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Jakarta, Friday, 1995-05-02 12:00 local (Z+7)
Hello, all....
Tomorrow is the last day of the inbound Hajj (hauling everybody to Mecca). For Tower today is the last day; Garuda (the Indonesian airline contracting with Tower) is handling the only flights tomorrow. The last Tower aircraft leaves today. From Jeddah (the airport serving Mecca) they will be flown to Bahrain and Singapore for maintenace. Since I got back here late yesterday, I have today off. I needed it. I slept 14 hours straight through. The 10 hour legs dodging thunderstorms are tiring.
I completed the IOE requirement of 25 hours and 4 landings. In my case, because of the 10 hour legs, the 4 landings were the limiting requirement. Now I have to spend 75 hours with a “standards captain”. I think I really am getting back into the swing of things a little.
Yesterday's leg was my first as the PNF, “pilot not flying”. In some ways it's more tiring than flying since you have to do all the radio work, position reporting, flight plan tracking. etc. In this part of the world that means trying to talk to people with a very different idea of how to pronounce English over an HF radio filled with static.
At one point yesterday, we spent nearly an hour over the Indian Ocean trying unsuccessfully to communicate. Also got admonished by a Sri Lankan controller not to enter their aispace without talking to them before entry. The controller mistakenly thought we were already in his airspace. We weren't, but there's no point in arguing with them. I just apologized and promised we would be more careful in the future—all they're looking for is a little kowtowing.
Sri Lanka is a little nervous right now because rebels there have brought down two government aicraft in the last few days using surface-to-air missiles. Both aircraft were shot down while on approach to landing. In theory the missiles pose no threat to overflying aircraft as their range is very limited. We were at 41,000 yesterday. I doubt that even the Sir Lankan government has missiles that can reach that high—it's a pretty impoverished country.
I'm scheduled to leave here tomorrow morning. However, there's some question as to whether there'll be enough seats on the Garuda flight that goes to Los Angeles via Honolulu. Since I'm the lowest seniority man here, I may not make it out. If so, I won't get out until Friday as there is no Thursday flight. They haven't figured out yet what I'll be doing after getting back to the U.S. I, of course, hope I'll be off.
Well, time to go run. The hotel has a 700 meter astroturf path running around the grounds. The track is a little slippery when it's wet, but otherwise is great for running. I've been running it in the heat of the day whenever possible. I'm up to seven times around. After I get done, there's nothing dry on me. Both temperature and humidity are above 90.
Everybody take care...Terry
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