Tempestuous

Moody Blues

The sea is restless. She heaves, she groans, she sighs temperamentally. Her swells rise to pensive peaks, then fall to inconsolable troughs. Then she begins again, as if in pursuit of an ever unanswerable question.
 

The winds are stronger. I hear of double digit wind speeds, coming from the North-East. I look at the velocity strip on my displays with mild suspicion, as I have to remove twenty, often thirty knots to the indicated air speed on any approach to a platform or deck so as to observe a decent closure rate to the waiting deck. Not two days ago, I executed a landing on FSO Abu, and her radio operator read out nonchalantly that the pitch and roll stood at 3 degrees. That's the maximum limitation for a landing upon any vessel for our operations.

As the prevailing winds favoured the left hand seat pilot, I placed the willing chopper on an alongside approach To FSO Abu's centrally located aft deck. FSO Abu is no yacht, and this was my first view of what such a large vessel looked like rolling at 3 degrees both port and starboard. The captain said it must have been due to the ship being demobilized, the reduced weight making it more susceptible to the sea state. On any other given day, you cannot tell that Abu is moving, till you look away from deck towards the superstructure and watch the horizon in the background rise and fall relatively like an Cartesian diver. I had the gait of a wino on deck, and as I waited for the passengers to board, I caught view of the undercarriage oleos compressing and extending against the deck netting. I appreciated the exacting specifications of the deck netting, being 20mm diameter, with a 200mm lattice mesh. Just thick enough to mildly chock the tyres, but with 2225 Newtons of tension at every 1.5 metres fastenings, not enough to snag upon the lift-off to a hover.



Picture gleaned off the web courtesy of MISC

The rigs have demobilised at random, the story being that the tempestuous seas have made it difficult for the food-laden supply boats to sail and berth in order deliver rations to the rigs. We seem to send less passengers than we retrieve, and it is no longer unusual to find that we are carrying a crate or two of condensed milk along with the luggage. Today, we received something unusual in the doggie bag from FSO Abu; Maggi instant noodles and mineral water. I mean, still in dry ration form in its packet. Gone the fried rice, beef rendang, the muffin or even the black bean bun at its most Spartan offerings from the rigs. This isn't a complaint, but after you have given the Helideck Officer the platform chit and you have relieved him of the doggie bag he proffers, you open it up expecting anything but this staring back at you.



Yeah??? You and whose army???

We are operating in one-kilometer visibility, with cloud base coming to 300 feet, arbitrarily at that. The canyon clouds of cumulonimbus that waited in defensive positions 30 miles from shore have assailed their fury upon the shoreline, unleashing their torrents tirelessly till spent breathless miles inland, swelling the rivers to the peril of all who are not on the sunset side of the Titiwangsa.



Coasting out via Lane 3 overlooking the TCOT

We are into the fourth day without mains water. We have seen the hoarders and the preppers in frenzied buying at the supermarkets. Courtesies have gone shallow, and the cars' headlights draw a long line like streetlamps all at the wrong height leading straight to the petrol kiosks. Our road away from Kerteh has been cut off at Kemaman and for all we know, the toll plaza at Jabor which was, could again be barred due to the waters. 



It's beginning to look a lot like what???

I do not compare myself to the many who have lost all that they have beneath the angry waters that seem to have nowhere to find a resting place. I do not know where their broken hearts will begin to step forward to splint the multiple fractures of their shattered lives. How deep the wounds of returning to a home that is all but gone, the cars that are rendered less than scrap metal, appliances that will serve their purpose no more. In view of how much has been lost, I wonder how the idea of banning vehicles past a convenient calendar date could ever have been proposed with any semblance of a conscience, let alone a clear one. For many even one of these items stands as a reminder of months of saving up, swept away without reason or ceremony.

 

I find it a very odd time for ministers and members of parliament to lay claim that matters would be so much worse for those so scourged were it not for their parent political party's intervention. How stark the difference to see one moment on broadcast, the utter destitution of those who would even seem forgotten by God, contrasted against those affluent who in vainglorious attempt at playing Him, strain their lungs to bellow in chauvinism about epidermal supremacy, buoyed upon the opulent infrastructure paid for by monies harvested from the blood, sweat and tears of the downtrodden.

How does the Speaker of Parliament decide, that such dire need does not warrant the declaration of an emergency in  order to render aid at utmost priority to those who merely want to live their lives, with or without such political glory-getting, on the unfathomable grounds that a 48-hour formality frame to table the motion was not observed by the member of parliament proposing said declaration. Surely the House has entertained the motions of fools over lesser things than these. Adding insult to injury with aplomb surely has to be the drama queen of Kinabatangan's rabid outburst at the Kuantan MP, and I dread to think that that time has not assured anyone of the last of his constituency's floods anyhow. To harvest airtime upon the backs of the downtrodden is far more obscene than poor taste at its most grotesque. In any other legitimate democracy surely this would not have been digestible.

I cannot claim that my opinion in this matter is humble by any yardstick, but it appears that these are the voices of those who have not suffered enough, not had enough taken away, not toiled enough. Had any of them walked even a fortnight as other mortals scratching up an honest day's wage, identifying readily with those whose time has come to wring their last drop of forbearance would be most natural. The lack of squaring up to adversity does not edify souls, and without delayed gratification in reaping the fruits of your own labour, you would not empathise with Lazarus, O Affluent One. Yet, retribution seems further delayed than their seemingly instant gratification would imply, considering the volume of vile rhetoric they spew in the nation's capitol building.

 

Delayed gratification. There's a thought isn't it? I too baulk at the idea of not being able to get what I want right away, but the reality of my means falling far short of my desires cuts me to where I belong. Indeed, delayed gratification is less than comforting.

