We recently opened a "new" route of service to an area of western Central Borneo that hasn't been consistently served by us in years but we receive a lot of flight requests to go there. Above is the village of Hiran. You can tell by the long ladder in the photo above that the water levels vary greatly over the course of a year. Obviously, it is in a low water condition right now.
Not long after we opened this new route did we receive a call to pick up a man that had an accident while searching for gold. His head and face were severely injured and supposedly he had a cracked skull with his scalp removed all the way to the bone.
Due to the low water, the airplane couldn't quite reach the dock. It ran aground about 3 feet away from the dock so they "inserted" the small boat above in between the dock and airplane to act as a bridge between the two. I personally was also in the water just like the boy above so I could help get my airplane situated properly in order to climb aboard and start the engine. You never know when you'll get wet when flying float planes, but you must be ready at any time.
5 comments:
i just curious, how much does the patient have to pay for charter a flight ?
and how much for a reguler flight like ade rai had?
Hi Irvan...our patients pay for just the cost of operating the airplane...fuel, oil, dll. Guys like Ade Rai pay about 3 times that much so we can subsidize things like church flights and other requests.
and how much it would be? 2 years ago my wife had a surgery and and she have to travelled by air. so we chartered NTM's 206 (MAF is Moved to Central Borneo so NTM replaced MAF in West Kalimantan), and it's cost about $850. very expensive and it's killing me.
For our patient flights, they would not be considered cheap either Irvan. Usually it is about $280 per hour for that type of flight. Our C185's are a little slower than a 206. We plan about 95 knots for flight planning purposes.
that's is a reasonable price, to be honest. but still for those who living in the interior, that's expensive.
185 vs 206 ?? i prefer 185. i am in love with 185 since my childhood. (thanks to MAF)
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