April 9th

Two more workdays to go and we’re off on holiday. I’ve been looking forward to a break immensely, but the last few weeks leading up to it have rushed by and I still have much more to do than can be crammed into two days, especially with one of those days at least half-filled with flying. It’s about par for the course I suppose and no different from most other people who combine two or more jobs into one.

Over the last few months we’ve had a lot of personnel issues that have very seriously disrupted our Twin Otter crew scheduling. We knew that two pilots, one captain and one FO were leaving, but another has left permanently, one is away long term due to family health issues and with only a vague return date, one has not been trained due to family health issues and other factors and yet another has had to be taken off the training that was in process.

The consequence is that when we thought we had enough crew to fly three aircraft we are struggling to fly two. Even though I only fly a couple of days each week, my departure won’t help either. At least one aircraft is away for its avionics upgrade, but scheduling the remaining pilots is quite a challenge, especially as we try to avoid pilots being away from home for too long or too frequently.

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As part of the job pilots have to expect to be away from home regularly. Airline pilots are usually away at least 50% of their time; corporate pilots can be away longer and may not have the benefit of a schedule, being at the beck and call of the company senior management.

In comparison MAF pilots have life fairly cushy as we’re rarely away more than two nights a week, and much less than that at some bases. However, in the context of a developing country where security can be an issue, nights may be noisy and disturbed, getting basic supplies can be a challenge and so on, time away can add to the stress level for some people very considerably.

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I spent two nights in Goroka this week, helping to support the programme there as one of the pilots

was on holiday. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown in the area, which I know well from when we were based there in the early 2000s, so it was really nice to return to communities I haven’t seen in a long time. The weather was unusually good – we’ve had a lot of cloud and rain recently – which made it all the more enjoyable.

In some Eastern Highlands communities the older women often wear ‘cloaks’ made out of beaten out tree bark called tapa cloth. I’ve not seen them worn anywhere else in the country, though tree bark cloth is certainly used elsewhere.

I have great fun with my camera at the remote communities. The children love showing off and posing. Once they break the ice, the adults cautiously show interest in having their photo taken, followed by hoots of laughter and cheers when they see their face on the screen afterwards.

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Next Sunday, Easter Sunday, we’ll be in New Zealand.

Happy Easter.

See you soon!

April 2nd

Somewhat ironically flying a Twin Otter to Mareeba is a whole lot quicker than travelling commercially. The Otter plods along at 160 knots, about half what a commercial jet flies at, but it has the advantage of going direct, or nearly so and albeit with a refuelling stop en route. The route for my ferry flight on Tuesday was Mount Hagen to Horn Island in the Torres Strait, and then direct Horn Island to Mareeba, just east of Cairns.

Over last weekend we were watching what Cyclone Debbie was doing very carefully, but when it swung south of Townsville we thought the weather for the flight would be fine, and that’s what it turned out to be for the most part. There were some quite strong westerly winds and low cloud and drizzle over Horn Island made an instrument approach necessary, but it was nice before then, and very quickly nice afterwards as we continued south-easterly down the Cape York Peninsula.

Departure time from Hagen was 07:25 and arrival in Mareeba 13:05. After sorting out some business at Mareeba, Michael Vogel (whom I was flying with) and I headed off down the hill to Cairns about 60km away. Nicki was short of some groceries that weren’t in stock in Hagen so we stopped at a shopping mall where I bought as much as my overnight case would carry. In retrospect, I should have taken a larger case!

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The MAF/SIL owned motel, Tree Tops, is where I stayed overnight. It’s a very pleasant place to stay and it gave me a chance to catch up with a few people. The Axons are there at the moment with Stephen appearing very lively and well after his scald, which is healing well but he needs to wear a compression suit for 18 months to minimise scarring. Brad Venter, our Crew Training Manager and somebody I work very closely with, was on holiday there with his family, and then I had the chance to meet some other folk who will be coming to PNG in due course and who were attending the orientation training that was in progress.

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Arriving in Australia after months in PNG there’s always a bit of a double-take when you realise the roads don’t have potholes in them and the infrastructure works. However, the TV news was full of the havoc the cyclone was causing further south and how it was doing so much damage.

It was literally an overnight stop in Cairns before heading home. All the flights and connections went well and my flight was only 30 minutes late landing in Hagen. I wondered for a while whether we’d get in as there was a lot of cloud around. The pilot manoeuvred the aircraft very smoothly and gently and eventually found a large enough break to let down through, so a return trip and overnight in Moresby was avoided.

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A new hard drive for my computer had been delivered to Mareeba for me to collect. The old one was showing a fault and had a warning statement that “it needed to be fixed”. I had carefully backed everything up so over Wednesday and Thursday evenings I cloned all the applications and data on to the new drive. The fact that I’m typing this indicates that the operation was successful!

I’ve just about finished a project to get digital copies of all our Duncalfes’ Diaries dating back to the first issue. The software we used to write them in the 1990s has long since disappeared and it is difficult to find a way to convert the old files to a modern format. I’ve scanned all those old ones but they don’t look so pristine as if they were an original file, but it’s better than not having them at all.

Duncalfes’ Diaries, the complete works, from 1994 to the present, is now available! Some people have suggested that we write our memoires sometime, but I have a strong feeling it will never get beyond this compilation as I have little inclination to write a book.

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Only ten days until we go on holiday.

The countdown has begun and we’ll soon start getting some of our things together.