Let's go flying in Thailand
Let's go flying in Thailand
I should consider
giving up flying in England and simply concentrate on trips to
Canada and to Thailand where what I do is in demand, and I have
the reputation to back it up.
I am a bit sore, I make efforts to fly in England, break my
financial back to ensure the Aircoupe is kept properly maintained
and available to be flown, but is it really worth it?
I spend money to gain and retain a CRI rating, a three hour
flying course, £1,200 to £1,500, and yet though I have
thousands of hours of experience as a chief flight instructor
(CFI), there's not enough call for my skills in England to
justify the expense.
In May I face a bill of approaching £1,000 if I am required to
do the stress ECG test that the CAA has recently imposed to rid
itself of pilots of my generation.
The enthusiastic England I knew in the 1980's, when I built a
flying club to satisfy a demand, no longer exists.
There has been a serious increase in seriousness since 1990.
Ed lines up the Tecnam at
Ban Thi - Nok Airfield near Chiang Mai
Back in 2006 Ed
was introduced to me at Bang Phra, "You've got to learn with
Michael" they said, and so it was that after the stress of
being an assistant CFI in China I returned to Thailand and we
flew together through the beginning months of 2007 whereupon Ed
achieved his Thai PPL, and he was reckoned to be the best student
in that year.
Due credit to him, as good an instructor one might be, it is the
work the student does that has the greatest effect on the
abilities and knowledge the student achieves in the end. The
instructor guides and encourages, and from time to time upsets
the students (discipline, and spinning!), but the student's
motivation and effort is paramount.
When I am back in
Chiang Mai Ed takes the opportunity to have a dual recurrency
flight in either the Tecnam P92-JS or the Malibu JetProp.
This time we did some cruise, stalls, climbing turn stalls,
descending turn stalls, and practice forced landings in
preparation for Ed's Dugong survey flights low over the Andaman
Sea.
Chiang Mai
Flower Festival
Not to forget that
the Thai people celebrate life much more than we do in the work
oriented West.
I missed my favourite festival, Loy Krathong, due to the stupidly
awkward process of selling a house in England!
It's ridiculous.
2024 was a time I had to use my intelligence to overcome troubles
with para-legals, solicitors, and banks among others...
Dealing with the Banks in Portugal and Spain took me off the
Brexit fence and firmly on the side of Brexit, and guess what,
now CAAT here in Thailand is aligning itself with that awful EU
religious organisation, EASA!
Europeans are different from us, they were ruled by the Roman
Catholic Church for centuries while England was freed due to
Henry VIII giving the Pope the push.
EASA pontificates
and imposes regulation to stifle aviation...
Me, I don't have ICAO Commercial Pilot Knowledge in their
opinion, though I have a Commercial Pilot Licence issued in the
country where ICAO is headquartered.
In 1996 I created CBT lessons for a JAR course (JAR is now part
of EASA) for PPL through ATPL. I think it is in part thanks to me
that the Swiss did not add Astro Navigation to the CPL/ATPL
course... I asked: "Where's the astrodome on an
Airbus?" "How can you take a position from the
stars?".
Judging by the recent accidents, the ability to handle an
aircraft through manual manipulation of the controls should have
more importance.
Ed took me for a flight
around the local islands in the Tecnam P92-JS
On Valentines Day
I was up early to catch the 06:25 Thai Air Asia flight from
Chiang Mai to Phuket with Khun Koi who is the President of Nok
Flying Club and a great friend of mine.
At Phuket Airport the main rent a car companies only had big
expensive vehicles available, and so we were unlucky, but then
again there are many more personal rental agents and so we rented
a Toyota Vios with 178,388km on the clock for 1,000 Baht per day.
A bit worn out, but still reliable Toyota transport.
1,000 Baht is a lot less than the cost of taxi fares to where we
were going; Phuket Airpark.
Gateway to fun and to meeting old
friends and making new ones
At least twenty
aeroplanes and one R44 helicopter attended the Fly-In, and there
were eight resident aeroplanes as well.
I have photographs of everything, but this website is limited and
so I am careful with the amount of data applied to it.
I am still using MS Frontpage 97 as there seems to be no later
'off the shelf' program available, only subscription sites, and
this site does not develop an income (though I could sure use
it!).
Nosewheel or tailwheel, the
choice is yours
Khun Amy and Khun
Robert Suchard operate a fantastic little airfield with great
hospitality so visitors to Phuket who read this site are highly
recommended to visit the Airpark, and to go flying if they come
to Thailand.
Don't tarry though, like all great places to fly, the Airpark is
set to close to be built over with housing!
This will eventually render Phuket unavailable to light aircraft.
An Extra of my acquaintance
Poor George, there were no end of takers for a ride in the Extra when these were offered later in the Fly-In.
I met many friends
at Phuket including Bill who owns the Volmer Sportsman at Langley
Airport, BC, in which we flew together. He and his Thai wife
built properties in Whistler and they live there most of the
year.