 

However, I believe delayed retribution is far worse. Suddenly I feel rather sorry for the Affluent One.

What say you, Lazarus?

 

Some Days Are Stone

First of all, please forgive the quality of the video. I don't know why that even after 2 hours of video uploading time, the video here is as great as VHS as viewed through frosted glass. I just thought it would be a change to share some footage of an orbit at a rig where our friends were carrying out a passenger drop-off and pick up. The other one below is one of me passing over FSO Bunga Kertas(Floating Storage and Offloading) or Bougainvillea.  We often land on FSO Bunga Kertas. Anyway, on with the matter at hand.

There are days when I get the feeling that the Fellow Upstairs has nodded off in the rising hours of the local sun. Yesterday was one such day. This seeming to be the incipient monsoon, and the fact that I was scheduled for the 0930 muster, egged me on to take an early morning ride to Kemasik and back. I dutifully roused myself from sleep, reverse-engineered myself into the cycling shorts and vest, then set out the gate with Colbie in compressed audio barking through the headlamp mp3 player. A left turn, past the hamlet of Kampung Cabang where I unsuccessfully cast my vote during the general election this mid-year and skimmed past the cow-pie punctuated windies to Kemasik. I struggled my way up the gradients, and kept my butt off the pogoing Selle as I came down at 53kmh, the wind roar rewarding my burning lungs with the mist-laden, chilled air from a very rainy night that rested over the winding streams of the back valleys of Kerteh. The air was so saturated that my rearview mirror clouded up as no matter how often I glove-polished it. I have not seen mornings such as these since Dorsett in winter.

 

At the end of the road where route T129 joins T13 I checked the time, and debated whether or not to press on to Air Jernih, making a neat 33km circuit for what it was worth on a morning after ten dull days into the cycling hiatus. It was 0745. I had about 6km to Air Jernih, and 16 km on the turnback therefrom. I could make it back home by 0845, with time for a second brewing of espresso. A right turn began the hot and heavy ascends over the rolling road towards Air Jernih, without the option of Milo at the roadside shack for replenishment of body fluids and sugar (!!) before panting my way home.

 

I made the turnback successfully at the canteen shack when I noticed something peculiar. This is never good news on a two-wheeler. Peculiar always spells disaster. The peculiarity at hand being, that I sensed that the directional control on the Apollo Exceed was getting iffy, but as I gazed down the steering stem, the front tyre looked as turgid as ever. The fact that I was huffing and puffing uphill may have masked the symptoms, but as the road leveled, I had to  conclude that if the front wasn't going flat, then the wandering front was because of a deflating rear tyre.

 

I had the dreaded feeling that my morning routine was going to be cruelly interrupted. I stifled the profanity which strained against my chinstrap, because it's bad enough having to apply novice tube-changing skills, but to have to do it on a tight schedule before a 0930 muster, at the roadside, knowing full well that mud and other FOD would get into the rims and undo my efforts was enough to strike my name off the canonisation nominal roll. I looked at the clock on the odometer. 0815-ish. I had best get to it. Things went not too annoyingly save for a hand pump tube that was too short to reach the presta valve, threatening to sever the valve where it joined the inner tube and certainly snap the valve tip. It has happened. I considered transmitting a PAN call to me better half, but I opted for the long and winding road so as not to have to unfurl the white flag. But lesser miracles did prevail, only to be thwarted when in my desperation I couldn't align the rear wheel back into the rear dropout. The tyre snagged against the brake pads. I was hard pressed for time, so just snapped the wheel in place with the v-brakes undone as I pedaled my way home drowning my frustration in James Blunt's music.

 

Thankfully I made the muster on time. Perhaps the Fellow Upstairs had blinked His eyes open before rolling over for an extended nap. That's why I made to work on time. The rest of the proceedings seemed to be uneventful. I prepped the multi-sector log, the platform chits and what have you. Departure was the captain's, and all three stops were my approaches. It was looking up, till the captain looked down at the instruments as I was executing a base turn to Tapis.

 

There was a red flashing light. There was a numeral value of zero to think about. An emergency was at hand. Spurious as it may have been, it still needed crew handling. It was not about panic. But when you see this, you start thinking, "C'mon!!!!!", in the voice of Ian Gomez's Andy Torres from Cougar Town. "C'mon"!! You have people to whatsapp in the evening, websites to look into, facebook to send snide remarks to, fish curry to drink down and spending the night without so much as a night stop kit on a rig isn't the evening you foresaw for yourself.

 

I concentrated on the approach while the captain flipped through the checklist. Our symptoms were not listed. We diagnosed collectively that this was spurious. Decisions were made following the diagnosis. I sat in the cockpit while he went down to oversee the passenger drop-off and pick up. Other than for that flashing caption, all else about the mammoiselle stood steady.

Plankton playing under the waters

I was the handling pilot en route back to Kerteh. The sun was blazing cheerfully through broken clouds. As the monsoon had not gained its full swing, the plankton had sunbathing schedules to jostle for. I am still in awe at this sight, as I never thought they would be visible to the naked eye. Sometimes marine scum can come close to looking like plankton when viewed from a distance, but having cruised close to the surface as their cheesy streaks tossed below the waves, you know that it's neither flotsam nor jetsam. This somewhat dismal evening the sight of plankton lines dancing just beneath the rippling crystalline sea surface like submerged cirro-stratus almost seemed consoling, encouraging even, that we were ever surely heading home. I gazed at their patterns lost in my many thoughts, till the next range call reeled me back to the necessary descent profiles as we adjusted for an approach to Kerteh.

 

A fishing boat harvesting in the rich waters

We all know that we can fall back on our training when the lights start to blink. But we hate having our routine interrupted. Most certainly we hate getting our feet wet.

