NKOTB

 

 

This is a picture of the latest addition to the fleet, brought in from Vietnam, replete with Vietnamese pilots to complement our own crew who will be operating her. The two External Forward Tanks which are depicted by the pilot's door, with the other at the copilot's door, have since been removed. These are not the company's livery colours, but I think the red white and blue pops!!

 

I have just clocked one complete year in the company. No, there are no anniversary celebrations, just a staid passage of time from the preceding year into the next. Corporate politics is such a drag, with resolutions existing in a time frame that do not conclude beneficially within any one person's career span. Service life has trained the pessimist in me to a razor sharp point, and I see the ominous writing on the wall in predictive text as the foregone conclusion to an exercise in futility. A long time ago, I sour graped myself into believing that the job is merely the means by which I make bread. Life itself therefore has to be more than what meagre joys the breadwinning entails.

 

A suitable distraction has presented itself in the feline form of Antonio the cat. He adopted us in speechless manner by storming into the house one stormy night.

 

I am not a cat person. I have viewed them as the insurgent enemy ever since they scratched up my superbike seat, undone an evening's polish job when they slept on my fuel tank leaving dander everywhere and indellibly peed into my helmet when I was living as a bachelor in the officers' mess, KL Base. Marking territory has never been so convincingly permanent as when you know nothing will wash that maritime odour off, and a new helmet purchase is in order.

 

Yet I know not what to do about a cat who does not abide by the contractual fineprint embodied in Kipling's tale about The Cat Who Walked By Himself.

 

Nay, this cat seeks human company, and has not a condescending bone in his body. He has shown fine manners by marking the dying quinine tree by the gate as his toilette, and seems to choose the carrier as his sleeping place without being prompted.

 

However, he seems to be obstinately defensive about his role as an indoor cat.

 

I am not a cat person, I say again. I have no reservations about rattling the coin can above legal decibular limits to signal him out the door, which he concedes to only after getting everyone into a 5-minute sprint worth his while.

So why is it I winced when I had to leave him at the vet to be spayed, holding steady as he miaowed dolefully from the wooden structure behind me as I walked away?

 

I know that I have no desire to latch on to a facsimile of power by stroking the lion in the cat. Therefore it is not for this reason that my mind strays to his well-being. What reason it may be has yet to dawn on me.

 

But I do know that I hate being a parent again in my old age, not wanting to be fettered by the neediness of a dependant creature, and reluctant as I am to yield to this contradictory cat that unabashedly greets me with a series of marmalade miaows when I come home from work, I know that it is impossible to be cruel to an animal who is aware of its connection to humanity and does nothing to deny it.

 

I look forward to his safe return and I hope he hasn't given up on us as he endures the long dark night without food, without a human sound, to his surgery scheduled for tomorrow.

 

I am NOT a cat person, I say again.

In Case You Were Wondering

Misty, rain-swept hills in the morning

 

The winds persist in coming from the southwest.

 

The northeasterly winds have been delayed.

 

The weeks crawled by with many bleak mornings and unpromising evenings. Nights have stayed uncomfortably warm, whilst the passing of days did not portend any overdue change.

 

In the thick of this I finally sat for the Instrument Base Check after my Raya relief, mortified at how overcontroling I became when automation was disengaged. I am still such a probie on the 225.

The Terengganu Crude Oil Terminal at Paka underneath a storm cell

 

The haze has weakened, losing its battle against the sun who commanded coastal storms to temper the opaque scourge which we blame everyone else for and steer clear away from in case it recognises us as its forebear.

 

I think I am beginning to settle down into the cycles, of work and being off, of flying in haze and returning home in bad weather. This is an aircraft which really inspires confidence in my being able to make it home. I can just set up the Flight Management Computor and watch the blackened world of ferocious storm clouds outside my window make way for the Super Cougar as she weaves her way steadily to the finals approach, like it was to her, just another day at work, business as usual.

A derrick-laying barge sitting off Bekok A

 

Then after a while you get to notice that some weeks the planners are kind, alternating evenly between assigning you 0700H musters, 0930H and 1300H late mornings.

 

This week has been a healthy dose of 0700H musters, with split duties to remuster at 1300H for a second sector of flying. A 1300H muster means a departure time between 1445H and 1515H, with a late evening arrival.

Do oil rigs look like Roman lamps?

 

Somehow late evening arrivals make me crave for a hot cup of Indian tea. I am not a tea person. I am a coffee person. I dare say I would readily take it intravenously if it meant I got my caffeine fix, but I fear that I would screw the recent unrelenting spate of Drug And Alcohol (DNA-laughable tag isn't it?) Tests.