Their skills were used to build a live-aboard catamaran in
Phuket, and so they come to Phuket each non-Covid year to sail
the seas.
The model jets with their
genuine turbine engines fly at high speeds.
Crashing is an expensive business when you've invested 500,000
Baht in one.
The air displays by these jets were impressive.
I had to go to
Bangkok to look at a Chevrolet Colorado Pick Up Truck of all
things... Valued at 200,000 Baht it was to be part of a land sale
deal in Isan.
I spent two nights at the Victory Residences Hotel; my go to
place in Bangkok.
Square because some browsers turn
this image sideways.
One objective while in Bangkok was to see if I could get my Thai Validation of my Canadian licence, and thanks very much to the staff at CAAT I was able to pick it up. Now I can fly.
The Victory Hotel is local
to the Victory Monument BTS Skytrain station,
Phaya Thai Airport Station, and of course Saxophone Pub which has
live music and Dunkel dark beer.
For 45 Baht you can take
the train to Suvarnabhum Airport, and catch the 143 Baht bus to
Jomtien.
George inherited this hangar after
a Huawei mobile phone commercial was shot at Pattaya Eastern
Airpark.
George picked me up in a ratty looking Toyota pickup truck... It had been studio aged and dressed for the Huawei commercial and he liked it so much that he had laquer sprayed over it to preserve it's patina.
In the morning I
decided to get reacquainted with the Citabria...
Microlight instructor Ed asked if he could come along and so he
sat in the back while I did some turns, stalls, and three
satisfactory landings.
Then I put him in the front for him to have his first taste of
takeoffs and landings in a tailwheel aeroplane. He did well as
the hands and feet are well trained in microlight aeroplanes.
The next day I
went flying with Bobby in the Citabria to fly over Koh Lan which
is an island in the gulf opposite Pattaya. This was requested by
U Tapao Approach.
We flew at 3,000 feet to do some steep turns and stalls.
Eastern has a short runway with obstacles at both ends and a
downslope on 19, and so the ability to slip to a landing is
important. We did one go around, it's not so easy from the back
seat!
The Jomtien to Pattaya Coastline.
Bobby took seven
months to build a BushCat very light aeroplane powered by a Rotax
912, and I got to fly it in the afternoon (20th February).
Unfortunately the aeroplane was infested with ants! Bobby
reckoned that American style he had left a cheeseburger in the
cockpit...
So there I was in the right seat wearing his headset with ants
crawling around my earlobes.
Doing the gentle deceleration, 1 mph per second, we established the BushCat aeroplane's stall speeds as follows: Clean 42.5 MPH IAS, T/O Flap 39.5 MPH IAS, and Full Flap 36 MPH IAS.
Up the next morning to do some straight and level flying in the Citabria with Tristan, starting with 1,700 RPM and recording the IAS in 100 RPM increments up to 2,500 RPM, and then from 2,000 RPM in 100 RPM increments down to 1,700 RPM and into slow flight at 1,600 RPM increasing to 1,900 RPM at 50 MPH IAS. Canadian students will know what this was all about.
In the afternoon Tristan showed me Slow Flight recovery, stalls, and the Emergency Descent through cloud (though not in cloud!) whereby you use the rudder to hold heading while reducing the power to descend (properly trimmed of course). If you hold your heading with gentle touches on the rudder pedals the wings will be near level.
The 22nd was a
busy day...
Flew with Khun Doctor Ruanyot who is studying to be a heart
surgeon. We took off at 07:56.
Then Tristan to go to Nong Khor for two circuits, and then land
at Bang Phra. Glass of water, walk about, pee, and then we flew
back to Pattaya Eastern.
Then a flight with Paul who came to Boundary Bay and did his
Canadian PPL primarily with me; Katana, Cessna 152, and 7ECA
Citabria there.
Another flight in the BushCat with Bobby to set up the Angle of
Attack indicator on the Garmin PFD, (Primary Flight Display).
The final flight of the day was to U-Tapao in the Citabria for
three circuits on the wide runway which was originally built to
take B52 bombers. We didn't fly bomber circuits, but the wide
runway can lead to flaring too high when you're used to landing
on a narrow strip.
So we used some power in a soft field manner to find the ground.
The final flight was on
Sunday morning (23rd) as Tristan took me in the Citabria to Nong
Khor which is a field used by a Sky Dive company dropping
parachutists from a Pilatus PC6 Turbo Porter.
The company maintains and rebuilds Porters and other aeroplanes
nearby, and they even do hot section inspections and repairs on
PT6 and PW100 series gas turbine engines. During this trip I
visited their clean professional facility nearby.
We did five circuits at
Nong Khor with one break for parachutes, the last three landings
were PFLs (Practice Forced Landings) from Downwind.
On our return to Pattaya Eastern Tristan did a very good landing
there.
Departure on Thai Lion Air at U-Tapao was at 14:55, and it took 1 hour 10 minutes to fly to Chiang Mai.
