5:30 My alarm goes off. I get up, try to eat my breakfast very quietly, without waking the boys on the other side of our thin wooden inside wall.
6:15 Arrive at hangar and start my preflight inspection. Apply sunscreen and fill up my 2 1-liter water bottles. Flying in the swampy lowlands you get exposed to a lot of sun and you drink a lot of water, since you're sweating even before the propeller has stopped turning.
6:45 Check in with our flight follower at the radio to see if she has heard from any of the villages what the weather is (they haven't come on the radio to give a weather report). I call some of our other pilots who are already airborne to the mountains to see what they see from 10,000 ft. "You've got lots of layers but there's some holes," comes back the report. Armed with this most current weather report, I go see our passengers...
7:00 ...except our local village passenger aren't here yet :) We have a window of 30 minutes to call the tower with our current slot time restrictions. Hopefully the passengers will show, otherwise we'll have to apply for our next available slot time (11:00).
7:20 Passengers arrive, we weigh the extra baggage they brought this morning, tell them to leave some behind, and load them in the plane.
7:29 Having finished briefing the passengers and checking all doors and fuel caps one last time, I hurriedly climb in the airplane and call the tower for clearance to start my engine and cross my fingers hoping that we didn't just miss our slot time!
7:30 Having obtained clearance to start my engine, I relax. We're on our way. We made it.
7:45 After starting and waiting to interject my two cents on the busy radio frequency, I finally received clearance to taxi to the other end of the runway behind 2 Boeing 737's and several other commercial operators. We move slowly waiting our turns since the first wave of flights which left at 06:00 are all arriving back to Sentani at the same time it seems. The big commercial flights from other parts of Indonesia are in a holding pattern, also trying to land.
8:00 I'm off the ground, cleared for a quick left turn and on course to my first destination. My fancy avionics are showing aircraft in the air all around me. Air Traffic Control is doing a very good job busily directing all of us in such a manner to maintain a smooth flow of traffic in and out of Sentani.
8:30 60 miles from Sentani I get handed over to a self-announce frequency and the chatter in my headset subsides and I finally have some peace and quiet. I tune my other radio in to contact Yajasi to obtain more current weather at my destination. No weather reported yet.
9:00 30 miles from Dofu. There's a unbroken white blanket of clouds below me. Dofu says they see blue sky but I'm having a hard time believing it right now.
9:15 According to the GPS we're two miles from Dofu. I'm right above the clouds, there's a couple small holes not big enough for an airplane to descend through. I'm heading for the river knowing the clouds are usually thinnest there. The GPS shows me right where the river is. I pop over a white cloud and sure enough there's a break in the clouds right over the river. There seems to be plenty of room underneath the clouds and I can even see the runway. I pull power to idle, wait for my speed to decay and drop the flaps. I'm descending steadily while still ready to climb away if the clouds are lower than expected.
9:18 A quick call to home base to let them know I'm landing, while I line up with the runway in Dofu. Made of red dirt, the runway is level for the first 1/2 and then slopes up to more than 18%. I touch down gently but keep the power right where it is. The hill fills the windscreen and a second later we're facing the clouds as the plane charges up the hill, I add lots of power, not letting up until we're at the top.
9:22 The engine ticks down and the villagers approach from every side. I hop out to greet people and shake hands. I open the doors, let the passengers out and hop up in the plane to untie the cargo. Next I unload the cargo out of the wingpods, while constantly tripping over little kids who are crowding as close to the plane as possible.
9:35. Having unloaded I try to figure out how many people want to fly back to Sentani. After much discussion its decided that 3 passengers, I mean 2, I mean 4, I mean 1 and yep, I guess it's 3 passengers after all.
10:00 I've installed some more seats, secured the cargo and am ready for the next leg. A 10 minute flight to Turumo. A runway I had to close last week because it was so muddy it was getting dangerous to operate in and out of there. I've heard the villagers have put in 500+ man hours into fixing the runway.
10:15 I make a low pass over the Turumo runway, taking a close look at all the work that's been done in the last week. Looks really good. I climb out, turn around and land. The airplane tracks surprisingly straight down the runway. I'm not thrashing through mud puddles that pull me right and left like last week.
10:30 After a quick chat with the missionaries and praising the villagers for all the hard work they put into the runway, I'm off again this time for Obokwi.
11:10 Circling over Obokwi, I look at my runway chart again. They say they have 6 passengers and 200 kilos of produce. The runway is short and the runway chart calls for a 200kg reduction in weight on takeoff. With my current fuel load, that's just possible.
11:40 I start the engine again. Now with 9 passengers on board. One lady looks like she is about to give birth and they're heading to a hospital in the nearby town. Things go surprisingly smooth here. I'm sweating so bad my sweat is dripping down my forehead all over my sunglasses. I guess I'll go without for now.
11:45 Right as I'm adding power for takeoff I hear the lady in the back scream. I look back and see she's in a lot of pain and going into labor. I ask the passenger next to me whether we should stop or go. He says, "Go!" I'm not so sure, but I guess it's only 15 minutes, there's a hospital in the next town and most likely the reason she was going there in the first place was because of complications.
11:50 I call ahead to Kasonoweja to make sure an ambulance is there. Kasonoweja is a small town in the interior, but it is also the capital for this region and because of that they have a hospital and ambulance.
12:05 I shut down in Kasonoweja and see the ambulance coming already (that's a pleasant surprise!). Let's make sure he doesn't hit the airplane in his rush. The lady is still screaming every few minutes. The nurses in the ambulance are very efficient and they whisk the lady in labor to the hospital, along with her family.
12:45 Dripping with sweat. Having just fueled 200 liters into the plane from a fuel drum with a hand crank. Written several receipts and having counted out approximately 150 bills in our local currency to make sure I'm paid right. I'm ready to head home with a full load (9) of passengers.
12:55 I climb out, the fans in the plane are blowing at top speed, yet not making much of a difference. My radar is on and confirming what my eyes are seeing, thunderstorms all around me. I head north for the coast, weaving left and right around tall cumulonimbus which seem to be growing faster than I can climb. The temperature, though, is going down as we climb up to 9,500 feet.
13:15 Cruising at 9,500, I'm right on the north edge of a long line of thunderstorms, but from what I'm hearing, I should have a fairly straight shot to Sentani. Time for lunch....
13:30 Paperwork almost done. No autopilot on this airplane. I write a word or two on my paper and see that we're now turning left. I correct. Look down and write a couple numbers...now we're turning right. I smile at my passengers, they smile back nervously...who is this pilot?...he can't even keep the airplane straight.
14:00 The engine ticks down. The passengers deplane and the loaders unload the cargo. I'm done for today....O wait, yes, paperwork.
15:00 After making a nice packet of all the tickets I wrote, lists of passengers I flew and their weights...and recounting all 150 bills of money... I mean 149, am i really short $10...count it again..149...150....I turn everything in and head home. Just another day at the office. Minus a couple liters of sweat.