 

And so it was that this evening, on return from two and a half hours of flying from 1300H, I decided to revive myself with tea.

A rust-red oil tanker syphoning off from Floating Storage Offshore Puteri Dulang

 

Post-shutdown, walking back from the dispersal, I found the crew-room still crowded with the crew on standby from their 1400H return from offshore. They were busy chinwagging about the latest celebrity gossip, trying to decipher what on earth Pussy Riot consisted of, debating if felines were involved. I never got involved in any of this genre of discourse, falling miserly behind in my ability to provide suitable fodder for the masses.

 

I busied myself instead, with laying out the food from the rigs on the counter so that all could partake in the spoils of the day's skirmishes. There were four styrofoam packs comprising cakes and buns. I wasn't hungry. I savoured the heat of my self-stirred cham, flavoured rich with three tea bags.

 

The other captains reached into the packs, chewing away with the hunger that the interval between lunch and tea time evoked in them. Out of courtesy they left me two morsely cakes, since I was the last one home from offshore, and they returned home.

 

I myself nearly gave in.

 

Till my reaching hand paused short of the cake, my eyes noticing that no, dessicated coconut does not belong on a savoury cake of fried dough and anchovy sambal.

 

Closer inspection confirmed that what looked like dessicated coconut was the one thing, soldierly experience notwthstanding, that could make my stomach turn. Eggs. Please, no pictures, not even gleaned from a word search engine, okay?

 

That settles it. You would think otherwise, because you see rigs of all sorts above pristine waters, but:

 

There are flies and roaches and rats in offshore rig galleys.

Pome En Route Ome

The sea has many moods and wears as many skins

When tempestuous you see furrows upon her brow

But brave little boats endure the tossing and the pitching

With coloured peasant-cloths billowing upon their bows

 



I am not her tenant for I am merely passing through

As I soar over her steamy breath in the light of early morn

But though I am a sailor of the firmament of white and blue

I plead she does not consume me for I shall soon be gone

 

There are islands on her body that men have built from steel

With pipes that plunge to draw her black gold sap which feeds

All that moves upon this smoky world in vessel or wing or wheel

The myriad rigs, the deep fathomed digs, the portrait of our greed

 

But the men who work are as you and I pursuing a daily wage

I ferry these miners in sectors through clear and through cloud

I carry men, I carry women, the menial, the learned of every age

All temperaments and creeds, the burdened, the humbled and the proud

 

I am an offshore pilot and I am a prisoner upon the waves

Thus the salt and the rain are my daily fare as I take to the sky

A human trafficker if ye must, mothers and fathers my freight

Yet no affinity to water in my veins, a predicament I cannot deny

 

The ships and barges are my laden companions, I watch them from above

They say that akin to them when rotors stop my own toils will be done

And thus I bid farewell to the fishing boats trawling their treasure trove

May their helmsmen also see their bonny wives when the sun is finally gone

 

The shoreline sentinels, timeless islands, my beacons, my milestones home

The long finals to runway OneSix, or through Labohan's scenic Lane Four

They unfurl the asphalt carpet where this Cougar will be finally towed

Till another sunrise finds fishermen, captains and cargo parlaying offshore

 

Not Levin La Vida Loca

This is the first day in a fortnight when I actually feel like it's my day off. Normally, the main reference for working days is the printed roster in the flight planning room copied from the Chief Pilot's desk. The haphazard scheduling was induced when I asked for two days off to run down to the city for an old batchmate's son's wedding, an invitation I could not say no to. This rendered the roster as no longer the main reference as unpublished amendments were in force. From then, together with the Raya hols, I have been plugged into the company's mailroom to watch for the latest e mails on flight schedules, but it appears that the e mail has been compromised somehow as I no longer receive any notifications from it. The back-up notification is the en masse text messages, which only pop up at night and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, so a true vigil it has been.

 

Over the past three months, ever since my workmates found out that I am purchasing a Hyundai Elantra, they started calling me K-Pop. My puzzled reaction to this garnered their superficial but wholly self-convinced explanation that since I was buying a Korean car, I now belonged to the K-Pop group. Though I didn't buy a word of their thinly disguised insult, I secretly hoped that being tagged as K-Pop had the emphasis on K and not on pop, which is treacherously close to gramps.

 

I have driven her through two months now, and the trip down to KL was to be my honeymoon with her and to see what she was made of. At Brenda's sagacious behest, I agreed to impoverish myself down to the margins of affordability and buy the 1.8 litre full-spec GLS.

