To Phi-Phi Islands

It's a real privilege flying a microlite in Phuket - flying trikes here is great fun and there's lots to see. So, on 27th January 2010, my friend Michael and I decided to go and take a peek at Koh Phi-Phi ("Koh" is Thai for "island"). Michael is a pretty good movie cameraman and has a very swish Canon video camera - once I get some decent edits I'll post them here.

We lifted our wheels at 16.50 hours, aided by fairly light winds - about 2 or 3 mph at 1,000 feet; there was a bit of incipient (but developing) cumulus around which caused us a few bumps but nothing to worry about. The air temperature was very warm and at 1,000 feet we had 29 deg C (about 84 F).

We headed off on 130 degrees and were going to be over water for most of the trip. Phi-Phi is about 25 miles from my home strip and so it was going to take about 20 minutes to get there. Phi-Phi is a particularly beautiful pair of islands and lies in the famous "Phang Nga" Bay. Phi-Phi Don to the North has several hotels and bungalows on it and is frequented by upper-middle-class Tarquins and Rebeccas on their "gap" year. Phi-Phi Ley to the South is uninhabited but full of tourists in high season - Tarquin and Rebecca can be seen here too in droves. I've been to Phi-Phi many times on my boat and so I was very familiar with all its bays and coves.

After a few minutes we saw Koh Gai ("Chicken Island": 7* 53' 31" N / 98* 30' 53" E) and thought we'd orbit to take some snaps. Koh Gai is very popular with day-trippers who sit on the beach and buy food/drinks at vastly inflated prices from the monopolistic Thai vendors - it's often packed with local speedboats and is a place I've always avoided on my boat. They've even built a hideous array of water features now in dayglo green - see bottom-right of island. However, from the air it looked exquisite:

As we pressed on to Phi-Phi, which by now we could see through the haze, I noticed that some of the puffy cumulus were starting to develop "heads" and so I made a mental note to keep an eye on these. I can check wind-speed on my Tanarg's "Enigma" screen and we were now getting around 6 or 7 mph at 1,000 feet. We were still getting bounced around a little but again, nothing to worry about.

As Phi-Phi grew larger, so did the turbulence and as we got South-West of Phi-Phi Ley, we were getting tossed around with a degree of discomfort. There was nothing to threaten the safety of the flight but in my (limited) experience, when winds are picking up, they normally get worse before they get better. We took some shots of the island and I especially wanted to get shots of Maya Bay (7* 40' 23" N / 98* 45' 54" E) - this provided the location for the movie "The Beach", starring Leonardo di Caprio. I really wanted to get some overhead shots of the actual beach but the winds were still picking up and when I glanced at my screen (number 4), I saw we now had 16 mph at 1,000 feet.

Here's Phi-Phi Ley - the entrance to Maya Bay is in the centre where the boats are anchored and you can see the wind-lines in the water:

As we headed back home I noticed some large, tall and dark cumulus clouds brewing to the North - it was a simple matter to circumnavigate them without much inconvenience but I felt glad that I'd decided to turn back when I did. There were also a number of showers dotted around the place, clearly visible. Passing over Koh Gai again, the wind was now 15 mph where it had been 7 mph on our way out, the direction had also changed and all this spelled unstable conditions! About a mile from the airfield we hit an up-draft and when I glanced at my variometer, I saw 750 feet/min rate of climb with the bar neutral - the clouds were now certainly working their magic!

The wind sock was gusting about a little so I made a very short circuit and landed about 30 deg cross-wind in around 10 mph. As usual, it was a "Royal Flight" standard of landing!

It was a very enjoyable flight of 1 hour and 10 minutes and I felt we'd done everything correctly. I'm sure I could have continued to get the overhead shots of Maya in safety but hey, what's the hurry?

Now I'll have to go back and do it all over again - what a pisser!

Flying with my daughter Joanna

One of the great pleasures for a new trike pilot is to be able to take friends and family up for a trip. I hadn't done much of this since re-qualifying as a pilot and so it was a precious moment when my daughter Joanna and her fiance Alex visited us for Christmas. This was the first time I'd ever flown with a member of my family.

