Hari Ulang Tahun ke 5 Drew!

Yesterday we celebrated Drew's 5th birthday.  For his birthday he got a lego airplane, some books on how to draw airplanes (among other things like trains and cars), and a kit for making cool and unusual paper airplanes.  And, if you can't tell in the picture below, he got an airplane cake, made by his lovely mother.  Do you see a theme going here?  If you think the theme is airplanes, you're WRONG!!  Ok maybe that's part of it too.  :-)  But what Drew really loves to do is build/design/make things (OK yes, it's usually to build/design/draw airplanes).  I guess it's in his blood.  His great-grandfather Jim (aka James T. Flythe the original) grew up wanting to build ships, and ended up making a career in construction.  Ditto for his grandpa, Jimmy (aka James T. Flythe II), who still runs Flythe Construction.  And even his dad (James T. Flythe III, that's me) graduated in engineering even if he never actually worked as an engineer.  He has one uncle who actually is a practicing civil engineer and the other is also in the family construction business.  So I think for James T. Flythe IV (Drew), he's destined to build things one day.  Despite the fact that I'm a pilot, if you ask him what he wants to do when he grows up, he'll tell you he wants to "build airplanes," not fly them.  Yesterday, when he was building his lego airplane per the instruction book, and Heather offered to put a piece together, he quickly replied, "No!  You have to follow the instructions!"  I think it's pretty obvious where he stands on the DISC scale.





Several months ago I took Drew on a hike, just the two of us, to some hills on the south part of the island.  He loved it, and has been asking to go back.  So yesterday, for his birthday, I took him and Ella both, so they could "see God's creation."  Ella was ready to go home not long into the hike, in case you couldn't tell by this picture:



She does, however, make a pretty decent photographer:



Roman, meanwhile, has been busy terrorizing, destroying, and getting into pretty much everything he can get his hands on.  He also likes to wear Ella's sandals:





New Airstrips
This past week I got to get a checkout into two of our more advanced airstrips, Long Alango and Pujungan.  These are both very heavily used airstrips that our Kodiak still can't go into, because of length, narrowness, a tight turnaround, or a combination of all three.  They're working on these airstrips so the Kodiak can get in, but for now, they are 206 only places.  If you've seen the All Over the World: Borneo video, you will recognize this man, the pastor of the church in Long Alango:



Right when I got out of the plane, even though I'd never met him, I was like, "Pak Yahyah!"  He seemed surprised I knew who he was, but I told him he was famous now.

For the technically or aviation inclined, who might find this interesting:  Long Alango is 385 meters long (that's 1263 feet for you Yanks) and has very little slope, making it slippery and dangerous when wet.  For me, it's the shortest airstrip I've been checked out in so far.  Well, at least among the flat airstrips - we have shorter ones that are sloped, but we generally consider the short, flat airstrips the most challenging, because of the risk of going off the end if it's slippery.  It's kind of funny, because among us pilots we'll have conversations about the type of grass, or the soil, or the substrate, or how the water drains off the strip, etc.  Maybe I should've gotten a minor in Turfgrass Science while I was at NC State!  Alango also has an especially fun approach from the north, since it's "blind," meaning you can't see the airstrip until you're very short final.  You follow the river until it looks like you're trying to land in the river, then the airstrip all of a sudden appears on your left.  I've even heard stories from other pilots of passengers screaming in the back on final into Alango!

Here's Alango from above:



And here's the hooking approach into Pujungan:



UPDATE:  I see Dave Forney also just posted on his blog about my checkout in Alango and Pujungan.  Read his take on it.