 

I have since grown to love autocruise. Yes, I love all the bells and whistles on the Elantra. Maybe I could use a periscope or external cam on the front fender to facilitate the hypnosis-inducing climb and descent on the spiral ramps adjoining carparks. The old Levin would wind herself up and down like a top without batting an eyelid, almost in 2Fast 2Furious style. Other than for that, and the lack of auto-lock doors, the vehicle delivers on its word.



Brenda and I on a ride to Kuala Selangor circa 1990

The GLS has 148 horses on tap, which isn't a mighty lot compared to my workmates' Audis and Mercs. It overtakes with confidence, albeit without that eye-searing, blistering haul of the Levin's 165 horsepower with an 11500 rpm redline. Neigh (sic) this dame pulls steadily with her exhaust note whinnying sweetly up to her 6700 redline without getting guttural. One reviewer complained about this, but whither the fanfare when the goods are delivered? It reminded me of my old Suzuki GSX400f, and how she would race ahead with a wail instead of the turbine roar of the Kawasakis. Sweet, reliable delivery.

 

Down the basement of SFX church, a few days after I bought this baby

The suspension is good even when employing basic torsion bars for the rear, and the full load of five passengers does not faze her. Everybody is comfortable, and ploughing through a thunderstorm shows what traction control does for as long as we do not encroach too much into aquaplaning speed. The rain sensor may be a tad late on realising that the drizzle has broken into a menagerial thunderstorm, but it speeds up to a frantic rythm faithfully once it has paced out of the intermittent stage.

 

When you have been up and down from daybreak till dusk suggests a good dinner as you walk towards the car that takes you home, you don't want to get into one that has an iffy airconditioner, or that wallows when you corner aggresively to avoid the simians that are rioting after your windscreen hoping to scavenge food from you as they have been trained to by other drivers. There are days when you just want to be cradled home, and these Nappa leather seats, speedy dual zone air conditioning and great music wash off the labours of the day and deliver you to the best faces any man who toils can hope to see at day's end.

 

My days with the Levin are past. I do not regret them.

 

This is one you can buy with confidence.

Basic Instinct

It was an evening sortie, long-haul, to FSO Perintis and thence to Angsi A. The haze clung insistently to the restless sea, and the winds could not beat back the unwholesome air that hung over all, airman and sea man alike.

 

The Captain wanted to fly out, so I contended with the flight log, recording the range calls and fuel consumption as we left the shoreline receding behind us. The first 40 miles out to sea were uneventful, the writing and radio calls all being boringly regular. Within those 40 miles the navigational reference was the radio beacon radials from Kerteh, and the autopilot flew us accurately away headed out towards FSO Perintis. The miles increased predictably till we reached the 40-mile Kerteh Zone Boundary limit, from whence we would be reporting solely to Heli Base Kerteh, and navigational data would be by reference to GPS.

I made my radio calls, whilst the Captain switched the aircraft autopilot to track the GPS path to Perintis. Monitoring the navigation displays, I saw that all was in predictable order, even with strong winds from our 7 o'clock. To depict this, first of all, the glass cockpit displays would normally show the straightline GPS track heading to the destination, and normally the track line would coincide with the heading marker positioned on the 12 o'clock spot on the compass rose, from which we pilots reassure ourselves that we are on the correct heading to the destination. With some wind from either left or right, there are times when the track line would appear drifted but the heading marker would stay at 12 o'clock, telling us that the autopilot has corrected and compensated for the wind drift and that the current heading would allow the wind to drift us over the remaining distance to make good our arrival overhead the destination. In other words, while the wind may be blowing us downwind, the autopilot is flying us further into wind so we eventually end up right over the destination.

At the 40-mile mark, I noticed that the GPS prompt said GPS NAV 1 LOST. Yeah, okay, that happens quite often on GPS NAV 2. Not being able to rely on the coordinates I selected on Leg 1 as the GPS was no longer resolving that leg, I thought to select the same coordinates on the Leg 2 instead. And then as fate would have it, hardly a minute after confirming Leg 2 coordinates as the autopilot reference, the annunciator prompted us that GPS NAV 2 LOST. Then we both saw something unexpected on the navigation display. The entire track line jumped about five miles left, the way an image jumps on astro transmissions in the middle of a menagerial thunderstorm. This led to the autopilot making a severe bank to the left to regain track correction and minimise the track error within wind drift limits. This was because the GPS was now working in memory and dead reckoning mode, and the autopilot was merely obeying the command to stay true to the now guessing-game mode on the GPS. We noticed that the GPS location diamond for Perintis did not coincide with what we perceived as the weather radar echo blimp painting her position.

Not wanting to have a bad Hollywood moment with the passengers over an easily remediable situation with a repeat of sudden autopilot inputs, GPS autopilot coupling was disengaged and the autopilot was coupled to the selected magnetic heading of the aircraft instead.

