Malinau, Kalimantan (Borneo), Indonesia

So... In the last few weeks, since my last base Medan, lots of things happened : I upgraded to the left seat of the C208. I had a week conversion course to captain in Pangandaran (west Java), where our company training center is located. Now I'm beginning first flights with passengers in my new base Balikpapan (East Borneo).

Below are a few of the pictures I took last few weeks...

Left and Right : Susi Air Piaggio Avanti in Pangandaran Nusawiru airport.

Left and Right : En route Pangandaran to Jakarta...

Left : Taking off from Pangandaran "beach strip".

Right : Company restaurant in Pangandaran.

Left and Right : Aerial views in the vicinity of Pangandaran Nusawiru Airport.

Left : My days as cojo are over, now you can call me "captain" loool.

Right : PK-VVH, the VIP config C208 in Nusawiru. Like out of a comic book :)

Some extra picts from this morning ...

I'm now back where it all started, my first base as copilot and my last as well... : Medan.

Here are the result of a day of flying (never without my camera) :

"Otto" best pilot of the three ... Glass cockpit, its shiny, we like it !

She's seen better days ... PK-BVA's butt, she knows she's hot !

Night Vision Google Ops ... Early Departure ...

This blog is not dead... Well it is almost I admit. Posting is a lot of work for a lazy pilot. Sorry.

So I post here and now a few pictures just so that I can repeat myself : " this blog isn't dead".

Pictures below were taken during my last Papua tour about a month and a half ago :

Ilaga (Papua) local dudes posing for me. Sister and brother or ... ?

Refueling (Kupang, Timor) Still refueling, same place.

Another Ilaga dude...

And some picts from my last one month holidays in France (ending now, I'm taking off from Paris tomorrow afternoon):

Capitainerie St-Tropez. Balise entree port St-Tropez.

Yachts in St-Tropez... Winchs on a yacht.

Yachts in St-Tropez.

Hope you enjoy these picts, using my brand new camera and learning to use photoshop, I'm proud of some of those picts :D lol

So just 10 more days in Papua before my holidays.

I've been flying all over the place in Papua, it's has been very nice, I've been sharpening my pilot skills a lot, flying in that very challenging environment; It's has also been a very good opportunity to discover people, tribes and places that I would have never been visiting otherwise.

I feel so fortunate to be here.

We commonly fly to remote mountain places where no roads go and where a bush plane is the only way to transport there food, hardware and materials. These people are barely civilized, still half naked, wearing bow and arrows and living a very simple bush/jungle/mountain style life. Some of these tribes have been reached by civilization just a few years ago, they probably are one of the few last people on earth discovered very recently and still living the ancient way... But not for long as we fly them cement bags, corrugated iron, power-tools, generators and fuel, canned food and lots of "civilized" stuff. Some places we even fly huge caterpillar bulldozers piece by piece, in many flights as our typical load is usually limited to around a ton or less(the caravan could load almost 2 tons in the optimum conditions). They're going to lose their tribal ways soon for sure sooner or later. I am happy to witness them and their ancient way of life, before its gone.

Otherwise, I had some adventures coming my way in Wamena lately : first a battery blew up on the fuel cart while refueling... It's so noisy I actually thought the fuel exploded at first ! a bit scary. About a week later, same place, a gunfight took place a few meters away from the apron and us : Local people attacking the police station (which is very much located on the edge of our apron) to free one member of their tribe. Scary as well, police were shooting their big ass automatic rifle in front of us, protecting us and the plane as well as their police station and eventually they made us take off in a hurry as it was becoming really unsafe. Last Wamena adventure was a flat tire upon landing there (on the pict it's completely flat but we landed with still some air in it) ...

Enjoy these pictures, I hope to share a bit of my adventures and experiences with you this way.

Left & Right : Derakma airstrip, very high, remote, extreme changes in slope runway, high mountains on all sides : very challenging ! People there are the kind of tribal people I was speaking of.

Left : Old, broken looking woman.

Right : Rainbow in Wamena & Deraya traffic landing

Left : Bad luck... Wamena

Right : Singing and dancing women in Kwijawagi (8700ft high airstrip by the way)

Left : No comments...

Right : Under protection of the police !

Left : My good friends :)

Right : I've got a fan in the bush (note the France Tshirt)

Left : People actually staring at me !

Right : Antonov 12. And inside 5 russians to pilot it. When that thing takes off it leaves behind an eco-friendly looking trail of black smoke... Russian style !