I first took Joanna (pictured above - the camera never lies Jo-Jo!) and Alex for a very gentle trip each - sticking close to the field at Phuket Airpark and staying below 1,000 feet. The winds were very light and there was virtually no movement whatsoever in the air. Also, I flew very gently - I've never understood why some pilots like to scare their passengers shitless; it could put them off for life. If your passengers want you to go faster/lower/higher "G", they'll tell you!

Alex took this landing video from the back seat:

Since they both loved the experience, Joanna and I decided to make a longer voyage the following evening - Alex was scheduled to play golf instead.

We'd filed our flight plan (we have to do this due to our proximity to the International Airport) and our wheels lifted around 17.00 - dusk is around 18.25 at this time of year so we had a comfortable 75 minutes. Joanna was amazed when we lifted off. It seems she was so used to riding on the back of my motorbike and with the "mental prompt" of putting on a crash helmet, she thought she was on a bike. So when the wheels lifted off she screamed "it's like we're flying!". I told her "it's not like we're flying - we are flying". We climbed to 1,000 ft on the QNH and I spoke to Phuket Tower and told them we were up, heading South and squawking 4500 on the transponder. Luckily they didn't bother us at all for the remainder of the flight - seems my ATC banter is putting them at ease!

My house (white building slightly right of centre) from Chalong Bay, looking North.

The wind was non-existent and the ambient temperature was 29 deg C (about 84 F) at our cruising height of 500 - 1,000'. We headed over Phuket Town and got a great view of the small hills which are scattered in and around the city; you can see the central mountainous spine that runs North/South in the background:

From here we flew over Chalong Bay and its many small boats at anchor, towards the setting sun:

You can just about see the "Big Buddha" on the peak, slightly to the right of centre. From here we flew down Rawii Beach to the viewpoint at Promthep Cape - a favourite spot for hundreds of tourists who gather here every evening to watch the sunset. Jo-Jo and I now took-on "Rock Star" status as we flew along the crowds at their eye-level height - we saw hundreds of camera flashes going off each time we made a pass - the price of fame I guess.

A short hop from here was the beautiful beach at Haiharn and again we got the attention of the tourists - remember, nobody has ever seen a trike flying over Phuket before! We now made for Kata Beach where there are 3 or 4 bars on a cliff face where boozing tourists sit and watch the sun go down over a cool beer or (their signature drink), a Long Island Iced Tea. Again, a lot of flashes and waves but then, we were posing shamelessly. We made several passes here at the same level as the bars - about 500 feet, then went to beat-up a few large yachts moored in the bays around Kata and Karon's beaches - again we attracted waves from the Gin Palace occupants; the super-rich who migrate to Phuket for Yule. Continuing around the coast we made a pass down Patong Beach where we got great views of the orange, sun-burnt and tattooed yob's who choose to holiday in this seedy little dump. This place used to be wonderful and someone really needs to sort it out!

By now the light was starting to fade so we headed for home - we planned to take a short-cut by heading East through a gap in the mountainous spine at Karon, a col just to the South of the Big Buddha. We had to keep to our ATC-prescribed 1,000 feet and as the ground rose up we were probably about 300 ' agl (above ground level) at its highest point. We dived down the other side, shot across Chalong Bay at 90 mph (with the bar held-in a little!) and back over Phuket Town. I couldn't resist a slight detour over the Royal Phuket Marina and the Boat Lagoon (two grotty marinas accessed by a very narrow/shallow channel that's never dredged so owners ground their hulls and foul their skin-fittings in the silt that lines the channel) before swinging East to the Airpark.

We flew a quick "extended" circuit around Cape Yamu (above) that borders the Airpark and made an uneventful landing in zero wind. We then put Little Nellie to bed and retired to the bar - me for a cold Singha beer and a G&T for Joanna..... I must get a mini-bar installed.

It was my best flight yet in Little Nellie - a perfect trip.

