Celebrating life (part 2)

I wrote previously about doing a number of flights for the Min Baptist Women's conference, where hundreds of ladies came together to worship and fellowship.

In a different kind of celebration of life, I recently flew three body charters in four days. In PNG culture it is important for a person to be buried in their home village. The more status the person had, the bigger the haus krai (funeral), to show respect, so often the coffin will be accompanied by hundreds of kilos of food.

When I land at a bush airstrip with a coffin on board, there is usually a big crowd waiting. Different places have different customs - some are subdued, while others mourn loudly and publicly. If it’s the latter, the passengers in the plane often start wailing just as I am preparing to land - a distraction I don’t need at that point!

At Wanikipa, a group of ladies wearing white tunics were singing and waving tanget leaves as I taxied up to the parking bay. After shutting down, I did what I needed to in checking over the aircraft, remove the cargo straps holding the coffin in place (and the other cargo accompanying it), then opened the door and move away from the aircraft to allow the community to do their thing.

One of the locals approached me to shake my hand. He often did this when I came to that airstrip, so I obliged. Like the other mourners, he had smeared his face and arms with mud. I suddenly found I was turned from observer into participant, as he grasped my hand, pressed his face into my shoulder and started wailing. He continued for a minute or so, then let go and proceeded to the next person, as others lifted the coffin out of the plane and carried it up the hill to where a noisy crowd was waiting.

“It’s just their custom,” explained a teacher standing nearby, who I would be flying out.

“I know,” I replied, feeling a little awkward but also honoured, in a way, to have been included.

 

Tumolbil airstrip, destination for one of the body charters I flew this month

This story was published on the MAF PNG website.

Celebrating life (part 1)

“Balus i pulap tru!” I remarked (‘The plane is really full!’) - and the nine ladies on board laughed. They were joining hundreds of other women from Baptist churches throughout the Min area for their annual ladies’ conference at Tabubil.

Telefomin, Eliptamin, Oksapmin, Wobagen, Ok Isai - the response was the same when I got out of the plane and people saw that a lady pilot had come to take the ladies from their village to Tabubil. “Ooweee! Meri pailot! Meri balus! Ooweee!”

Since these were special charter flights, the women weren’t limited to the usual 16 kg assigned to seat fare passengers. The weight limit was a combined one for the whole plane, so they brought bags of vegetables to share at the conference - sweet potato, taro, kumu (leafy greens), spring onions, bananas. Most of the time there was too much to fit in the cargo pods, so I ended up strapping a lot of it down in the cabin. Balus i pulap tru!

The conference, the mountains of vegetables I flew, and the reception and gifts I was given at the different airstrips (including a bird-of-paradise headdress by the ladies at Wobagen), were a celebration of life. This is one of the foundations of Papua New Guinean culture. If we’re going to have a party, let’s make it a big one! The ladies’ enthusiasm was contagious and I truly enjoyed flying them to Tabubil.

Wobagen ladies with vegetables they were taking to share at the conference

Oksapmin ladies in the plane

Another group of Wobagen ladies after landing at Tabubil

 

This story was published on the MAF PNG website.

Unusual cargo

Over the last couple of years, I've transported some pretty unusual cargo... Here are some pictures!

Water tanks

A plane full of Coca-Cola and 2-minute noodles
(sadly, this is very common for cargo flights)

Twenty boxes of day-old-chicks (and old tyres for a construction project)

Metal posts for a solar installation project

Adult cassowaries (used for important ceremonies)

Other things I have taken include:
- a full size whiteboard
- solar panels
- coffins (both empty and occupied...)

Another week in Telefomin

Following my week with Glenys in April, I had another week in Telefomin with Mathias in May. The purpose was threefold:
- continue checking me into new areas and new airstrips
- finalise my advanced airstrip check
- annual VFR proficiency line check

This was quite an ambitious plan, but we made it work!

I also stayed on for the weekend and another couple of days to consolidate before heading back to Hagen.

With Mathias at Telefomin

Flying low level through the Strickland gorge
(video here)

Training at steep airstrips
(video of Busilmin take-off and landing here)

Sorting out cargo and paperwork at a bush airstrip

A vegetable gift I was given at Miyanmin... Snake bean!

