My French Connection

About 5 years ago when my company decided to replace the ageing S61N fleet with the modern Super Puma L2 helicopters I had to do a simulator training on the SuperPuma L2 at Helisim in Marseille. France. Helisim is equiped with the state of art simulators and during my training I met a very interesting French gentleman by the name of Michel Zing. He was ex French military and had flown for Bristow Helicopters. We found that we had many common interest ..from sailing, farming, dogs and not afraid of getting our hands dirty to get a job done. I got to know him much better on my second trip two years later. We had been in contact all the while through emails and I had been brain digging him on a lot of flying matters. He had unselfishly been sharing his knowledge with me. I was invited to have dinner and to stay in his house which is in Rognac. Rognac is quite remote..just like our kampong and yes he is staying in a farm surrounded with olive trees and fruit trees and is quite self sufficient with vegetables too.His girl friend Anne Marie cooked us a delicious French dinner..complete with cheese and ice cream at the end of the meal. Now I know why the French people are so healthy. It is the low carbohydrate food and the daily dosage of wine which they consume.
This is the farm house which they are staying..just like in the story books. Most of the things are very well preserved in the house.

There is plenty to do staying there. The heater for winter utilises log and fallen timber from the property. A tractor is always handy.
So last week when I went to France, I was invited to stay in his little guest house. next to his house. I had planned to arrive his place well before I start "work" on the simulators.This time I brought along another of my friend Capt Eric Ng. We were catching up until well into the night. Capt Eric with Michel and Anne Marie
Fruits just outside the little guest house. We helped ourselves to a few fruits each. This time of the year is cold ...about 12 C day time so the fruits are like just out of the fridge. And they are yummy too...

I suggested that the next night we will cook a Malaysian Dinner and have it in his house. We had brought along some special ingredients for this occasion. I will cook the famous pork rib soup..BAK KUT TEH while Eric prepares curry chicken. At the same time we were trying to explain to Anne Marie about our cooking..see it is quite easily done! Unfortunately we were so busy eating and talking that we did not take any photos during our dinner. I think they must have enjoyed the meal because the left over curry was kept for the next day!
I had brought along my Dahon bike and had a lovely ride round the Rognac neighbourhood. The mistral wind (up to 110 km/hr) wind died off in the morning otherwise I will be blown backwards!

These olives are about ready to be harvested in 10 days time. How I wish I could stay back and help. It should be fun.So hope to see Michel and Anne Marie again soon. Next time I will cook satay and maybe some Tim Sum.! Thank you for the hospitality and the good time we have had had. You have been the "perfect host"!

Tail rotor malfunction on S 61 A 4 Nuri Helicopter

Many of my friend asked if I have ever experienced a real emergency while flying. The asnwer is a YES. I have todate about 18,000 plus hours on helicopters and another thousand on light fixed wing so the law of averages catches up once a while. One very serious emergency happened to me 29 years ago when I was serving in 7 Squadron, RMAF Kuching. The date was 9 Oct 1980 and I was a new "C" category captain on the Sikorsky S 61 A4 (Nuri) helicopter in the Royal Malaysian Air Force. Looking back at my log book I had just accumulated 1000 hrs at that time. On that eventful day, I was tasked to do a training flight with a co pilot. This is the time when we polish up our flying skills and in those days every pilot has to do 3 hours of training flight per month.
The sortie was a running change with my squadron commander. Running change means the aircraft has been started and flown and I just hop in to take the aircraft to continue my flight. When the squadron commander handed me the aircraft he told me the aircraft had some vibrations and I will have to enter the defect in the tech log after my sortie. So away I went to the training area in Santubong , North of Kuching airport. One of the exercises that we practice is an autorotation..you know just in case both the engines flame out together. I selected an area and did a practice autorotation aiming for that cleared patch. By 500 ft above ground level, I initiated power to recover from the autorotation. Suddenly, there was a "cracking" sound and the whole aircraft and the controls vibrated violently. Pedals vibrations were severe and there was limited control and instruments could not be read. I lowered the collective level and re entered into autorotaion and this time to land. Things happened very fast but suddenly everthing seem to come in slow motion. Flashes of family and boyhood seems to come and go. Several MAYDAY calls were made and it was acknowledged by an MAS aircraft.
What seemed like a nice carpet of grass at 1000 ft now looks like a swamp and worst of all there were a lot of abandoned poles sticking upright. These poles were for the pepper farm and it is solid hard wood. Using all the skill that I had been taught in the Air Force, I managed to avoid the poles (otherwise ity will be a satay helecopter!). Of couses, my co pilot Lt M (u) Kamal (at that time) and Sgt Sharom played an important part in the sucessful forced landing.
After securing the helicopter we found the tail rotor blades had self destructed leaving only the spar. In those days, the tail was made of several rib pockets but after my incident (maybe a few more in the world) the blades were changed to honeycomb structures type .
The man in this picture is the first person to come over to the aircraft after I force landed. He gave us some hot Chinese tea which was very much appreciated. I revisited hima few days later and took this photo. Within an hour another Nuri helicopter came to our rescue and we were flown back to the base. In oreder for me to maintain my confidence, they made me do another flight the next day..a good idea.

The department of Flight Safety recognised that I had done a very good job and awarded me the Green Endorsement. This is the highest award for display of airmanship and skill in avoiding major disaster. I had been truely very lucky. However, throughout the later years I had several engine failures (seven in multi engine helicopters) and many more emergencies when I was flying microlights. I will write about it in this blog later. What all these emergencies had done to me is to make me a more matured and conservative pilot and not to take things for granted. In flying, there may be no second chance and as pilots we must take our chosen profession seriously.