 

And Fellow Upstairs. Wake up already okay?





Rainbows Chasing





The weeks have begun to roll into a borderless mass. I forget where the preceding  month ends and where the one I am in begins. It appears to me that time has passed like flipping pages consisting of flight routes and sector details, local instructions and operations meetings and days off that get consumed in the periodic punctuations of attending mass at church.

 

The mornings have grown darker. The sun has been veiled in thick clouds that descend to ground, an alarm buzzer that wakes me up to the patter of rain on the driveway and mornings wet from the afternoon before. Cycling is a rare and thereby celebratory event. This hobbit's breakfasts, second breakfasts, elevenses et al have placed upon him a growing girth that would make proud the stoutest grizzly in preparation for a very enduring winter. It is certain that the monsoon has arrived, albeit not it full fury. The certainty that the monsoon has begun its reign, pun inadvertent, is that the captains execute approaches less than half as frequently as copilots, and surely as anything else they like this development less than half as well as they should, seeing that they can gloat about their classic approaches a mere quarter of the time.

 

This year the monsoon foretold its arrival with frontal rains replete with lightning plunging in bright but noiseless bolts into the darkened sea. I wouldn't know if it was really noiseless or that we can't expect to hear anything above the double jeopardy of the aircraft noise and good insular headsets that carry the noise of radio chatter eclipsing every other sonic nuance in a flight time. Whichever way it went, the sight of lightning is most discomforting as nobody wants one of those on his tail as it heralds the loss of all directional devices such as compasses and radio magnetic indicators, and in the poor visibility which comes with bad weather, not knowing where we are headed.

 

Along with the gradual change in weather, the management  has done the routine thing by organising the "monsoon brief" which outlines the manner in which we are to conduct our flight operations during this rather testy time. Ticking off currency checklists on precision approaches and special visual arrivals in order to be sure that we can make it home in inclement weather, and if not, select an alternative place to set down, has become the season's in-thing.

 

It has been three continuous days of departing in bad weather and returning in the same. For now, the nasties sit in the 15-30 mile band offshore, but as I have been witness to, will gradually menace the areas closer to the rigs once they tire of taunting us too close to recovery. But we deal with this year in and year out. The business of drawing black gold out of mother earth is relentless. And right here where we dwell, all the more important it is to drill unabated to buffer our errors in governance.

 

The offshore theatre has been colourful of late. With the interplay of frontal rains and the sun's track across the meridian, we have often ended up being chased by rainbows. I can't place a smiley here in blogger, right? Last year at this time we were not flying much, with the EC225 being grounded. Today we contend with not just our competitor, but with guest operators from the Middle East.  They were signed up on a contract to fill in where our competitors across the tarmac couldn't in our technical absence. All this makes for a crowded indeed offshore airspace. For instance, it is becoming increasingly common to loiter a mile off from a rig while waiting for our competitors or guest alike to complete their drop-off/pick-up at the rigs of our destination. More mobile rigs and jack-ups have invaded the sea, crowding up the oil rig clusters encircling Kerteh's oil and gas epicentre. I suppose this is why there is always a shortage of helicopter pilots in the oil and gas industry; not just because it's a frenetic industry, but that the drilling points and the operations support barges keep increasing and adding to their existing numbers.

 

And with that, I believe, I am settled into this job at last.

 

 

Jake The Peg

Let's talk about jack-up rigs.

 

A jack-up rig can be described as a mobile oil-drilling platform fashioned as a ship or barge, towed by tug boats to the drilling site or oilfield. It is attached to jacks, like long legs. Once in location, the legs are jacked down to make contact with the sea-bed for fixing, while the platform itself is jacked up to a sufficient height to be away from  the elements of tide and current. There are several jack-up rigs in Kerteh's operational area, such as Rowan Gorilla, Enscoe 106, 105, West Leda and so forth.

The three-legged Jack. Jake with the extra leg!!

This week I got to visit West Leda twice. Initially it was when the rig was near the Telok A platform, a mere 60 miles off at about 047 radial from Kerteh. I had the opportunity then to make the approach to West Leda as the platform was oriented such that the south-westerly wind placed the obstructions towards the left, making it the left-hand seat pilot's approach.

 

I marveled as I usually do, at man's engineering prowess, that we should craft such beasts as these to stand in the sea and draw forth the sap of the earth for our power hungry needs. As I looked toward the left noting the obstructions and jack legs, it didn't quite strike me how clean those legs looked. I had always taken what I had seen for granted.

 

And then yesterday it was my second trip to West Leda. First thing in the morning, I had to determine the correct location of the platform, as it was on the move. From the platform's radio room, the weather report provided the GPS lat-long as aside Damar A, nearer the Lawit rig, on a the 354 radial and 129 miles up from Kerteh. I was quite pleased as it meant this would be a tad long-haul, though on the EC225 long-haul meant just over 2 hours of flying on one complete sector.

West Leda and the tug-boats

The Captain and I were chatting amiably about cycling, the Harley Sportster 883 and the recent heli Reunion, when it was ten minutes before landing at West Leda. I called the rig to get the weather, pertinent for the wind direction which would determine who would do the approach. After writing the details down, the static-laden voice over the radio said that there was movement of the platform as it was still on tow by the two tugs, and that pitch and roll were insignificant at less than 0.5 degrees both ways. I then requested confirmation that the towing would stop by landing time. The radio operator assured me in the affirmative, as another aircraft would be arriving before us for passenger drop off anyway.