A week in Telefomin

I recently spent a week in Telefomin with Glenys for area and airstrip checks. For the area checks, we took the opportunity on certain flights to 'take the scenic route' in order to see key landmarks. By the end of the week we had completed three areas and five additional airstrips.

A beautiful day in Telefomin

Concentration...

The obligatory pilot selfie

A wet morning in Telefomin

Munbil airstrip

Ok Isai airstrip

'The Vee gap'

Hindenburg wall

Sorting out paperwork with the agent at Oksapmin

Taskmaster challenge

Around Easter time, Fraser came to see me. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about,” he said.

I was intrigued. Fraser is the finance manager, and also one of my compound neighbours. I doubted his question was work-related. Nor did it seem likely that it concerned the informal ballet lessons I had been giving his 6-year-old daughter over the last few months. 

“I think it would be a great idea to do a Taskmaster-style challenge, but I need someone to be the Taskmaster, and I thought you would be the ideal person. Are you interested?”

He handed me a book of ‘tasks for ordinary people’ and explained the concept behind the TV show (which I hadn’t seen). My brain immediately jumped into action and over the next few weeks we planned how the event might work and what tasks we could give our contestants to do.

We decided to assign people to teams, and have a variety of tasks - on site, off site, teams working together, and tasks for individuals representing their team. Everyone seemed to have fun (apart from one of the kids, who was given the task of ‘Eat a mint as slowly as possible’ and couldn’t stand the taste of it in her mouth). In fact one person even told me, “I wasn’t expecting to enjoy today, but I did.” I took that as a compliment!

Even though Mount Hagen is the third largest town in Papua New Guinea, there are very few entertainment options. Thinking about youth group events I used to organise in Lower Hutt, where we had the choice of ten-pin bowling, laser strike, cinemas, inflatable fun zone, indoor sports, trampoline park, paintball, go-karting, rock climbing, ice skating rink... Here, there is obviously none of that. You have to make your own entertainment, and it generally needs to be within the confines of your compound. The Taskmaster challenge was an attempt (and, it seems, a successful one) to break out of the mould of movie night after movie night, or sitting around a dinner/BBQ/bonfire chatting.

I think it’s safe to say there will be a sequel!

Taskmaster and assistant

The contestants

'Turn the most unanticipated thing upside down'

Holding a glass of water at arm's length without spilling

The next three photos were from the 'off-site' task:

"Purchase clothing items from a second hand store to dress your team to represent a movie. Your maximum total spend is K20. Your team will score ten points if the Taskmaster correctly guesses which movie is represented."

Team Glass-in-bury

Team Miles of Enge-duros

Team St Roger

The overall winners!

IFR training

I didn't write about this at the time, but at the end of May last year I was struggling so much with the weather trying to fly in the Western Province that I had to ask for a break from flying in that area. The wet season, which begins around April and continues through to August (plus or minus a month depending on El Nino / La Nina) produces extensive cloud, and especially in the afternoons it can be difficult or impossible to get back to Hagen flying under VFR (visual flight rules).

To their credit, MAF PNG management took my plea seriously, bringing in the crew training manager, flight operations manager, member care etc. (I think they were worried I was going to quit!) Plans were put in place to spread the load of which pilots were being rostered to fly in the Western Province (I had been flying more than twice as often as the next pilot), have me fly in the Hagen area (this had the additional benefit of allowing me to consolidate my D-strip landings following AAT), set up some mentoring/counselling sessions with member care, and recommend that I be nominated as one of the next pilots to go through the IFR training course.

Flying under IFR (instrument flight rules) allows you to fly through weather where you can't see, i.e. clouds, poor visibility. MAF PNG was authorised to conduct single-engine IFR operations in Nov 2022, and pilots were subsequently trained two at a time, starting with those who had in-country IFR experience, and then moving down the list in order of seniority.

IFR is based on being able to maintain terrain clearance at all times. MAF PNG has set up an IFR route structure, which covers most of our operations around the country. These routes go between fixed points and have minimum altitudes we need to fly at.

IFR has some advantages over VFR:

- If the weather at your point of departure and your destination are ok, you can almost always get through.
- Since you can almost always get through, you don't need to carry as much contingency fuel. For example, when flying VFR from Balimo to Hagen, I would plan to land in Hagen with about 800 lb - just in case I got to the last ridge and had to turn around and fly all the way back. Under IFR, the fuel requirements is to land in Hagen with 2 hrs of fuel, or 660 lb. This means I can carry an extra 140 lb of payload on that route.
- In a similar vein, the flight time is more predictable as you can fly in a straight line through the clouds instead of zig-zagging around them. Overall, it's more efficient.
- Similarly, because the flight routing is more predictable, it's less stressful for the pilot (me!)

