Singapore to Gold Coast day 2

It's day 2 and we are ready for legs 3 and 4, and if all goes to plan, we'll be sleeping in Australia tonight. A quick cupa and toast, then we meet the IndoAsia chap at the lobby at 6:30am. A quick drive to the airport and through the security check, and quickly on the tarmac. As we walk to our aircraft, the morning flights to Jakarta and beyond are boarding.

Lion Air departing for Jakarta

The early morning tropical air coats the aircraft with a thin layer of dew. Our aircraft looks serene, parked next to the grass, with the very cool retro looking control tower in the background.

On the ramp at Lombok

We were cleared to taxi behind a departing Lion Air 737, and made our departure on runway 13 from intersection A. We did this for 2 reasons, a) its quicker, requiring no back taxi, and b) we made sure we rotated past the 737's takeoff point to avoid any wake turbulence. With a 9000 foot runway, even from intersection A, we still had almost 5000 feet takeoff run available. We made our on-time departure at 7am local and we climbed out to an initial altitude of 7000 feet before being cleared to our final altitude of 9000 feet.

I was flying this leg with John working the radios. The 350HP engine has us easily climbing at 1000 fpm in the cool morning air. The visibility is much better this morning and we can see the green country-side.  Our flight today takes us across Pulau Lombok, Pulau Sumbawa, Pulau Sumba and to the Western tip of West Timor. West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara are two provinces in Indonesia, also known as the Lesser Sunda Islands. The planned routing is WADL-GOMAT-W33-KPG-WATT.

Lombok to West Timor

As with many parts of Indonesia, these Islands are all formed by subduction along the Sunda Trench in the Java Sea.  

At various parts along our route today we are outside of ATC radio range. Of course it goes without saying there is no radar coverage in this part of the world. So we carefully monitor our frequencies, including the emergency frequency 121.5 MHz. In some cases ATC may use a airliner at high altitude to try to contact us and relay a message on 121.5.

The 450nm leg took us about 3 and a half hours. As we approached Kupang, we contacted the tower, which uses the name "El Tari", and were cleared for the Waingapu standard arrival and the RNAV Runway 7 approach. We used the decent planning feature of the GPS and made our planned descent into an initial altitude of 4500 feet to join the final approach course. We were soon on the GPS generated glide-path and heading for a smooth touchdown at El Tari Airport.

The refueling ritual soon began again. This time the crew was a little less experienced and John had to lend a hand getting the caps off.

John taking charge

Refueling at El Tari Airport

We had a quick comfort break and managed to find a mini-mart to get some iced tea and a couple of packets of chips. I had heard that if you eat salty snacks it can help you retain water and need less bathroom breaks. Not sure if its scientific, but it seemed to work.

Adjacent to the Lion Air and Batik Air on the ramp at El Tari Airport

Now onto leg 4.  This one would be a challenge.  We are about to go across the open ocean, 450nm straight across the Timor Sea to Darwin. Due to the lack of radio coverage, John has planned this leg at 14,000 ft, and will fly with Oxygen. All flights in N-registered aircraft above 12,500 feet for more than 30 minutes, requires the pilot to use supplemental oxygen.  The higher altitude will give us less time out of radio coverage.

We depart El Tari and turn to track more or less directly to Darwin. One of the other risks of flying in this part of the world is the lack of options if you encounter weather.  Fortunately today we are clear of any significant weather and track to my country of birth, Australia.  It dawns upon me that this would be the first time I am crewing an aircraft into an Australian airport.

Flight plan route WATT to YPDN

As part of this flight, we have to follow the Australian Department of Agriculture's cabin de-insecting procedure (Biosecurity Act 2015) which we do once en-route and again at top of descent.

Cabin Sprays

Three and a half hours later and the are on final to Darwin International runway 11.  We land a bit ahead of schedule and have to wait for the handler from Pearl Aviation and the customs and quarantine folks to arrive.  We have actually arrived on Anzac day, the commemoration of the Australian and New Zealand forces served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations.  So its a relatively quiet day, and the formalities are completed in short order.

On final Darwin

Darwin city off the right wing

The luxury of a fuel truck at Darwin

John had an urgent business matter to attend to back in Singapore, so the decision was made that I would continue the flight solo from Darwin to The Gold Coast tomorrow. So while we were enroute to Darwin John had briefed me on the planned routing and I had time to brush up on my Avidyne cockpit and S-tec autopilot skills.  I am more familiar with the G1000 and GFC-700 autopilot, but the Garmin menu's are very much the same on both.

We head into Darwin, staying at the Hilton Double Tree.  We walk into town and find a good old Aussie pub for a much appreciated good feed and a couple of Great Northern lagers.  Over dinner we went over the flight plans and I submitted my plan through the OzRunways app, the first time I had ever used it.  Hopefully when I show up at Darwin airport in the morning the flight plans will exist.

John and I walked back to the hotel, and observed some Aussies who enjoyed the Anzac Day public holiday and long pub opening hours a bit too much.  I think there may have been a few sore heads in the morning.

For all the action from day 3, click here.