Tug boat left

Slowly but surely, the three jacks and the platform emerged from the obscuring haze as we descended to a thousand feet off sea level. I noted the two tug boats pointing south-west, and concurred with the Captain that on our approach from the north-east to face the south-westerly wind, the boats would not be on the flight path, thereby not posing a hazard in case of a single-engine failure before being committed to landing on the deck. The Captain nodded, but I also perceived his satisfaction that with the helicopter deck canted to the south-east, this would be his approach.

Tug boat right

Upon landing, he elected to get down and do the headcount and jacket return count, so that he could also make use of the relief facilities. I updated the computers with the payload weight, selected our return home altitude on the automated modes and transferred fuel from the right tanks to the left for balance, while waiting for the passengers to disembark and new ones to get on board. I peered towards the right, and I noted that the jack-legs were covered with barnacles sure to rip the hide off an elephant. I had not hitherto noticed that profusion of barnacles on a jack-up rig before.

Blistering barnacles!!!

 I realised that I was such an offshore tourist.  When a jack-up platform is in site, the legs are jacked down. The levels at which barnacles attach to the legs would be way underwater, making whatever is visible to us all squeaky and handsome. Now that the platform was on a break for passenger exchange from towing mode, what is usually underwater was jacked up so that it didn't constitute drag, and to allow the platform to be buoyant for the tug-boats.

 

Interesting things we see in this business. 

Sunrise, Sunset

My Office in 2008

I spent an evening with the air force fraternity on September 7, meeting up with serving friends and surviving foes alike, at the 50 Years Anniversary of the Alouette Helicopter Reunion. The Heli Reunion is an annual affair to preserve the fellowship between those serving in the air force and friends who have left for civilian life and other pastures, not always greener for the leaving.

I was quite happy to meet up with my personal Alouette instructor, Lt Col Syed, with whom as always, I spent many wasted moments chuckling over lame jokes that could only be shared in this peculiar relationship. He is now in a non-flying appointment, and we made small talk while waiting for the time to adjourn from the Air Movements Section in KL Base after the photo opportunity session to the Officers Mess yonder for dinner. We gazed endearingly at the three helicopters forming the backdrop for the photo op on the dispersal: the Nuri on the left, Alouette smack centre and EC725 on the right. The Nuri captured us. Col Syed wagered that rusty as we were, we could both strap in right there and then, start-up and rotor engage and take everyone on a city view sortie. Yes, the Nuri stirs nostalgia not just with her crew but with all who encounter her face to face.

A Nuri in a low-level fly by

People curious over my previous life in the military ask about what my daily routine was in the Nuri squadrons. There is no typical routine when we are driven by operational tasks. But what does pose as close to routine as it possibly can is a day on SAR standby.

On any typical day in a Nuri squadron, work starts with the ground-running of the Search And Rescue Standby aircraft, to ensure the squadron's commitment to National Search and Rescue is fulfilled alongside the SAR standby for fighter squadrons on training duties, and their occasional operational sorties.

 

The first on the scene, about 45 minutes before sunrise, are typically, the crewman, followed very shortly after, by the copilot. This is the routine manner in which the triple-redundancy in preflight checks along the hierarchy of the crew complement is fulfilled. Diligent copilots would arrive extra early and place a fresh operational authorisation sheet on the ops room console, and fill in the authorisation column with the date, the airframe number and aircraft type, the callsign, the captain's name, his own and the crewman's too, the task description and expected duration of the task under the various column headings as appropriate. The copilot and crewman then, often together, walk down first to the engineering flight line office to examine the BAT Book 3053 (Borang Angkatan Tentera or crudely translated as Armed Forces Form), or technical log book to ensure that the various engineering sub-tradesmen have checked and signed for their scope of duties on the aircraft concerned, that the aircraft has been fuelled for the standby task (approximately 4 hours 30 minutes fuel endurance) and that these are all on the correct date and time. Then they saunter to the aircraft and carry out the preflight checks in overlap. Eventually, and about half an hour before SAR standby duties commence, the aircraft captain arrives to sign the authorisation sheet, checks the BAT book, signs responsibility for the aircraft and goes off to carry out his preflight checks before doing the ground run.

 

The SAR Standby aircraft at the SAR Helipad No 5 Squadron

Upon seeing the copilot and crewman waiting for him, satisfied that the preflight checks have been done presumable twice, he walks around the aircraft and carries out his checks. The captain then straps into his right-hand seat with the copilot in the left-hand seat, connects to the external AC or DC on a trolley accumulator and with the DC buses and some AC buses energised, begins the challenge-and-response prayerful ritual with his copilot for the internals and crewman for the externals. There is a specific dialogue in this, not the Hollywood, "Check" to the items called out by the copilot. For instance, on the pre-start, the copilot starts with "External or Internal Power", and the aircraft commander responds with "External DC on", or "Seat and Pedals" and the response will be "Adjusted my side, check your side". This way, the actual check of each item is executed in detail by the captain, and cross-checked by monitoring by the copilot.

 

Formation flight over Sabah's west coast

After the pre-start checks, it is time to start No 1 Engine. On the Nuri, a single-engine ground run, a full-ground run or any flying sortie begins with starting No 1 Engine, the one on the left as seen from inside the cockpit. This is because the Nuri is constructed with a feature known as the rotor lockout system, which while in accessory drive selected, diverts the power from No 1 Engine's input bevel gear at the gearbox and rotor drive main bevel gear, via a through-shaft, by freewheeling at the main rotor drive but applies power to the main gearbox accessories such as the hydraulic pumps and generators by powering a secondary gear-train at the rear of the main gearbox. (Imagine a scorpion's tail in its curly poise for a strike, with whatever's happening at its head determining what is being done at the venom sac at the tail. Now you know what we pilots have to deal with when answering examiners' questions on this very favourite topic during our categorisation checks). In this way, all systems on the aircraft can be tested on ground without having to engage the rotors, or powering up both engines. This facilitates system functional checks externally by the crewman or ground crew who carry out some of these duties by climbing up on to the servicing platforms on the starboard side of the aircraft, without worrying about No 2 engine's hot exhausts or hearing damage from a screaming T-58 engine or the added noise and decapitating hazard of rotor blades too close to his bonedome for comfort.