There are some disadvantages:

- In the highlands, some of the minimum route altitudes are ridiculously high (since the terrain can be over 13,000 ft and for IFR we need to be 2000 ft above the highest point).
- In the Western Province, it's common during the wet season for the cloud base to not get above 1000 ft all day. Under our IFR procedures, although you could take off and fly through the cloud, unless the airstrip has an instrument approach (i.e. Kiunga, Daru, Kikori) with a relatively low minimum descent altitude, the minimum altitude we can go to is higher than 1000 ft so you might not be able to land.
- When carrying passengers, we are generally limited to the MAF routes (since they have been approved by CASA) and can only deviate up to 2.5 nautical miles either side of track. If you have a big CB sitting on your track, you may not be able to fly around it (unless there are other routes you can use instead).

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I was told in August that I would be on one of the IFR courses in early 2024. The schedule was:

- 2 weeks refresher in Mareeba (mid Jan / mid Feb)
- 2 weeks MAF IFR standardisation in Hagen (early Feb / early Mar)
- 3 weeks MAF IFR LOFT (mid Feb-early Mar / mid Mar-early Apr)
- 2-4 weeks MAF IFR supervised experience (mid Mar-early Apr / mid Apr-early May)

We would also have to complete the PNG IR Air Law exam and an online PBN (performance based navigation) course. Since the exams are only offered in Hagen every 2 months, and the same company administers exams in NZ, I made enquiries and was able to sit the exam in NZ during my home assignment.

The other pilot who was scheduled to do the training with me had to pull out due to a medical issue, so I went through it on my own. It worked out pretty well as it gave the trainer extra time to attend to other things that he was working on.

 

Mareeba refresher training

The two weeks of refresher training in Mareeba went well although there were some frustrations with aircraft availability. I had six simulator sessions and three flights, including the flight test. It was also good to catch up with people I knew at MAF and at Tablelands Presbyterian.

Training flight 'under the hood' so I can only see the instrument panel

MAF IFR standardisation

I was the guinea pig, being the first MAF PNG pilot to do the refresher training in Mareeba prior to standardisation - pilots on the two previous standardisation courses, who hadn't flown IFR for several years, found it pretty tough going. However, since the first part of standardisation is refresher, six sessions were removed from my training schedule! I felt like the learning/recall path in Mareeba was pretty steep, and then I realised that even though I had passed the flight test, it wasn't going to let up. I steeled myself for the challenge and took every opportunity to prepare and learn, and it paid off. At the end of the course, I could look back and say, I truly enjoyed it. MAF uses 'scenario based training' and it was satisfying to work out the problems that presented themselves in each scenario. I received really good feedback on my performance too.

IFR standardisation flight - Volkher takes time to
admire the view while I am busy!

IFR LOFT (line-oriented flight training)

This stage of training was done with the crew training manager, Markus. Since the IFR standardisation training is not PNG-specific, during this phase the flights were focused on the MAF PNG routes and procedures. We flew in several different parts of the country - Hagen, Balimo, Kiunga, Tari, Wewak, Telefomin, Vanimo. By the end of it I had managed to get my head around what I could do when I had passengers on board, and the extra flexibility I have when I am only flying cargo or an empty plane.

I also passed 2000 flight hours during our Telefomin tour!

With Markus at Telefomin during IFR LOFT

This kind of weather is great for IFR training, and
incredibly stressful for flying VFR!

IFR supervised experience

The last stage is consolidation of LOFT, although I did continue to learn new things. CASA regulations specify certain minimum instrument flight time experience to fly IFR as pilot-in-command, so for some of the pilots (who did their instrument rating training in flight school and haven't touched it since) their LOFT and supervised experience was a bit longer so that they could build up the necessary hours. Since I had actually used my instrument rating in NZ for a year after gaining it, I already met the minimum requirements, so it was simply a matter of demonstrating proficiency. It also meant that I didn't have to fly under the hood the whole time!

Aircraft instrumentation showing a 54 kt crosswind approaching 9000 ft on climb!