On any clear day, this would have been peanuts. But on a haze-choked day, with poor visibility, identifying the destination ship became a bit more insistent on basic navigational practise as was done before the days of GPS. This meant that we would have to return to tracking towards the destination by homing devices, such as the ship's non-directional radio beacon.

Many a time, rigs and ships have not switched on their beacons over many reasons, none of which I have plumbed, although it remains an operational requirement on the part of the destination rig or ship to switch on the beacon when an aircraft is bound its way. With the acclimatisation to sophistication and automation, the reliance on GPS autopilot coupling has turned out to be the order of the day. Simply put, we can easily take secondary navigational devices for granted when we are used to the friendliness of GPS autopilot coupling. The software glitch that occured this interesting evening of the 25th of August was valuable in showing us how no matter the impression made by the level of sophistication on an aircraft, basics will always be what makes us aviators first and systems managers second.


Safe on the deck of FSO Perintis

And so, the Captain and I spoke with the radio operator of FSO Perintis to keep the beacon on. An NDB test was done to ensure that the instrument needle was actually tracking the beacon, while the Captain dead reckoned the general direction of Perintis by interpolation when we overflew Sotong Collector. It was interesting to see, though, that in haze and the featureless sea, dead reckoned navigation did not inspire confidence, as every single degree of inaccuracy would cost us fuel, and would require a decision should the destination not be found in time. In the haze, many things could appear as an FSO as size and distance judgement suffered.

The captain banking on to an approach to Angsi Alpha

It was with this thought that we placed our reliance on the beacon, especially seeing that the GPS diamond on the display indicated that Perintis was 15 degrees left, or about 7 miles displaced to the left. This was beginning to be a distraction, so we dismissed the GPS image, and fixed our eyes on the Automatic Direction Finder needle. And there, almost thumbing its nose at us in the murky haze, was FSO Perintis right on track as indicated by the needle. It was relieving, and as Perintis was constantly a copilot's approach, I celebrated coming out of the dark by executing the landing and relaxing in the airconditioned cockpit while the Captain stretched his legs on deck.

The captain on deck Angsi-A with Angsi B in the background

So for any general aviation buff who says offshore flying is monotonous, all I can say is, I haven't died of boredom yet.

Hi Ate Us

So the days have slipped by, cycles of five and four and five. It has been a tussle between flying and cycling and restless nights, with the first casualty of war being the cycling due to the frequent flat tyres I have been sustaining. My cycle shop chap, Sharil, asked with genuine curiosity, "Where are you cycling that you keep picking up these tiny wires all the time?" He then suggested alternate routes, but I believe that you can sustain a flat anywhere. However, I realise that all of us fall off this fitness programme wagon, and the only thing to do is to get right back on again. It is much like a bad debt: you can't recover it to pre-debt status, but closing shop is not the way forward when there is so much at hand to do yet.

Stratocumulus mirrored on the sea, with "God's Rays"

The haze has been unrelenting, while the wind has remained stubbornly south-westerly, disallowing me even the most minor enjoyment of conducting a stabilised approach to the majority of the rigs as the wind direction placed the obstructions on the captain's side and hence, making them all his approach. I understand that it is not much longer that I will have to wait for the winds to turn around with the return of the north-east monsoon. However, the couple between the haze and the winds make for varied weather and visbility. Some days the haze wins, and as the air conditioning is a deferred defect on a number of aircraft, when you slide open the hatch to let some air in, the opaque air outside carries a distinctive insecticide-like odour. Then some days the winds beat the ashen skies back and rolls open the heavens to stable-atmosphere cloud formations of stratocumulus for miles on end.

FSO Abu, courtesy of Wikipedia

The occasional chance I do get for approaches with the prevailing winds as they blow now, are over the Floating Storages Offshore (FSOs), such as FSO Abu, FSO Putri Dulang and the occasional barge oriented transverse to the mother rig, as the FSOs, being refurbished ships, normally weathervane into the prevailing wind, allowing me a shot at sharpening my approaches. Some ships such as FSO Perintis have the platform cantilevered on the starboard side, so no matter what, it's mine own to execute the approach.

A platform cantilevered to starboard of an FSO

While the winds have blown stronger, making approaches easier, this hasn't always translated into rougher seas. The consistently pitchy Global Sapphire, a barge co-located at Angsi-D, exhibited a pitch-and-roll of 2 degrees, allowing me a landing this week, and providing a view of its "widow-maker" from deck-level instead of looking down from Angsi-D's platform. In a 2-degree toss, the widow-maker still looked formidable to me. However, the offshore boys were walking up and down the gangways nonchalantly, sure-footed as mountain goats, pausing briefly as the gap narrowed to a step's breadth  before they crossed to the lower gangplank. Other rigs have seriously menacing widow-makers, with mercy flights in the past for fatalities, but it has been many a month since I have flown to the likes of Rowan Gorilla 2.

