Monday, August 24, 2009

A smoky day of flying

One recent day, I (Brad) was in Malinau, sitting in the plane with six passengers behind me. I looked out at the air temperature gauge and it read 112 degrees. In the shade. The spring on one of the windows in my airplane was broken (so it had to be kept shut), so it had to have been 125 degrees inside the airplane. Sweat was pouring out of me, and my clothes were sticking to me.

I was planning to take off from Malinau and go to Long Alongo, one of the toughest strips out here. I felt the weight of doing a good job when I looked behind me at the other six passengers—five adults and a small child.

I taxied out, waiting for the tower to give me permission to take off. Malinau is a small city interior, with a paved runway. It is the closest thing to a runway in the States out here. And yet it is so different. It is poorly and unevenly paved. So, as you’re roaring down the runway, it tends to toss you into the air, but not high enough to actually take off. It makes for a bit of a bumpy take-off.

While I waited, I noticed about 20 piles of dried water buffalo patties on the runway. I wondered how so many water buffalo were walking all over the runway long enough to do their business. It was surreal. I had the thought that this was definitely NOT like life in the States.

Finally, I took off, veering slightly to the right to avoid some of the water buffalo poop. Still sweating like crazy, I climbed up to 3,000 feet. I noticed about 40 fires down below. It is smoky season, which means that farmers are burning their fields, taking advantage of the dry weather to get the job done. It also makes for a lot of smoke, creating low visibility. And I could taste the smoke as I climbed. It was nasty.






The smoke gets thicker and thicker as you go up. Bits of black ash were flying up, looking like birds that I was just about to hit (and adding to the stress of the flight), but really just flowing around with no contact. My eyes were burning and I was coughing. I remember praying a prayer, “Lord, I think that if you decided not to throw Satan into the lake of fire, just send him to Malinau during the smoky season and you’d get the same effect. You’d get the heat, fire, smoke, and the gnashing of teeth and weeping.”

Soon I was nearing Long Alongo. The approach for Alongo is to fly down a river, but someone had lit a fire at the end of the river. So, as I was flying this really difficult approach, now I had to deal with the smoke, along with these big pieces of black ash going over my windshield, and still make a good, safe landing.

I just hope smoky season ends soon.

1 comment:

  1. Brad - thanks for sharing about "your day at the office". Doesn't sound like you have any time for boredom. We realize the importance of daily prayer when flying in your conditions. Do you think your years of flying in our East Texas summers helped prepare you for East Kal. year round WX? Glad we don't have the rice field burning here!
    Keep up the great flying!

    Praying always - Lew

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