Strewth! That was some flight.
I decided to go straight up through the Philippines and bypass Indonesia after leaving Papua/New Guinea. I'll come through Bali etc. on the way back home. Papua and West Papua was this vast and endless sea of trees. You can understand people deciding to log areas because they would think they'll never get through it all. But, anyway...
I flew up through the islands in the south of the Philippines. Thousands of them. Beautiful little villages and nice beaches. We can get the Australian pension there for six months. $27 a night for a gorgeous bamboo (two storey) bungalow. Hmmm...
So I landed in Manilla yesterday afternoon and took off this morning for Taggat on the far north coast of the big island - about 460 km. The weather in the Philippines is horrendous. I flew into huge storms from the start and the ATC began asking me to climb to 10,000 feet. There are mountains to cross but 10k is a bit extreme. I followed their instruction and began the long climb but it was tough.
I'd get to about 7,000 ft in the teeth of this storm and a wind sheer would throw me down 500 ft instantly. I was at full throttle but I'd keep losing height and the plane would threaten to stall. And every 30 seconds this bloody ATCer would be telling me to climb to 10k ft. You could tell he was pissed off. I wanted to get on the mic and tell him to come and fly the bloody thing himself but I couldn't find the mic and I had my hands full anyway - fighting this storm. My co-pilot Shirley had passed out after vomiting so she was useless but I eventually was able to turn off the radio. They could come and shoot me down if they like. I didn't care.
The camera movement during this rollercoaster ride was impressive - giving you the feeling of being tossed around. I have the controller vibrations on but there wasn't any jolting through that which is a bit disappointing.
I'm flying 500 km over the ocean to Taiwan next to see what all the fuss is about. I'm going to try some dead reckoning with the HUD turned off using direction, air speed and time. I'll see how close to my destination I can get.