Taking Nellie home for the first time - Leg 2

During the refueling at Chumphorn we'd dropped a 12-inch plastic tube into the fuel tank. The tube had been fixed (badly by me) to a Mr Funnel and simply dropped in. We'd never get it out in Chumphon so Alasdair reckoned it'd be OK to fly our second leg with the tube dancing around. I felt differently since I thought the tube was made of polythene and knew that petrol/polythene was a corrosive combination. We got it out the next day in Phuket and no damage had been done to the pipe!

Anyway, after staring gloomily at the horizontal and buffeting wind sock, going to the toilet fifteen times and having visions of plasticky silt moving up my fuel lines and into the jets, we dressed for leg 2. This time we wore no gloves and I got rid of my fleece as I planned to fly a little lower (warmer) and the day was heating up. I taxied for an intersection departure - in this wind we'd only need a few metres and I reckoned that the nearer to the sea we got airborne, the less rotor we'd get from ground obstacles and that had been an issue on our approach. All that stuff about "the runway behind you is no use...blah...blah...blah" is total crap - Nellie does not need 1,000 metres in a 12 knot head-wind (or in a 12 knot tail-wind for that matter) and I believe that if I'd taken-off from the end of the runway I'd have encountered very nasty rotor turbs.

Wheels lifted-off runway 60 at 13.31 hrs and we were on our way. Good rate-of-climb courtesy of the wind and I made a turn to 190 at about 400 feet. As soon as we crossed the coast (after about a minute) all the turbs stopped and the air was smooth again; I began my climb to 4,500 feet and watched the oil temperature with interest - I made a slightly shallow/fast climb to keep the airflow working the oil cooler. We set Surat Thani on the GPS and relaxed into the cruise - the viz was a bit better and the beach was interesting to watch on our journey South - many things going on like fishing, construction, forrestry, etc.

We had a rather inaudible conversation with Surat Thani ATC and headed South-West to cross the isthmus South of the Burmese border - we were now getting pretty close to Phuket and I had no strong desire for a slash. Things were looking good.

We were now heading sort-of up-sun with a fair amount of moisture in the air and this amounted to fairly poor visibility which is a pity since the run down the valley towards Phang Nga with it's spectacular limestone "cathedrals" is spectacular from the road, let alone from the sky. Ah well, there'll be plenty of other opportunities since this is now in my "back yard" - in flying terms. We did see a rather nice Budhist temple ("Wat" in Thai) near Phang Nga with a wonderful golden Buddha perched atop a hill:

This isn't the best picture but it gives an idea of the haze - I'll go back and photograph all these sights when the conditions are better.

Heading SW gave us a real kick up the backside in the form of a 12 mph tailwind. This was very welcome as the fuel was starting to become a very minor issue if we'd needed to divert for any reason or, if we'd needed to circumnavigate a few of the larger cumuliform clouds that were now starting to pop up. With the tailwind and the mountains came the rotor turbulence and we picked up some extra bumps from the clouds - nothing was alarming, after all we had dropped to about 2,000 ft on the QNH to get under the clouds and so, you can't reasonably expect it to be too smooth at this height in the mid-afternoon.

After a couple of failed line-of-sight attempts, we managed to contact Phuket Control and our lady was a most capable controller. She asked us to drop to 1,500 feet and report Koh Yao Noi (a small island/reporting point to the East of Phuket) - we could now see the islands of Phang Nga Bay and James Bond Island where Roger Moore despatched the three-nippled "Scaramanga" in The Man with the Golden Gun - just about the nadir of Bond films but great shots of Phang Nga Bay.

Now we were on the home straight and we were feeling good; it was soon after 4 pm and I was in very familiar territory. Whilst I had never flown in or around Phuket, I did know the islands fairly well from boat trips I'd made to Phang Nga Bay - the 4-peaked Koh Phanak stood-out very clearly to me. We flew to the reporting point of Koh Yao Noi and were told to report finals at Phuket Airpark - this was great news as we weren't going to get vectored around the houses - remember, Phuket International is a very busy airport! There's something really special about flying over familiar ground/water for the first time - you know what it looks like from your car but can only imagine what it's like from the air then, when you see it from the air, it's nothing like you'd imagined it to be! Therefore, it was after a little debate that we located the Airpark and I flew over the runway for the first of many times to check the wind sock - it indicated about 5 kts across the runway but slightly favoured 13 over 31.

