Muddy Planes

When we were packing to move to Indonesia, MAF gave us a list of things we'd probably want to bring, and one of the things on there for pilots was a good set of leather shoes. I've always been someone who loves waterproof shoes that are Gore Tex or eVent lined (me and my college roommate Tim used to love to go stand in ankle deep water during backpacking trips just to test them out). Here in Indonesia, I get to test those waterproof shoes out almost every day, especially when I fly. And now, my beloved eVent and Gore Tex lined shoes have apparently developed holes in the lining because they're not waterproof anymore! But enough about me and my shoes; just look at what these planes have to endure when we take them to these wet, soft and muddy airstrips:

Mud on the nosewheel in Data Dian:



Here the people of Pa'Upan (the place I wrote about in my post on the MAF blog) help me get the 206 out of the mud. This was the first time I had gotten stuck!



Here's me taking off at the village of Long Layu, video courtesy of Wilbert Rietveld. Now if you're a pilot, especially an MAF pilot, and you're watching this, you will probably observe that my soft field technique here is not quite perfect, since the tail is a little too low. So let's just get that out of the way. But I've made adjustments since seeing this. Looks like the plane is going through lakes on takeoff:



Same day, but landing Long Layu. Notice the wheels as the plane gets closer:



The same airstrip from above, to give you the bird's eye view:



Slippin' and slidin' in the mud with the plane can be fun, as long as the airstrip is long enough. It's always fun coming home and the end of the day with the plane covered in mud. Our airstrips here are quite different than the ones MAF uses in Papua. Theirs tend to be high in the mountains, with significant slope on them, which is challenging in its own right. Our challenging strips here tend to be short and flat, and if it's also wet, that can be a very dangerous combination! So we generally avoid those short, flat strips when they're wet.

I'm not the only one who likes to play in the mud. Actually, I don't really like it. However, Roman loves playing in the mud. Usually when we let him go outside, he goes straight for the mud puddles. I say "let him go outside" because we generally know if Roman goes outside he's going to get dirty. We've gotten to the point that we just strip him naked when he's done, hose him off, and sometimes even go ahead and just bathe him outside. Generally the dirt goes straight to his mouth:





Thankfully, it looks like the wet season is behind us. Now with the dry season beginning, instead of mud, we can look forward to smoke and reduced visibility! Hopefully it won't be too bad this year.