From the Logbook...Inspection Time

After a short training flight yesterday, MCB (aka, Charlie Brown) was hoisted onto the hangar floor in order to begin a big landing gear inspection.  In short order, we had the floats removed to give all landing gear components a very thorough looking over.  If all goes well, we hope to be done with this big inspection in about a week and a half.

One of the fun things about working on a floating hangar is all the interesting things to see literally happening in front of us.  This man was fishing the area around our hangar for a while and is seen here starting his little engine to work his way back upstream to try again some more.

From the Logbook...Doing Your Doodie

(Disclamer: this post if a real world, life as a missionary bush pilot documentary about naturally occurring events.  They don't teach you about this stuff in flight school.)  

Because of the tropical heat I encounter here in Borneo, on an average flight day I will easily drink between 2 to 4 liters of water by the time the day is up, sometimes more.  So, what goes in must come out.  But, the WC's (bathrooms) we find on our docks leave a little to be desired by a 6 foot 3 inch tall Westerner.  Above is a common WC, complete with removable door.  At least it didn't smell bad!

If you find yourself having to do your doodie, this is the view out of the WC.  And yes, everyone knows what you are "dooing."  Thankfully, I haven't had to do this part yet.

But, after a nice visit to the WC, you will feel refreshed and ready to continue flying after you finish chatting with the guys on the dock that just saw/heard everything while you were doing your doodie.  Ah, the joys of being a missionary bush pilot.

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From the Logbook...Working on the Beach

Yesterday, I was able to fly to Naan (see the videos in the previous post) and we were able to get in a lot of training.  After numerous takeoffs and landings, I was able to spend about an hour and a half sitting and chatting with some folks that lived on the river bank.  We were operating almost literally on the Equator and I found myself once again amazed trying to imagine the life that the people of Naan live compared to mine.

Thankfully I wasn't offered any dog while in Naan, but I was given a lesson on pig farming in the jungle.  Like most piglets I've seen, these were very cute.

Today the training continued and we found a community that had an appropriate beach in order to practice "beaching," or running the airplane aground.  Once again it offered a lot of new challenges and brought a lot of new considerations to my mind.  Usually we use docks to load and offload people and their belongings.  But on the rare occasion we will beach the aircraft if the location is suitable.  Pretty Sweet!!!

From the Logbook...A Few Videos

A few weeks ago I rode along with a fellow PalangkaRaya pilot and we landed at the community of Naan.  This past Friday it was planned for me to fly in there with my instructor to get "checked out" into that "airstrip."  But, due to poor weather we never made it.  So tomorrow, Monday, we are planning to head to Naan to begin the checkout process there.  Below are the takeoff and landing videos I made from a few weeks back to give you an idea of what some of the smaller rivers we fly to look like.

From the Logbook...Dog...It's What's for Lunch

That's right.  I succumbed to the peer pressure.  I. Ate. Dog. Meat.  No, it didn't taste like chicken.  In fact, if I didn't know it was Man's Best Friend I probably would have eaten more.  It was actually pretty good; or at least all the spices were tasty.  But take heart, I don't plan on eating Fido anymore.  In certain parts of Indonesia, dog meat is a common source of protein, and it is regularly eaten.

On a much lighter note, flight training seems to be progressing well.  I continue to have a blast learning the new challenges associated with float flying on top of knocking off rust that has crept in from several months of not committing aviation.  At the community pictured above a group of kids gathered to see all the action and as always they were entertaining and amused. 

From the Logbook...

It looks like at the end of this week I will resume my flight training in earnest.  Since I haven't been busy in the cockpit, I have sure been busy doing other things while my instructor pilot attended some meetings.  Early this morning, our shipping container arrived from language school.  It was almost three weeks of living out of suitcases again for the umpteenth time. (Thanks to the Persenaire family for putting up with our large and loud family!)   So, we are spending the night for the first time in our "new to us" house.  We are stoked!  I think I have one more day to get some water heaters installed (3), fix various things around the house, and anything else that will inevitably come up before I'm back in the cockpit enjoying the best that boating and aviation can dish out all in one package.