The Viqueque airstrip is, to quote Forrest Gump, 'like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get.' It's probably the most frequently used of all the airstrips we fly to. That's because it's not just used as an airstrip, but also as the local sports ground, livestock grazing, and major thoroughfare. The first time I went there, on an observational flight, I experienced the kind of chaos that you see on a MAF calendar picture - a couple of hundred kids swarming the plane and watching intently.
Since those first couple of trips things seemed to have calmed down a bit. Either that, or I've got used to it... although there seems to be more police and firemen in attendance for crowd control now too. Anyway. The route to Viqueque is interesting as you have to cross the mountainous spine of the island, the approach into the strip requires you to positively identify and then avoid three cellphone towers in the circuit area, one of which is very hard to see, and then as you come in low over some trees to land you have to be constantly on the lookout for people, animals and vehicles entering the strip.
The town of Viqueque is reasonably big, and given how far it is from Dili, we get quite a few medevac callouts - at least 1 or 2 a week.
Runway directions: 15/33
Length: 960 m
Altitude: 100 ft
Surface: Gravel
Slope: Nil
Obstructions: High terrain to the east and north. Three towers base/final runway 15. Trees short final runway 15. Pronounced step at runway 33 threshold - do not land short. Possibility of people, animals, vehicles on the strip, including a mentally unstable woman.
 |
Aerial view of Viqueque. Runway 15 - the usual direction - runs left to right.
|
 |
Inspecting the strip (at left) from overhead
|
 |
Take-off view, runway 15
|
 |
Arriving at the 'parking area'
|
 |
The beginnings of a crowd
|
No comments:
Post a Comment