Some years ago, it may have been the year
that Princess Diana died, the Queen described the year in her Christmas message
as an “Anno horribilis”, a horrible
year. 2017 seems to be determined to be MAF PNG’s Anno horribilis.
From the end of October 2016 to the present
there has been an ongoing sequence of events, some within MAF’s control, but
for the most part not, that have prevented us functioning effectively in our
flight operations.
There have been medical issues, usually for
wives, that have meant pilots have had to return home, or delayed their return.
Nicki’s and my situation is a case in point. My Senior Pilot for the Twin Otter,
whom I rely on heavily for providing technical and operational support, and who
is an essential part of our training and checking team, has been away since
early in the year. Fortunately, he is returning early August.
Another pilot’s wife had a difficult
pregnancy. Fortunately, as well, all is turning out well and some very serious
concerns for the baby seem to be resolving.
Stephen Axon’s scald is still taking the
Axon family away periodically, though he is making good progress.
There have been several other unpredictable
events too.
This week I flew on Monday and was
operationally current again, though needing to do some instrument flying, which
fitted very well into a programme scheduled for Wednesday. On Wednesday, while
doing the daily inspection, I found there was an outstanding maintenance item
that Engineering had overlooked. The outcome was that the aircraft was grounded
while it was sorted out and the programme was put to tomorrow, Monday. The
pilot who was due to fly with me was on holiday, but he replied to an email to
say that the arrangements were fine. All well and good.
This afternoon he sent a message through to
say that his Air Niugini flight out of Cairns was, “delayed indefinitely”. The
outcome, tomorrow’s programme won’t happen and there’s no opportunity to
reschedule it later in the week. In the meantime, customers are understandably
frustrated and our reputation is dismal.
I can’t even use our simulator to do some
instrument flying practice. Somebody told me that it wasn’t working properly,
and when I investigated I found that it couldn’t reasonably be used for logging
instrument flight. With unexpected time on the ground at least I’ve initiated a
process of getting the machine repaired and upgraded at the same time, but that
will be weeks before it’s completed.
Welcome back to PNG! The Land of the Unexpected!
************
PNG has been in the throes of its general
election, as I made comment about last week. The Mount Hagen area was due to
vote on Tuesday, but due to reports of too many ballot papers, or too few, or
arguments about the electoral role, and ballot papers that were already
pre-marked, the voting was put off until Thursday, or maybe Friday, or even
next week after national polling was officially over. There were also reports
of intimidation by supporters of some of the candidates, making sure people
voted the way they were directed.
In the end, some districts in the Hagen
area voted on Thursday, and Hagen town, somewhat unexpectedly, on Saturday. I
didn’t hear of any problems in the voting process, so we’ll have to see what
happens during the counting and declaration processes.
Welcome back to PNG! The Land of the Unexpected!
************
Writing manuals is not the most fascinating
of jobs, but nonetheless it is an essential part of good organisation. Two of
our Twin Otters have had a major avionics upgrade over the last couple of years
and work is now just about complete on the second one. All being well it will
be flown back to PNG from Mareeba at the end of this coming week.
With new equipment, new procedures have to
be written so that there’s a standard way of using it, and what to do if it
doesn’t work properly is also documented. On Thursday and Friday I worked from
home and made some good progress. Quite a lot of reading up has been necessary,
some of which I’d started while in the UK, and also consulting with avionics
specialists in Mareeba to resolve questions on how the systems worked.
Drafts have been sent off to colleagues for
their input and one section to those responsible for the oversight of our whole
manual system, known as our exposition. As tomorrow’s programme is not going to
happen I’ll probably take another day working from home and finish the job
completely.
Returning to the rather gloomy start to this
letter, and taking a quote from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians completely out
of context (I’m not aware of him saying anything directly about flight
operations and writing manuals), I am trying to make the most of every
opportunity because the days are evil.
************
Both Nicki and I now have smartphones. Yay!
Better late into the 21st Century than not at all. I have Philip’s
old one that he donated to the cause of upgrading his parents. Nicki has
recently bought her own.
I still have no interest in using it for
email, but WhatsApp is a brilliant application that really helps communication
when we’re on opposite sides of the planet. Philip has posted some lovely
pictures and video of Rosalie; Nicki has sent some photos through (I won’t say
what of, but they were selfies and to do with her operation 😀), and I’ve been able to show her the nicely trimmed hedge –
yesterday’s task in the garden.
It’s also been nice to have a chat every
evening; with the phone on speaker it means we can get on with other things but
keep chatting at the same time. Nonetheless, tomorrow is already two weeks
since I left the UK and being apart for ten weeks, as is the case at the
moment, is not acceptable. I hope that this week we’ll be able to put some
plans together to either have Nicki return here, or me to go back to the UK.
************
It’s time to go. Brandon and Sharlene, our
next door neighbours, have invited people around for a game of bowling on their
Wii. This is round two, following up on another recent afternoon’s competition,
and much hilarity is anticipated.
Have a great week.