 

Bambi bucket operations for fire-fighting

As the copilot is seated on the left and has better access to the speed select lever (SSL or "throttle") for No 1 engine, it is his duty to start the engine. The No 1 ignition switch is selected to normal (on) and the No 1 engine firewall shutoff is opened. With the SSL in the fully aft or shut-off position, the starter button is depressed momentarily to energise the starter relays, winding up the compressor spool, drawing air into the combustion chamber, and pilots who haven't completely lost their hearing to years of exposure to screaming turbine engines and grinding and grunting gearboxes can hear the click-clicking of the igniter plugs firing at the ready in their 2-and-8 o'clock positions on the combustion chamber. The winding up of the compressor also runs the engine-driven fuel pump, which draws up fuel from the tanks at low velocity suitable for initial combustion, keeping the fuel waiting at the stop-cock, ready to rush into the atomisers encircling the combustion chamber in two bands. The recipe is almost right, with compressed air and ignition, and all that's missing is fuel. The appropriate mix for this recipe, to obtain the right fuel-air mix occurs at about 19 to 22% compressor turbine speed. This is when the throttle is advanced to the ground idle position, the stop-cock opens to spray fuel into the combustion chamber and then the engine fires up.

Flying on the edge of a storm cloud en route KK to Labuan

Once the engine has settled merrily at about 45-55 % compressor turbine speed upon starter automatic dropout, the throttle is then advanced to 104% power turbine speed, after which all main gearbox accessories are spinning at their 100% optimums. The generators are called on line. With alternating current driving the AC buses and the transformer/rectifiers powering the DC buses, the lubrication, primary hydraulic and auxiliary hydraulic pumps whizzing away, the full system check can proceed. The aircraft captain checks the primary and auxiliary servos which move the swash plates and rotary rudder  spider for proper function and bypass in case of servo pressure failure and accompanying hydraulic lock. The automatic stabilisation equipment computers and devices are checked for function and correction within error limits to determine and predict their dependability in flight. The centre-of-gravity trim, the roll bar lag amplifiers, pitch bar, barometric altitude check and the yaw proportional band check being amongst these, are technical in nature, so I shall pass over the descriptions of these rather in-house fraternity rituals. While the captain and copilot identify and confirm all is well inside the cockpit, the crewman provides external affirmation by confirming the corresponding movements of the servos from the outside, complete with the functional check of the rescue winch and the underslung hook assembly.

Night-stopping at Sepulot due to bad weather

Once all system checks are satisfied, on a single-engine ground run, shutdown procedures would follow. For full ground runs or departures, next on the item is the rotor engagement. Remember that all this while the rotor lockout has allowed the accessories to run without the rotors turning. In order to engage the rotor systems, the aircraft captain fires up No 2 engine, releases the rotor brake and allows the main rotor speed to build. No 2 engine, now driving the main rotor,  is gently brought up to 100% power turbine speed. As No 2 engine is about to reach 100% power turbine speed, it gradually takes over the duty of driving the main gearbox accessories from No 1 engine's through shaft. Because the rotor lockout system was riding on the No 1 engine's power train, and its duties were just usurped by No 2 engine, it would be prudent now for that power to be used to drive the rotors and transmission system in concert with No 2 engine.

To enable this, No 1 engine is brought down to ground idle, and the accessory drive switch now selected to "flight". A nifty set of springs and cages riding on the through-shaft are unleashed, not too unlike the ribs of an umbrella, they now release driving the through-shaft, engage the outer cam races and drive the input gear wheel but oh so cleverly freewheel at the rear secondary gear train!! Now, instead of transmitting engine power to the accessories in a backdoor manner, No 1 engine's input bevel gear is ready to engage the main bevel gear.  The No 1 engine is gently throttled forward. Once it reaches optimum power turbine speed, it  contributes power alongside No 2 engine to the entire transmission and rotor system. Everyone is happy now, all systems have been checked and proven functional and both engines are sharing the rotor and transmission load. The SAR standby crew know that on a quick-start, they can be airborne in minimum time and have checked that all the aircraft primary systems and role equipment are behaving well enough to face mission assignment. Now, shutdown can take place and normal standby resume till sunset.

On anti-terrorism standby in Tawau

After shutdown, the crew walks around the aircraft to ensure that all is okay with the dame Nuri after the rigours of the ground run before the rest of the world starts waking. Minor discrepancies and niggles are referred to the ground crew who vow to clear these up. If anything major surfaces, the aircraft commander confers with the squadron executives whether to snag the aircraft and suspend SAR standby readiness till the snag is rectified or get another aircraft configured for SAR duties whilst rectification is carried out.

 

The crew then remains on readiness till SAR watch is over at day's end.

This description holds true for most instances of a single-engine or full-ground run. There are times when away from a main base or proper technical support, an accessory drive switch may run foul, mechanically or in  its electrical actuation. During a preceding shut-down, the accessory drive switch may be stuck in flight mode, or before a start-up, pre-flight checks may show the switch not rolling over to flight and back to ground upon selection and deselection of the accessory drive switch. (Yes, the very gremlins that fool around here allowed some mischievous night-stop with fair maidens once in a foreign land, but this blog is to protect the guilty so I ain't sayin' nuthin'!!)