I flew a pretty tight circuit with only minor bumps and lined her up for the better patch of grass which was half-way down 13 and on the left side. The landing was pretty good (even if I say so myself) and I considered it important to set a precedent for me and Nellie's new "home" field. Robert Suchart (the owner of Phuket Airpark) was waiting for us with 3 cold beers apiece and we opened these without delay.

I looked at my Enigma timer and saw the trip had taken me 2 hrs and 52 mins - EXACTLY the same time as the first leg! Alasdair and I had enjoyed the trip but, we were also glad to get out and take another slash.

Taking Nellie home for the first time - Leg 1

Since Tanya is now due to give birth to our son on 17th December, I thought I should bring Little Nellie back to Phuket (from Pattaya - about 400 miles), as soon as I could. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to escape to Pattaya for at least a month or two and that would mean, NO flying :(

I went to EFC (Pattaya) last Friday 29 Nov and sat through a week of very high winds. Dawn and dusk were flyable (and pretty choppy) but one hour either side saw winds gusting 15 or 20; direction varied greatly too. One morning we had calm conditions on the runway and 27 Kts at 500 ft !

I was running out of time and decided to make the trip, virtually whatever the weather, on Sunday 6th December. My friend and ex-instructor Alasdair had agreed to do the trip with me (he's done it before) so, we gave Nellie her 50-hour check and prepared our maps. We decided to make a fuel/rest stop in Chumphon, about the half-way point and, Alasdair would fly the first leg from Pattaya to Chumphon and I'd fly the second to Phuket.

We got up early on the 6th and met at the airfield at 06.45. I signed us out and we then dressed in insulated flying suits and gloves - this is pretty unusual for Thailand where the surface temperature is around 30-33 deg C. We therefore sweated a lot before our wheels lifted at precisely 07.31 and we climbed out to our Gulf-crossing height of 6,500 feet. The heat trapped inside our layers quickly dissipated as we climbed to our cruising height, where the ambient temperature plummeted to an Arctic 13 deg C. I appreciate 13 is a luxury for some European flyers but we're used to shorts/t-shirts/sandals in all our flying below 1,000 feet - OK, so we're softies.

I've never been wild about flying single-engined machines over water and our trip began with 70-or-so miles of sea; across the Gulf of Siam. We made our 6,500 feet, set course for around 260 degrees and immediately found ourselves in an unexpected head-wind of about 12 knots - this gave us about 56 mph on the GPS's groundspeed and we'd expected a small tail-wind ...... bugger.

This setback had two implications: firstly it meant more time over the sea but much more importantly, within 20 mins of departure, despite taking all possible precautions, I was now busting for a piss with at least 2 hours to go. I considered everything from meditation to relieving myself in my seat and couldn't figure how this could have happened. I'd had one cup of tea at 5 a.m. and several visits to the toilet before dressing into my flight gear at about 07.00 - I can only put it down to nerves and/or cold air.

I'd noticed the oil temperature climbing to higher levels than I'd seen before as we maintained our climb; it went to about 120 then stabilized. Alasdair reckoned this was normal and after all, we were two-up, fully-laden with fuel and a few odds-and-sods on board. The Tanarg used to suffer from high oil temps when it first came out until they moved the oil cooler to its current location - obviously this move worked since we were on MAUW and the ground temperature was about 30 deg C ..... she was being flogged!

