretty easy!), bought supplies for the journey, went for a lovely walk on the beach followed by a local dinner (also on the beach), showered and then abandoned our unused but paid-for room. (Luckily Thailand is so cheap that a week there costs less than a night in many other places – here for example!). We’d already filled and prepared ZU-TAF during the afternoon and had been feeling pretty glum that things hadn’t seemed to be working out – still, having ‘resigned ourselves’ to another day in Thailand it was quite difficult to let go again.
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Over the past 72 hours I’ve felt quite reflective about the problems we’ve been having getting all documentary and regulatory requirements properly in line. I’ve been raging mad quite a few times – really frustrated and angry, harking back to my more youthful anti-authoritarian sentiment and natural loathing of limitations to individual freedoms, (especially if they’re mine!). There’s no question that the countries in this part of the world, even the more liberal ones, have a deep rooted sense of administrative structure and often political paranoia. The communist / capitalist mix makes the countries openly distrustful of one another and people just don’t expect to be able to get into a private aircraft and just buzz off exactly where they want to. I’ve written a bit over the past couple of years about how easy it can be to travel internationally under one’s own steam in the right light aircraft and with a bit of experience, but even with the right energy and approach, of course it isn’t always that way.
I suppose that in honesty I’ve begun to accept that as a consequence of where they are these countries just aren’t set up to deal with some of the requirement of GA. So for example we needed to fly through the Bangkok (Thailand), Singapore, Manila (Phillipines) and Taipei (Taiwan) FIR’s. (Vietnam and China would have been more direct, but are even more complicated). We don’t have an HF radio, so most of the time we’re out of comms (unless we can relay through an airliner, which we do a lot and with relative ease). We also have no sat phone. So it does mean that if we do go down, then the country really could have quite a job having to find us and that is quite a liability for an institution to take on without being quite clear on what’s involved. The US by comparison understands private aeroplanes and everything around them, making it so much easier.
Anyhow, Jean was desperate for reading matter on our first few legs and then found a copy of Richard Branson’s “Reach for the Skies – Ballooning, Birdmen and Aviation – A Personal History of Aviation” in a bookshop in Patong Beach. Interestingly, a good part of the Introduction is about Dave Stock, with whom Richard Branson flew in an English Electric Lightning to try and break a world aircraft climb record in SA some years back. Dave was killed in that same aircraft at the Overberg Airshow nearly two years ago, but not before he was also the test pilot who flew the very first ever Sling prototype for The Airplane Factory, so that seemed fitting. It’s a fun book and it was nice to see that Branson has also had his fair share of run-ins with foreign authorities on flight permissions. So for example during the flight to Taiwan today I read the following (Jean and I are both reading the book simultaneously!)-
“Here are two old faxes from my scrapbook, both from attempts to circumnavigate the world by balloon.
The first was received on board the Virgin Global Challenger as it neared Algerian airspace on 7 January 1997: “YOU ARE NOT, REPEAT NOT, AUTHORISED TO ENTER THIS AREA”.
[Very similar to what we initially received from Sri Lanka and then Taiwan!]
The second was sent on 23 December 1998 after we had received a dispatch from the Chinese government. The dispatch said we had to land the ICO Global as we were entering Chinese airspace. We had no doubt that they would shoot us down if we did not comply. The trouble was that we couldn’t:
WE KINDLY ADVISE THAT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO LAND NOW WITHOUT SEVERELY ENDANGERING THE LIVES OF THE CREW AND ANY PERSONS ON THE GROUND. WE CANNOT STEER THE BALLOON AS IT GOES WHERE THE WIND TAKES IT. WE HAVE FULL CLOUD COVER AND CANNOT GROUND. WE CANNOT DESCEND THROUGH CLOUD AS IT WILL CREATE ICE ON THE BALLOON RESULTING IN US CRASHING. WEE KINDLY BRING TO YOUR ATTENTION THAT WE ARE DOING EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO RESOLVE THE SITUATION AND APOLOGISE PROFUSELY FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO COMPLY WITH YOUR INSTRUCTIONS. WE ARE NOT BEING DISRESPECTFUL TO THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES. WE ARE JUST IN AN IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION THAT WE CANNOT RESOLVE AT PRESENT WITHOUT ENDANGERING LIVES. WE KINDLY REQUEST THAT YOU GIVE OUR TEAM MORE TIME TO WORK ON THIS PROBLEM.”
Branson then describes how two later balloonists were shot down and killed in similar circumstances by a military helicopter in Belarus. Then I liked this:
“Four months later, Steve Fosset was carried out over Libya and received this gem: ‘BECAUSE OUR COUNTRY HAS AN AIR EMBARGO YOU CANNOT COME THROUGH THE AIRSPACE OF LIBYA. YOU SHOULD CONTACT YOUR GOVERNMENT AND AKS THEM TO LIFT THE EMBARGO ON OUR REPUBLIC’”
It doesn’t feel too different from what we’re experiencing!