The mini widow-maker on Global Sapphire

I confess that I am less than inspired to blog because the images I capture on my point-and-shoot 3.2 megapixel Nokia are supremely disappointing. They do not even begin to reflect what my mind's eye sees, and therefore the emotions and thoughts belonging to that time-space do not come forth upon seeing them reproduced on my laptop. I tried for a sortie or two, using a digital camera which by all lines of reason would be purpose-built for shutterbugging, but they are more finicky than dating a twenty-something. The results of my hamfistedness with or without flying gloves rendered images that looked like they were shot from inside an aquarium that had not had its keeper clean it out in a fortnight leastways. Fiddling with a camera while reading out the finals checklist does seem a tad indulgent and definitely deviant to my role as co-pilot first and always, hence a surreptitiously operated cellphone camera will remain the means by which to attain this end. Without a proper capturing device, I fear a hiatus is nigh.

But as an adult on the verge of packing the first of his three offspring away to college, running off to snatch up a Samsung Galaxy SIII is not as casual an idea as popping over to Mesra Mall for a packet of Twinnings teabags. I am new on the job, a mere First Officer, and the paycheque of an aircraft captain has not even surfaced on the distant horizon yet. Till a few things are known for certain, for instance, if a full-scale scholarship frees up some breathing space for me to fumble in my pockets for loose change, I cannot set a short-term date for the SII even, let alone the ultimate SIII.

It is in that spirit that I have come up with a whole new and more eloquent defense strategy than the ill-heard "no" against pushy credit-card agents, some of whom have taken to infesting the departure hall at the airport.

One accosted me most earnestly yesterday and flashed me a glossy brochure. I said no before he could start. But he was persistent and said "Brother, you sign now and I give you the card now, with a free coffee-maker!! Come, let me show you."

"I have my own coffee machine at home, mate."

He pursued me further. "Brother, I give you good credit limit one lor. Just spend me five minutes of your time."

I spun on my heel and faced him squarely as he towered over me. That near everybody towers over me is irrelevant in this instance.

"Mate, unless you have a Samsung Galaxy SIII to tempt me with, this conversation is over."

It took all of three seconds for it to sink in, and realising that he had no counter-argument to that, he stood there laughing out loudly to himself as I walked away from him, pursued no more.

Con-glamour-ate

Diet.

It's imperative for an offshore pilot. I am not speaking about the means by which to maintain a bod worthy of being able to fit into the unearthly confines of a GQ magazine. As a hobbit who is faithful to breakfasts, second breakfasts, elevenses, lunches, afternoon teas, dinners, suppers, and anything salvageable in between, I abhor politically correct diets and unrealistic images to live up to with utmost hubris.

Knowing that we fly over great distances with no highway lay-bys or pitstops, taking risks with what we eat can be a cause of desparation and agony in flight should an untimely stirring in the bowels develop into a violent tummy tornado. I had considered this when I started offshore flying, as military flying itself does not offer much in the way of relief, though spotting a clearing in the foliage does look like a point of salvation in dire emergency. Indeed, the operating manuals both in military and civil flying advocate taking care of what we eat in order that be do not brew a storm in the belly, even so far as to dictate that in a multi-crew operation, the pilot and copilot should not consume the same food so that in case one person is incapacitated owing to indigestion or diorrhea, one pilot will remain well enough to command the aircraft.

I was on my operational line check a number of days ago when my training captain simulated an emergency whereby a passenger was experiencing a severe tummy ache. He asked me what I would do.

I said I would search under the GPS for the closest rig, radio heli base and the rig and declare my intentions to land to allow the necessary. He "okayed" my decision but I surmised that the emergency simulation was merely a preamble to his rendering of horror stories as he went on to describe in unminced words, how such occurences in the past had led to rather gross-tesque incidents in flight, making life in the air nasty for passengers and on ground, for the technical crew. He may have been conglamourating, successfully too judging by the images passing through my head of pilots stuck in the cockpit hatch with butts in the frigid air at 3 000 feet and 110 knots. I shuddered myself back to reality and asked him: can't these things be taken care of before flight?