This would require what is known as "emergency rotor engagement". This is when No 2 engine is started first, providing direct drive to the main rotor and accessories (instead of the routine No 1 engine start, running all accessories and then getting No 2 engine to gently take over in preparation for calling No 1 engine on line to join in the powering of all systems through the front door). It is not the  most healthy way to start-up and rotor engage. By starting on No 1 engine first through the rotor lockout system, all pumps and lubricants and servos are already running at 100% efficiency before the heavy work of taking up a rotor system coming to life. Emergency rotor engagement then, engages the rotor dependent on the rotor driving the pumps in slow build-up  in parallel with the rotor RPM. It is harsher than having all pressures ready as in a regular start. Therefore Nuri aircrew know that this is an emergency procedure in case of accessory drive failure away from full technical support for rectifying the failure, allowing for that one-time flight back to home base or detachment base where technical support can be called on for rectification. That, as well as we sometimes have to do it during our categorisation exams, to show the examiners that we are able to engage the rotor systems at low main gearbox lube pressures, and worthy of being in the pilot's seat!
 

This walk down memory lane hangs in the mists of days gone past. Perhaps my memory does not serve me well. I have lost out on precise figures and technical details. But what my memory will never erase is the many familiar nooks and crannies of the Nuri, the smell of hydraulics drying on her fuselage skin or the unmistakable beat of her rotors tempered by the bifilar  and beanie cap assembly.

She is still my first love.

Tradewinds

Our neighbours busy making hay

The winds have changed.

The receding view of the Kuala Paka coastline

After missing out on flying the EC225 for nigh a year, the raucous controversy and the heart rending despair over the unforseseeable return of the 225 to flying service, we are back in the air at last, drawing to an end the unrequested long hiatus in clocking offshore hours and finding a purpose to my post Nuri days. Our neighbours across the tarmac have had long enough a time of squeezing out the last drops of poor grade humour over our extended leave and I am sure I shall not miss it.

Clouds reflected on the mirror-smooth sea

The timing could not have been better, even if hellaciously delayed, as the resumption was in time with the change of the tradewinds from south-westerly to north-easterly, bang on the date when I started my September's cycle upon completion of my Line-Oriented Flying Training in EuroCopter Malaysia's simulator centre in Subang. North easterly winds favour the left-hand seated pilot in making approaches to the rigs the way their platforms are oriented in our sectors, mostly easterly platforms with the obstacles and structures on the left. It is the pilot who can keep his eye on the obstructions throughout the approach who owns that approach. As approaches must be into wind, it follows that the north east monsoon favours the copilot. I think I would have been sore indeed to resume full flying duties only to sit and watch the captains have all the fun of making approaches, which in this discipline is the proof of the pudding, or that which separates the boys from the men.

Tangga Barat Alpha floating upon the mirrored sea

The initial change in wind direction is a testy time for the left hand seated pilot. The winds are weak, as the north east monsoon is not yet in full bloom. The entire process of judging the closure speed on finals approach to the platform is more difficult in incipient winds, because the speed decay curve is not as rounded, demanding more precision than a windy day would call for. Stronger headwinds help the copilot to gradually reduce the approach speed at a more amicable rate. Yet, I shall not complain as dealing with a difficulty degree can only serve to make me better at approaches, if I do not prematurely yield to despair at my messy approaches. So far I shall say, it has been rather good, and more than anyone else, I have to be happy with what I am doing before anyone else can.

On deck TBA, on a sunny day

It is with much relief that I return to the EC225, an aircraft whose intuition in reducing the pilot's workload makes it a virtual magic carpet ride. Yet, it was not a week in the air before more bad news came out of Aberdeen, the offshore Mecca, announcing the catastrophic crash of the Super Puma L2 in which four out of eighteen passengers perished. While it would seem like a bad year for Eurocopter, looks can be entirely coincidental. Throughout the the months of the EC225 grounding, I do not suspect any of the pilots worrying about flying the machine. However, the industry is rife with pressure groups, and workers unions exert a lot of force upon the decisions made by offshore flying service providers. There was an initial knee-jerk reaction even to this incident, and unfortunate as the crash was, the real cause can be lost in the noise of the impact. Preliminary speculations over C-FIT and erroneous employment of automation hover and abound. In the meantime, the Super Puma L2 has been returned to flying status when technical and design faults were ruled out. 

Flying Into Oblivion

One year away from the EC225, and one month on the Super Puma L2, seems to have done me some good. I believe in my complete resignation towards events in my life that I struggled to control but could not, I have also settled down completely in the EC2225 cockpit. No more wrestling. No more desparation. No more arguing with the aircraft in a language that she would not understand. I can finally just sit back and enjoy going up there into oblivion, whatever the weather, deliver the goods and come back home to face another day of flying on the morrow. The events and non events of the past ten months did make bleak a future I had hoped would not include marginalisation. But we really cannot fight every issue that crosses our patio. At times, we really have to let that which passes, to pass. Other things may come, will come, but this day must pass first. 

A rainbow visiting the supply boats

It is true then. It is an ill wind that blows no good.

Another Saddle

Dawn, and a red sun rises

The sole Super Puma L2 has been fighting valiantly to put up a good show, after being placed in the hangar for 3 weeks due to lack of spares. It was with some excitement then that I read the text from Sifu that he had spotted the L2 in the air. We would be up to fly again whilst waiting for the grocery list of modifications to be carried out on the EC225, and by our raw but throroughly informed estimates, it would be about a month yet that I would be seated in the baffling L2's cockpit.

Seligi A in a sooty mood

It takes a while, to get into the swing of things once again in the offshore schedule sense of the word. The sporadic flying, mostly done in the general aviation style, barely preserved my faith in my profession. Conversion training on the other hand is  not an indicator of being able to keep up with a brand new way of doing in the L2 what you always have in the EC225, just because its older and houses more user-unfriendly navigational aids and gadgetry compared to the glitzy 225.

