Again another long day, but a lot more pleasant than yesterday. Our first flight was planned for a 8:45 departure which ment we had a nice sleep in this morning.
The first flight was a surf charter to Tello with Jon. We had a couple more things to go through for his evaluation, so again he was drilled the whole way there and back. The surf charters are always interesting as loading can be a logistical nightmare with the surfboards. Weight wise we allow them to have a 1.1 ton payload, but this sometimes is made up solely of board bags, these do not fit in the cargo pods and therefore have to be loaded into the cabin along with the 9 hefty Australian surfers, this you can imagine is not easy. We somehow managed today and got back to Padang with our load of salty Ausies.
Islands En-route Tello
The next 6 legs of the day were with Rob, whom has just upgraded to captain. I was just doing last checks with him before letting him loose on the co-pilots. The first leg was to Pasaman to finish off the legs that we had to cancel from yesterday.
Rob and I had a good flight from Padang to Pasaman and then onto Sibolga with a little weather to doge on the way in. We unfortunately had to take 1700 lbs of fuel to complete the rest of the day, because of no other available fueling spots, so had to cancel the passengers baggage just to be within limits. This is again one of the challenges of flying and working here, as an English speaking person it is not very easy for me to explain the reasoning to the Bahasa speaking pax. We eventually got it sorted while I quickly refueled the plane in a light drizzle, using an umbrella to prevent any rain going into the tanks.
Sunset on our way home
All sorted we took off for the last 4 legs of the day, which went by surprisingly smoothly, with only the time against us. We managed to catch up some time with quick turn around in Tello and Binaka and made it back to Padang one minute after sunset (which is official night here).
Island close to Tello
I am exhausted while writing this, but it is part of the job and I will be up at 05:30 tomorrow morning to do it all again with a smile on my face!
Route: WIEE to WIMO to WIEE to WIEP to WIMS to WIMO to WIMB to WIMO to WIEE
Hours: 7.1 hrs
Hi, Michael. Do you know the name (if any) of Enganno airstrip, please? I know Enganno Island belongs to Bengkulu Province / North Bengkulu Regency. I also suppose Barhau, Kabuwe and Kayaapu are Enganno’s three largest towns. Thanks and cheers.
Hi Carlos, the airport name is just Enggano. It is certified for C208 aircraft and smaller. The rest of the island I have very little knowledge about unfortunately.
Cheers,
Mike
Thanks, anyway, and cheers!