How coincidental then, a few days after, that I was to discover that even when we are careful, we can still be humbled by militant tummy bugs. No, I didn't do any reverse perching through the cockpit hatch. I adhered to my own measures, watching the GPS countdown the distance to the destination rig, and was able to go below deck to the facilities while the passenger exchange was taking place under the supervision of the helideck crew and the observation of the captain. I know now that I should never be presumptuous or smug about my dietary habits in the obviation of in-flight motions.

The Waiting Storm In The West

Over the past five days of my work cycle, I had four days on the 7 am muster. The haze interfered with all of us in all walks of life, and almost all of those early mornings were a climb straight into a greyed-out sky, creating the illusion of motionlessness. Staring down into the sea, where after several seconds the eyes would discern the waves below, was the only means of breaking out of that illusion.

Then on the final day, just before I began my five-day leave cycle, came the kind of day that makes a pilot feel like, Damn!!! This job is really worth it.

I touch the clouds, I touch the rain

We went out in gloom as we had many days past. At 80 miles out, the weather began to clear as residual precipitation from the night before was rising to form low cumulostratus clouds, puffy yet not heaped, sucking up a portion of the haze by using their non-aquaeous particles as condensation nuclei over which to form these marshmallow puffs at three thousand feet. It was on the way back when we hit the storms. I stuck my palm out the hatch and quickly drew it back. At that speed, the tiny beads of rain felt like a million acupuncture needles.

Then we broke cloud. The greeting view ahead stirred even the captain from his dull submission to flight time slumber. He fumbled in his bag to fetch his i-pad to snap up the vista.

Umbra and Penumbra

We had rainbows.

They were brilliant, all seven colours in a ring around the heli's nose moving with us as we edged forward into the centre like it was an aiming circle suspended in the sky. I looked intently at it, in dual concentric bands with the subdued mother-band embracing the brilliant child inside her arms.

Flying through hoops

As the storm cloud passed behind us, the ring around us slowly faded and gave way to fair weather for the next fifteen miles. Another mild storm cloud lay ahead of us with its own rainbow enflamed upon its walls.

Remembering a promise

Seeing this elevates the mood, I find, infusing a sense of hope. I wonder if it is really because it stands for a promise that He will never wipe out mankind in a flood. Wait, we have had mass destruction by water after Noah. Ah yes, but those were instant, not the slow despairing watch of your end coming to take you at the point of a scythe. So the promise still stands, and therefore the validity of the rainbow remains. Perhaps this is what the connection is, that we can always look forward to better times when we have weathered the storm into passing on behinds us.

Or did I just conglamourate?

On The Road

Looking at my roster, I am supposed to have about ten to twelve days of rest time a month.

Yet, I feel that I haven't caught my breath yet from running around like a beheaded rooster.

The past few weeks, my mind has been away from the flying world even though I have been up in the air with no abatement of frequency. The days slipped  by, up in the morning, landing in the evenings, one-rig sectors, two-rig sectors, three-rigs, were all slowly merging images of days being ticked off the calendar towards sorting out the other aspects of life, which is always reaching forward. Even refuelling stints are now routine for me.

East Piatu is yet another rig with refuelling facilities, and in fact it has a pretty nice fuel pump, and I say that because it is new, which makes for speedy top-ups. We had landed there on a long legged sector, and transmitted that we would need about 550 litres of fuel to be topped up for the remainder of the journey.

Upon landing and shut-down, the team was ready to clip on the bonding wires to dispense the static electricity lest an arc ignited the paraffin fumes. They spoke to the captain, all business-like, as if this were a Shell station along the highway. Except that no, I didn't see anyone with a filthy old rag, baseball cap and chewing gum.

Water Contamination Check In Progress

Two chaps were standing by with a jar at the nozzle end of the fuel hose to check for water contamination. They were both Indian, and after syringing the fuel up through the contamination check pill, they shook their heads at each other. One then said, Thanni illai? which meant no water?To which the other shook his head in concurrence. Watching them closely, I said, Athu serri, or alright. They looked at each other and then started grinning like a pair of truants who had been found out by the prefect. And I too, love the effect I have on the unsuspecting when I throw in a few words of Tamil.

No, I can't really speak the language, but I can get by in a Chettinad restaurant, albeit to the very limits of my cranial capacity. Owing to the fact that I look nothing like what people expect a Tamil chap to look like, the chaps at the restaurant get rather tickled that a Malay man is ordering the most artery-clogging food in their language.

With the water contamination test done, it took only five minutes to fill up the feeder tanks to the required amount, and mopping-up was already taking place before I could return to deck from a visit to the restroom. My two Indian friends were there and the darker, gruffer one said, "Thanks sir. Next time we meet on shore we will have thanni also." I caught his wink, as thanni also means beer in Tamil.

"Yes," I replied with a smile. "But that will be varrai thanni."