An interesting sight, with the crane cab's window pane reflecting the brilliant flare

I am back to the once familiar but long unpracticed odd schedule of reporting for duty well before take-off time with meals taken on the opportunity basis as allowed for between peparatory paperwork and the arrival of the passenger manifest, after which it is a scramble to complete the paperwork and shoot off to start the aircraft. In this month, I cannot leave it to crew-cooperation, as most of the pilots are observing the holy month's austerities. Only if I am teamed with Sifu do we work the documentation out then race off for a meal before the manifest puts us on the launching pad.

A supply boat skating around Bekok C

The haze is here on its second cycle. There have been captains who have rubbed salt in  my non-active-flying wounds by saying I am the common denominator to halting the flying schedule just by turning up for work, either by drawing the haze in or by causing the L2 to go bust. I suppose they all need some form of humour to relieve the arduous wait for the EC225 to return to full active service, but blaming the unavailability of the L2 on the one person who is already the most junior in the company for any prospects of advancement and in desparate need of the flying hours to do so, is humour not merely twisted, but very, very dark.

Approaching a sooty Angsi A

As the prevailing winds are once more south-westerly, and most of the rigs have the platforms canted south, it's the aircraft captains who are having all the fun of doing the approaches. I am keeping my fingers crossed that when the winds change to hail the north-easterly and its accompanying monsoon, the EC225 will be strongly in the air once again. My radio calls have oxidised, much to the amusement of our slick competitors across the tarmac who are quick to make public comment over the company frequency on my errors in radio calls. My only recourse is to be cynically grateful in response. As I know well that they were my squadron mates in the air force once who sought to sytmie my progress should I surpass them, alluding to their come-uppance would falaciously feed their vapid self-worth and quell the radio chatter. But indeed, it is really like riding a bicycle, and all the cycle of activities come back glandularly after several sorties.

Confuse betul lah aku!!!!

Being in the saddle of the L2 is different. I am back to square one of not passing half the quizzes shot at me by Sifu. The short jaunt home is once more a road too far to  a loss of consolation over thinking that I was making it work after all. Yes, I have heard another transitory pilot like me return from flying, wishing everyone with utmost humility and I wondered what possessed him as I kept my nose in my pre-flight paperwork. Then it came out. He lamented, in unburdeing release from internal pain, "Confuuuuuussee betul lah aku!!!!" That's the plaintive cry of a victim of crosss-training, and cross-trained before fully settling in one aircraft, resulting in the neither here nor there feeling.

 

But we all gotta do what we all gottta do.

 

I will pull the plough till this field is thoroughly furrowed, and I too will emit that same plaintive call.

 

The Village Idiot

The Apollo Exceed 10 Hybrid

It was my birthday morning four weeks ago, and I was not yet fully converted to the Super Puma L2. Being relatively unemployed, I began the morning with the full realisation that my longevity rests with the lifestyle I lead, and so I drew out the Apollo Exceed 10 for a solo ride to Kijal and back.

 

As I took a right at the gate and went merrily along with my eye on the rearview mirror, I nearly jumped out of my skin when what must have been a 17-year old kid came hurtling down the intersection at top speed beyond the design limits of a moped. A collision was imminent and he knew it as he squealed for a nanosecond on his worn out brakes, rediscovered the appendage where his brains lay in order to muster the guts to proceed, and wheelied across my path to where I hoped oblivion waited for him with arms wide open. As he passed smugly to my right, I spat out profanity under my breath as Liz Lemon would have, with the same lip curl enunciating "Motherfffffffffffff!!!!!!"

However, the world does not harken unto the wisdom of such poetic rebuking, and another few seconds down the Akashic Record's timeline, the lemming-brained youth was long gone to celebrate his Grand Prix reception amongst his equally unproductive bros. Or so I envisaged him doing.

 

As I pressed on towards the traffic lights at the junction of Jalan Cabang, I heard the mellow beat of a single-cylinder four-stroke moped creeping up behind me. I had a Lizzy McGuire moment where I imagined it was that same brat approaching from my 6 o'clock and I saw myself giving him a military-grade foul-mouthed tongue lashing in as many languages as I could muster squeezed into ten seconds.

 

My skin cooled beneath a flush of relieved sweat when I saw "Fadli" (names are obscurred here), a fellow cyclist but of the off-road persuasion, puttering beside me, taking his toddler out for a ride, with a sunshine-and-happiness tinged grin across his face.

 

"Good morning Jeffrey!!!!" He was in high spirits. I nodded back with a smile as I kept my breath in pace.

 

"What a baaassstaaard that guy was ya!!!!!!"

 

I immediately started laughing, rather uncontrollably, and so did he. Fadli must have witnessed the brief proceedings and identified that what irked me so was what would send him ballistic too. The straight-to-the-heart resonance between us stirred the spontaneous laughter. Nobody would understand but a cyclist, the same instantaneous rage that accompanies such a near shave with an accident, accruing to absolute stupidity on the part of someone else who didn't appear to value his life but would drag you along for heck. As he slowly got ahead of me, I called out, "Thanks for understanding!!" Fadli waved empathically and slipped left at the lights as I stopped for them to turn green for my right turn to Kijal.

 

Which brings me to the headline in The Star today.

 

It is one ignoble thing to be listed at the top of the states being home to the angriest drivers in the state. It must be a jewel in  that ignoble crown then to be baffled at being found out.

 

Perhaps some morsel of truth is to be admitted in their bewilderment. Perhaps they are not angry per se.

 

But there is much to be desired in the roadsmanship of this state's drivers.