Gypsy 28 catamaran building (Sept 2009)

The last few weeks I had been busy building the furnitures inside the cabin. It is not too difficult but I discovered that even though I am the son of a carpenter/furniture maker Ivcannot cut straight and square. This means a lot of time is spent fine tuning the squares. The inside of the cabin actually does not require to be glassed but I feel it looks and feels better so I have decided to glass the marine ply with 300 gm cloth and epoxy. The pieces are then glued together using epoxy. A lot of clamps are required when joining the pieces. I have in my pocession only 14 clamps of various sizes.Most nights I put in about an hour and a half after dinner and having fed my dogs. A rechargeable head lamp is a must at night. I try to avoid using the power tools as much as possible at night. I do most of the marking, measuring and planning at night.The actual cutting is normally done in day light..hopefully I can make a more accurate cut.This is the port side of the cuddy. It houses the cushioned seat which has a large storage space behind. These bits of furniture helps to strengthens the boat structurally. This is the starboard side of the cuddy. It is supposed to house the fridge and the cooker. However I may choose to put other items here. Notice the use of a long clamp to get a better joint between the pieces of wood. A car jack is also extremely useful as it can help to force the floorboard up slightly thus closing any gaps.For budding boat builders a good grinder is very important as it is being used almost on a daily basis. Most corners require a bit of fairing.The back of the cabin is being built here.It has to be framed using red meranti 2 in by 1 inch wood.The back of the cuddy is finally up. Now there is a" door" which I will have to use to enter the cabin.

Cycling up to Fraser's Hill (4100 ft)

Fraser's Hill is a hill station located about 90 km from Kuala Lumpur. I have been told by Min Chee that the trail leading up to Fraser's Hill is one of the best riding trail in the world. In fact it is a hidden jewel for budding cyclist. This has been confirmed by many of his oversea friends who rides up frequently. I have to attend a wedding dinner in Kl on Saturday night so I decided to come a day earlier so that I can do the ride on Saturday morning (12 Sept 09). I took along my Dahon Cadenza 26 inch folding bike for the ride. These folding bikes are really handy...you can see that it is neatly tucked behind the last row of seats on my Nissan Serena.
My RV with Min Chee was at 0700 hrs at the Shell petrol station in Bandar Utama area. He came along with his Volvo and took us to Kuala Kubu Bahru about 50 km away. This is the normal starting point for people going up to Fraser's Hill.

Of course we must have a good breakfast before our ride. Food in Kuala Kubu Bahru was cheap and very tasty. Soon after breakfast we were on our way. we have to ensure that we reach the Gap by 1100 hrs so that we do not have to wait. As the road from the Gap to Fraser's Hill is very narrow, you can only go up during the odd hours and down during even hours. I counted not more than 20 cars along the way so the road is quiet most of the time. As we were ascending and coupled with the shades from the big trees along the road it feels quite cool. The temperature was between 24 C to about 22 C at the top. It is like riding in an air cond room so it was very pleasant. The twist and turns of the road makes it interesting too. There were a few waterfalls along the way. This picture shows one of the larger one.At the Gap we were a few minutes early so it was an opportunity to give the tired legs a chance to rest. When it was time to go we waited another 10 minutes before we continued our ride up as we did not want to inhale vehicle exhaust in such fresh air!. From the Gap to the top of the hill is 8 km . The road is narrow and we had some steep gradients to work the heart up to its max permissible heart beat!So here we are at the top of Fraser's Hill. We had some hot tea in a coffee shop and started our return leg.

This is the MCA building located just at the entrance of Fraser's hill. When we were scouts we used to stay at a community hall i this building. It looked the same as itwas 35 years ago

After the ride up, the trip downhill was most enjoyable. We coasted down for almost 30 km using the stored potential energy of our uphill climb. yes....it is indeed a jewel . I had enjoyed the ride very much and this will not be the last trip but the beginning of more trips to come. Thank you again Min Chee.

A Cycling Trip To Kg Air Jerneh

Aha..another day OFF from flying. I have just purchased another Dahon Folding bike and it has not completed its 1000 km running in. I need to ascertain certain parameters for the bike..things like Vno (Velocity Normal ops), Vne (Velocity nver exceed), gear changing capabilities etc. I have also got to check any squeeking noise esp on hill climbs. With that in mind, I went for a 55 km riding circuit. Start from my house, go on main road to Kemasik, turn left to Air Jernih and from there go by the inland road to Kg Ibok and back home. I have my GPS logger with me and the route taken is downloaded to Google mapThe thing I like best about morning rides is the cool air and the natural misty conditions on the road. Just got to make sure that the rear red flashing light of the bike is on!This is my Dahon Cadenza 26 inch wheel folding bike. The bike is having a rest while the owner went inside the bush to answer a call of nature.The Cadenza is the 2009 model and has 16 speeds. My bike is fitted with slim road tyres but it can adapt easily to fat off road tyes.From Kemasik I made a right turn to Air Jernih.Immediately we have this snaky sign. It is cycling haven..winding and undulating road. The hills are not steep but just nice for a work out.This is the only photograph I took of myself. The camera was held in my right hand to capture this shot.Soon I arrived at Air Jerneh town. Actually it is just two rows of shop houses and it looks like a cowboy town. Along this row of shops is a coffee shop that sells good breakfast. There is no menu and patrons to the shop have to accept the chef's choice for the day!For today we have shredded chicken porridge with century egg. I had the porridge and a cup of coffee and it cost me RM4.10. Not bad..reasonably good food.HER restaurant serves excellent wild boar curry.It was one of our Hash House Harrier's favourite joint.After the coffee break, the journey continued inland to Kg Ibok.A traditional village house in Kg Ibok.I had always wanted to take a photo of the name of this shop.It has a very funny name. Translated in Chinese it literally means LEE FxxK LIM! What a name!
I was home before 1100 hrs and had a good rest before I comence the second part of my weekend...boat building.