But an Oktoberfest will probably have to wait till October with the way things are rushing along for me.

There was also a sortie to Global Sapphire, which once again was not destined to occur because the barge's roll was at 3.4 degrees. We elected, just like the last time, to land instead on Angsi Delta's fixed platform. It was my turn to get out of the cockpit and supervise the passenger exchange. I strolled forward to Angsi's deck edge to take a look at Global Saphhire tossing about, and today she looked a lot moodier than she did before. The buffer buoys at her keel were also flung upon the waves, slamming into her sides. My eyes traced the deck to where her passengers would have climbed up the staircages to board the helideck at Angsi D, and I could see why these structures were called "widow-makers". The horizontal staircase and vertical staircase were virtually scissoring into each other, and anyone using those stairs would be in danger of severing a limb or crushing his skull. 'Tis not an easy life this, making a living from the sea.

On the domestic front, it looks like all my 5-day stand-downs have been used up on the road. First, it was a rush down to KL to retrieve my upgraded license, combined with a recce of potential colleges in which to enroll Ethan. We had so little sleep, and so much driving to do. GPS is a great driving companion but seriously, there is a 15-metre lag between the actual junction and the GPS voice and graphics prompt, which resulted in missed turns and the word from the GPS that makes me curse and cringe: "Recalculating..." I for one, never knew I could drive on just 2 hours' sleep from KL to Kerteh. Well, I used to ride on my old GSX 400f on four hours of sleep on that same leg when I was younger. But riding is different. Once that engine starts and my hands are on the handlebars, I whizz, whirr and wind up like Optimus Prime in metamorphosis. Driving on the other hand, can catch me wandering off, but I use aids...such as Werther's Original coffee swirls. Those pep me up for about 50km at a go.

After the college hunt, my medical check was due, which meant another drive down to KL during my next 4 day stand-down. We vintage ones have a 6 month validity on our medical check, and mine came around sooner than I could prepare myself for, but then a guy's gotta drive when a guy's gotta drive. With trips to KL in suuch rapid succession, I am now getting very used to the sights and landmarks of the East Coast Expressway. It always seems tedious the first few times, and you wonder how weekend husbands and others do this week after week, sometimes travelling as far away as Malacca and back and perhaps even further. After a while, your mind starts turning the towns you pass like pages in a book, and like a well-read one, you know you are making your way to the conclusion at the final leaf that you flip.

A picture snapped by my Thai colleague
when he caught me devouring a black-bean bun

And yesterday, I finally said goodbye to Joey, my war-horse Toyota SE. For the last time, I drove her, still enthralled at her ability to wind up to speedy passes and overtaking with confidence when traffic began to drag along the single-carriageways from Kemaman to Kuantan. She was still a good drive, stable as a boulder and thrilling in corners. She has served the family well. She was the long drives Brenda took on her own with the toddlers when I was on SAR standby in Kuantan, the getaways from the red-eyed hamster-wheel ride of staff work in MINDEF to a breather in Malacca, the second posting to Labuan and the return to Semenanjung as a civilian. She has been handed over to a pleased salesman in Kuantan.

I will see her no more.

At the end of it all, I sometimes puzzle over which part of all this is where I really reside. We tend to think that we live apart from our work lives, that it's merely the means by which we make bread while what we do away from work is where the truth is. We long for our annual leave, public holidays and extended weekends to be with the people we love, to have quality time with them. As for me, I am beginning to believe that there is another, rather askewed view than such poetic simplicity. I think it is possible that it is work that helps me to gain a return to normalcy. The sight of workmates, my colleagues from Thailand who are husbands in exile, the never-ending checks and reviews and aiming to be a better pilot with each sortie, can serve as the draw away from the whirlwind days on the road as the revolutions slow to a manageable pace. After all, guys, sometimes "leave" is another word for "chores".

Yes, I am going to recover from leave at work.

Cockpit Conversations

Me: Kerteh Tower, Tango Juliet ready on line up runway 16.

Tower: Tango Juliet right turn clear take off.

Me: Clear take off Tango Juliet.

Me: We are clear for lift off sir.

The Captain: Ok. Monitor my take off.

He gently raises the collective, and we hover at ten feet from the asphalt.

Me: Ok sir, you are pulling 83 percent power, Ts and Ps good, Nr at 103.8, FLI good.

The Captain: Ok, controls normal and rotating.

He eases the cyclic forward and the chopper accelerates to a gentle climb. Passing 500 feet, we carry out the after take-off checks, drawing up the landing gear and setting the altimeters and other navigation aids.

20 miles away I make my first range call, as is the procedure. "Kerteh, Tango Juliet 20 DME."