 

They hog the right lane in a dual carriageway, holding station at 60 kmh on a 90 kmh limit. They would not have any reservations about grinding into your bicycle as they  multi taskingly exit at a junction while balancing an infant on their laps, in the driver's seat mind you, with a cellphone pressed against their ears. Unrestrained toddlers trapeze between seats, and it is cultural to never wear a helmet whatsoever regardless of whether you're a motorcyclist or pillion. They have no reservations about leaving their engines running while refueling or racing against traffic on the emergency lane in order to avoid having to use the U-turn 30 yards away whilst reserving the right to evict legitimate users of the emergency lane such as we cyclists are. Beating a red light seems to be a way to score points towards the afterlife. In that sense, they certainly have it down pat in drawing the afterlife ever closer to the here and now.

 

Perhaps it is a nouveau riche affliction when civic maturity has not arrived as prematurely as wealth in a town that employs oil and gas executives and well paid offshore boys living amongst the peasantry of what I can't help but describe as the junction between two small towns which has been overlooked by even the most negligent demarcations of progress. Perhaps. But I really am not certain what causes such prevalent indiscipline and widespread lack of humility in the face of the many odds stacked against anyone's survival rate on the road. It's not the state, really. It is endemic to our nation.

 

These are not bad people. Indeed they are downright lovable. Which perfectly reflects their rebuttal to the statistics in the press.

 

However, I do not see the sense in young boys and girls being raised to think that it's alright to run circles around simple laws meant to preserve the life that will mourned over most  bitterly when it is lost to a senseless yet avoidable degree of severity in a mishap. Whither the claims to sanctity when littering after the pasar malam is committed without the batting of an eyelid, or when a mirror-polished car passes by, slowing to a halt at the traffic lights only for the heavily tinted window to roll down an inch to facilitate the hurling of an empty cigarette box onto the road?

 

When we fail to redress the very basics in adherence to right and wrong, we run the risk of raising a village idiot.

 

And failing as a society, a state, as a country, we are well on the way to breeding one too many an idiot village.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

A glamour shot of the AS332L2 Super Puma

I have finally completed my conversion to the Super Puma L2. The conversion period took an extensive 4 weeks because the single L2 we had was often plagued with serviceability issues, sitting in the hangar waiting for spares for weeks on end.

The L2 cockpit, depictive of its era



When I went up in Papa Delta for the first conversion sortie, FAM 1, at the end of the hour, the training captain said, "I don't see any major problem with you. You don't seem as lost in the cockpit as some others I have seen. I think you're ready for your C of T. How? Can ah?"

I miss the EC225 cockpit

I gaped at him as if I seriously thought he was in need of a Papal smiting across his countenance. I had not done my instrument flying yet, this was my first L2 sortie, and I was not even flying the EC225 consistently enough to warrant so rapid a jump to this "similar-type variant". I allowed my cold silence to emphasise my vehement objection to a C of T after just one FAM.

How I miss you now, EC225

I did get a second sortie, and after FAM 2, I was surprised to see that 4 days later I was scheduled for the Certificate of Test. And evening passed and morning came, and it was the C of T day. It seemed as if both my FAMs and the C of T were coincidentally scheduled for Friday evenings, when the offshore rhythm abated and the availability of an aircraft was more assured than on most days of the week. By the time I touched down at 1730, I had completed the C of T and my instrument rating test. The examiner congratulated me and I knew then that I had passed my C of T. Next, a line check and I would be legal and ready to resume offshore operations.

Just 1 km away from Maersk Convincer and she is barely discernible from 500 feet

As malinged coincidence would have it, my line check was simultaneous with the unwelcomed descent of the haze upon Kerteh and the entire hinterland.

 

During meteorological conditions such as these, the value of a fully instrumented aircraft with attendant automation cannot be overrated. The unforgiving loss of forward visibility and the absence of a discernible reference horizon lead straight toward disorientation and the propensity for a major incident which the oil and gas world can ill afford, and neither can any helicopter operator company for that matter.

 

Kuala Paka with 2km visibility

The last I operated offshore in the haze, I was in no doubt as to the ability to make an approach although the view forward was obscurred. But this time, it was not possible to see the rig until we were at 500 feet and half a mile from it, that too, aided by the flare boom in full flame. For academic purposes, the line training captain called for a rig radar approach, which in the reduced visibility was a rather relevant practice to keep current with.

Passenger drop off at Lawit Alpha

Over the next three days, I was back into the swing of offshore flying with continuous sectors and no split in duties. I had also noticed that the L2 suffered from a faulty autopilot system. Being the only L2 in the livery now that the EC225s were grounded, it was merely a matter of time before the recurrent fault would mean she would be called off line for rectification. 

Starting up for a flight test

And it happened just about when I was feeling the heat from returning to offshore duties after being a standby pilot for eight months now. On the third day of flying with an intermittent autopilot system, the aircraft captain decided that enough was enough. The autopilot had been self-disengaging now and then during flight, and while reengaging the autopilot returned the system to normal operating status, the worry that it would disengage whilst negotiating a critical phase of flight lurked in the troubled hallways of my mind. During cruise, these niggardly niusances may be acceptable, but were you in a descent or approach with nigh nil visual references outside the cockpit, the escalating workload under systems failure is not encouraging of a safe approach and departure from a shelf hanging on a framework standing off the seabed. The captain did not wait to be in such a phase of flight. We were 40 miles from Kerteh over waters when the misdemeanouring helicopter began meandering, and the captain turned back without prompting, to home base, and snagged the aircraft as was most deserving of the situation.

AOG is not a religious organisation, but stands for Aircraft On Ground awaiting spares

There she waits for her spares, and here I wait to fly her again.