What is also interesting was that there is no question that attempts to fit us into an unnatural category and force us to comply with rules applicable to other larger, faster aircraft (eg- the following of established airways), often in a misguided attempt to contribute to our safety, increases the danger for us. The most obvious examples are requirements that increase our flight distance, with increased risk of running out of gas or experiencing really bad weather. Then Thailand initially required that we could only fly VFR in the day. That meant we couldn’t leave in the early morning and minimize night flying time, substantially increasing our risk. We finally got around that by filing IFR, but there’s no question that we’re the people best placed to assess the risk associated with different courses of action.
Anyhow, we’ve chosen to do this trip on a pretty much low budget, largely “deal with things as they come” basis and I suppose we then have to be willing to take the good with the bad in the right humor.
Last night and today’s flight was really quite manageable – we got out of Phuket on a ‘Sierra One Tango’ procedure departure at just after 10pm. I didn’t have the applicable card/plate, but luckily I’d seen it on the wall in the briefing office and committed it to memory. Jean was in the pilot’s seat flying, with me shouting instructions as I recalled them!
We climbed through 2 500 feet on runway heading, under the moonlight, did a gentle left turn onto heading 110, engaged the autopilot on the MGL, got established on a climb, covered the screens for better outside vision in the moonlight and settled into a game of dodgems with the towering and sometimes lightening filled cumulo-nimbus clouds over the Thai peninsula.
There were little fishing boats everywhere and as we got over the south China sea it literally looked like a floating village, more than 100 km out from the shore! I would have thought at those densities the waters would have been fished out in not time, though perhaps not. Things were definitely made easier by the fact that the cloud coverage decreased substantially far out over the water. One of the most stressful activities we’ve had to deal with in our flights so far is flying at night in stormy conditions – it really is unpleasant and one feels very exposed.
We ended up too far from shore for VHF communications for most of the flight, having 12 hours radio silence during which we listened pretty much non-stop to music. The Sling 4 was purring. It felt good to have given her a really good once-over – the best of the trip so far, the previous day. We’d also done an oil and oil filter change, cleaned the fuel filters in the two high-pressure fuel pumps (the one filter being the cause of the brief engine stoppage over the Indian Ocean on leg 2) and filled up to the brim with avgas, including two additional 20 liter containers. Everything was working absolutely beautifully and I think that although quite weary, Jean and I felt quietly confident and very much in love with our machine. The Airplane Factory staff (especially Jean, Mike, Ruan, Terry, Gareth, Thabo, Vincent, Buto, Muzi, Godfrey, Jan and Tumisho) essentially built that aircraft over a two month period, and she is unbelievably strong, reliable and confidence inspiring. If we’ve had some sort of glitch, every time it’s an electrical linkage or a trivial hardware consideration or suchlike. ZU-TAF flies incredibly comfortably, she’s 100% balanced, climbs from 12 000 to 14 000 like a jack-in-the-box, even with 15 hours endurance remaining, she runs on avgas or mogas, she’s comfortable to spend long periods, easy to fly and really such a joy. We couldn’t be more happy with her.
Below are a couple of images that give an idea of today’s flight.
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Arriving at Taoyung International, the main airport in Taiwan, was quite something. Very busy, but we were welcomed with gifts by our handlers, Sunrise Airlines. First impressions of Taiwan are intense – fast, neon-lighted, modern, competitive, sexy. We opted not to take a bus into Taipei after refueling and preparing the plane (the flight was 18 hours and it always takes time to get paperwork done). Since we’ve done the legwork, however, it means we’re free to head into town as soon as we’re up tomorrow and discover the people and place. We’ll take lots of shots and give our views.
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Meanwhile, it’s such a privilege to get to travel around this magnificent world of ours. I hope that we can begin to do the opportunity justice. Thank you to everyone at home for providing the support that makes it possible. I miss my kids desperately, and I love their messages. There’s no question that they make me think twice before I discount any risk that may need to be faced. I’m not a keen swimmer, but if this engine were to fail for one reason or another (and it can happen no matter how careful you are), boy oh boy would I be swimming hard!
Wow, this is becoming an epistle! I’m going to head off to sleep and we’ll try get some clarity on when we’ll be out of here getting closer to LA as soon as we know. First choice would be early Sunday morning to HoKaido, Japan north Island, but we await their final satisfaction with our documents. Meanwhile, reading some of the messages of support we’ve received, there’s no question that if you’re having a problem with self-esteem then getting a pilot’s license and flying around the world’s a good thing to do. Thanks, it makes everything so much more fun.
CheersJames