Fuel was getting burned-up quicker than I'd planned but we did have 65 litres on board for what was planned to be a 2 hrs 30 mins leg - we were burning 14 l.p.h. ish in the cruise. After a while we called "Land-Ho" as the high-rise-hotel-scarred coast of Hua Hin came into view; everything was hazy throughout the trip. The Hua Hin controllers can get a little nervous if you fly too close to their city since it's the residence of His Majesty The King Of Thailand and all that 9-11 stuff has put the world on edge. We therefore swung South and followed the coast (East coast of Thailand) which would be our guide for the next 250 miles or so. We were squawking on the transponder and talking to Hua Hin when they handed us to Prachuap Control - they'd obviously opted for an early lunch and didn't talk to us - it was a Sunday after all.

By now my bladder was causing some major discomfort and when I let it focus my mind (big mistake but hard to avoid) I found myself sweating a little. I then decided that sweat and spitting could serve to dehydrate me and that would have to be a good thing for my bladder - this is probably medical rubbish but it made sense to me at the time and, I reckoned it worked. I remembered reading a philosopher's words: "nothing focusses the mind like a pending execution or a full bladder" - wise words indeed.

We passed down the East of Sahm Roi Yot ("300 peaks") and wondered at how insignificant a "range" it actually is - Alasdair's from the Highlands of Scotland and so is a little biased! After a while we started talking to Chumphon Tower (Approach had a rather unreliable radio) and they vectored us in to "06-left" and warned us to be cautious of strong winds of 12 knots but gusting stronger. Needless to say our cruise so far had been turbulent-free at 6,500 - 4,000 feet but now, down at 1,000 and descending, this picture altered somewhat and the constant jarring made my bladder wince. Alasdair bravely fought the controls whilst I courageously fought the urge to piss myself, he then put her down surprisingly smoothly on the runway and fast-taxied in very gusty winds to the tie-down point. We noticed during the taxi that we needed 3,200 rpm to make the thing move into wind - we were sure we had a puncture and thought it couldn't possibly be the wind. After tie-down we felt the rear wheels and they were very hot - obviously the brakes had heated during the long taxi and had expanded to bind a little; these would need slackening-off before the long taxi back out.

My ground-crew (Khun A) had driven my car down from Pattaya to Chumphon the previous day so he could meet us with food, water and petrol (there aint many facilities at some Thai airports). He greeted me as I got out of the rear seat and I almost knocked him over as I sprinted for the terminal building where I guessed there'd be a toilet. Words cannot describe the euphoric relief of dumping several gallons of urine that had been such an unwelcome passenger for the past 2 hours. The flow continued for several minutes before stopping - within ten minutes I was back for another "DamBuster".

Anyway, leg 1 was over and it had taken 2 hours and 52 minutes. Lessons learned so far?

1. Never drink within several weeks of a long flight!

2. Get some better GPS in my trike. We used Alasdair's Garmin 296 as our main weapon - the Enigma GPS is difficult to use and is generally a pain with gloved hands. In fact I'm generally rather disappointed with the Enigma.

3. I'd wisely programmed all my radio frequencies for the trip into the Becker radio - this was a good move since gloved hands are tricky.

Little Nellie at Chumphon - Khun A (seated with white shirt) centre, Alasdair standing right and airport ground crew on concrete weight.

My microlight - from the beginning ....

.... there was my last BLOG (http://mikeflyinginphuket.blogspot.com/) which sets out the history of:

i) How I imported my Air Creation Tanarg into Thailand

ii) How I got my PPL in Thailand

It's a pretty dull read to anyone who doesn't have a direct interest in either of these two subjects.

This new BLOG is designed to describe the fun and thrills of flying in this beautiful country (and who knows? ........ maybe some bordering countries too) and should be a far more entertaining read. I realize I've just set myself up for ridicule with this implied claim.

My mount, "Little Nellie" HS-YES, is a new Air Creation Tanarg 912 ES with the Hors Piste wheels/brakes and an iXess 13 wing (13.5 sq m). She's also fitted with the Stratomaster Enigma glass screen. Here she is on my 53rd birthday (10 Sep 09) when I first flew her in Pattaya, Thailand:

Microlighting (microlite flying) in Phuket will now become a regular way for me to pass some time here - I'm always available to take people for rides and if they'd like to find out more - mikegillam@hotmail.co.uk

Chocs away