First day back flying after my 3 week holiday and I get thrown into the deep end with a 7.5 hr day. What a way to start the tour:)
My co-pilot for the day is an Ausie called Peter.
We got picked up at 05:20 this morning from the house, I felt like a zombie as I stumbled out the house at this ridiculous hour. I should have made a strong coffee for the ride to the airport. Checking my usual apps for the weather things looked pretty grim for the day, a huge cell was sitting just off our first destination. Looked like we were in for a rough and long day.
We departed for Tapak Tuan with surprisingly good weather info from our crew there. I did the first leg and what a pleasure it was being back in the air, especially with the smooth conditions we had. A quick hop over the mountains to Tapak Tuan with only some low lying cloud en-route. We had a bit of a wait for some passengers who were late, but it gave us a chance to take some photos and just enjoy the morning sun. Pete flew the return leg again with nothing really to worry about.
The next flight was to Blang Pidie, again on the Southern Coast of Sumatra. Pete had this leg. We set off out of Medan with a slight detour due to traffic before setting course to Point Papa. Wings Atr were 3000 feet above us as we cruised to our destination. A beautiful landing by Pete into Runway 33 for a quick turn around and back to Medan.
The last 2 legs were are longest of the day. The Tello charters are my favorite, this is because we get to have a look at the waves on the approach to the runway. The weather at the beginning of the flight was a little bad with a couple cells here and there that we needed to dodge, but once over the mountain range everything cleared up nicely. I had a great landing into Tello and we then quickly off loaded and then loaded the new passengers. Pete set off to Medan with a bit of a crosswind for the departure. A few clouds en-route and an approach into Medan to finish the day.
Good Day:)
Route: WIMM to WIMT to WIMM to WITO to WIMM to WIMO to WIMM
Hours: 7.9 hrs
Distance: unknown nm
good to see you back in the air, Mike
Good to be back:) Although the holiday was great as well.
happy landings Mike, Glad to have you back in the skies
Thanks Francisco! Good to be back. You up in the air?