Tower answers acknowledgement, and requires another call at 40 miles. "WILCO, QNH 1007, next call 40 DME Tango Juliet."

There is never a dull moment on the frequencies, whether Kerteh  Tower or Helibase. Someone is always making a range call to update the ops centre or traffic control, or tell all stations flying that he is descending to the destination rig. Some chat on helibase's frequency to keep their fingers on the pulse of their neighbour's flying life, others yet to determine where each other are at any given moment so they can maintain pilots' separation in the ops area.

Suddenly a plaintive voice rings out.

"Tuan-tuan, kita akan mendarat sebentar lagi di pelantar Angsi Delta. Sila pastikan tali pinggang keledar anda diketatkan sehingga selamat mendarat dan pintu pesawat dibuka oleh kru pelantar helikopter. Kami mengucapkan selamat bertugas dan semoga berjumpa lagi di penerbangan akan datang."

Or:

"Gentlemen, we will be landing at Angsi Delta platform shortly. Please ensure your seatbelts are securely fastened until the aircraft doors are opened for you by the helideck crew. We wish you a pleasant stay offshore and hope to see you again on the next flight home."

I turned to the captain and said, "Excuse me????" He gestures a gleeful shhhhh to me, waiting for all hell to break loose as he seemed to know it would.

Hardly a second after that peculiar script, all voices hurled in.

"Woi, siapa nyanyok tu????????????" came one aircraft captain's voice over the radio.

"Saya punya dah ketat dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!" my captain joined in."MY belt is tight, my belt is tight!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I laughed hysterically in my seat, quaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm. I knew it had to happen one day. Somebody was going to give the passenger brief over the air instead of inside the cockpit.

Man, I am glad I don't enjoy the distinction of being the pioneer on this one.

Just Soot Me

It was a routine trip out to a mobile barge named Global Sapphire. Prior to departure especially for mobile barges and FSO ships, the specific weather report containing the pitch and roll limits are scrutinised to determine if the barge is within safe limits for a deck landing. Just think about trying to land a helicopter on let's say....the Black Pearl tossing in the wake strirred by an angry Kraken. This is what we refer to as an exaggeration to depict a point. Pitch and roll limits exceeding 3 degrees would make landing the helicopter on deck hazardous. Global Sapphire's weather report stated the roll at 2.4 degrees. It wouldn't take much for that to swell to 3 or more.

The weather outbound was serene, with a healthy tailwind speeding us onward to the barge. Oh, I could use that, especially when it was my second running sortie after having done the 7 am muster to two rigs, as the sooner we got there, the sooner we would be home. Thankfully I was flying with a most placid aircraft captain. I did not serve with him in the air force, therefore there was no residual history on which to pick in order to show me who the better pilot between us was. 40 miles out and the stable atmosphere manifested in carpet cloud at 2800 feet.

These cumulo-stratus are simply called carpet cloud, with no similarity to a luscious shagpile

The ten-minute prior landing call to check on the current weather at Global Sapphire revealed that the barge had a roll of 2.5 to 3 degrees. As it was colocated with Angsi Delta, we decided to carry out the passenger exchange on deck Angsi Delta instead.

As we descended to the lower atmosphere, it began to get gloomy with haze. Angsi was a pale skeleton against the grey background, and all that stood prominently was her raging erect flare emitting much soot above the plume of flame.

Smoke Gets In Everyone's Eyes

We trailed past the rig to set up for a running in on finals to land. All was going well when at just 300 feet above deck, the radio operator called out, " Tango Juliet, Angsi Delta here we have a stop-work alarm now, deck not clear for landing." I acknowledged the call and the captain executed a baulked landing, depressing the "go-around" button and climbing away from the approach. Just half an orbit later, I called in for an estimate of the delay. The radio operator replied that all was in the clear and we could land on deck.

So who's setting fire to the rain again?

As I was supposed to fly the leg home, the captain got down to supervise the passenger drop-off and pick-up while I stayed in the cockpit to give the passengers their welcome-aboard brief and make the all-stations departure call. I looked towards the right and there she was, miss Global Sapphire, tossing and twisting on what looked like a tempestuous sea. Odd, I thought. We approached to land in virtual nil-wind conditions. Why then was Global Sapphire so unstable? Perhaps because she was no different from any rescue boat, except that a helicopter platform was sewn onto her head, just above the bridge at the bow making her top heavy and with the propensity to behave like The Milkmaid from Aesop's fables.

Global Sapphire tossing like a captured croc

I learned this day, what a 3-degree roll looks like. It was enough to make me dizzy, and I don't see myself even imagining a landing on anything like that.