After a few days of rest in Singapore and 10T serviced, I was ready to depart for Thailand. Singapore marked the halfway mark of my trip, and up to this point, I’ve flown 80 hours of the expected 160 hours the trip would take in total. I’d also learned my lesson about not having ground support for long over-ocean flights.
20 August 2024: Singapore to Bangkok
Getting out of Singapore is somewhat tricky – as is getting in. OpsGroup is a service connecting pilots worldwide and is full of helpful and current operating tips globally. Their write-up “Surviving Seletar” is excellent in preparing pilots for Singapore. As part of my preparations for the trip, I also flew approaches in my home simulator to probably 3/4 of the airports I’d visit. That remains a great way to familiarize yourself with the layout, approaches, and airspace – especially given how visually accurate simulators are these days (I use X-plane with a Mooney Ovation model).
The 6-hour flight to Bangkok ended up being reasonably straightforward. Compared to my previous flight, I could sit back and enjoy the scenery as I cruised up the west coast of the Malay peninsula. There was a spot of cumulus weather over the Gulf of Thailand just abeam the well-known Ko Samui island, but I could see it clearly, and ATC did not have any issues approving my requests for headings to avoid it.
Then, finally, coming into Bangkok’s Don Mueang International was a bit messy. Unfortunately, when you deal with controllers at large international airports with almost no general aviation exposure, they don’t know how to treat a single-engine piston aircraft. My Mooney is a fast airplane that likes to fly. This means that when you need to descend, you must start early as it takes quite a while to get down. My model is also not equipped with speed brakes, making it even more tricky. It’s no problem in most US since the controllers know to start my descent early. But here, they expected jet-like performance. So, as I was in the STAR (the standard arrival), they started harassing me to fly faster and descend faster, which I could not do. This is where you have to use the magic word “unable” and briefly tell them what you can and cannot do. The result was that my approach was a bit shaky. Doing most of my flying in New York airspace – I take pride in holding myself to airline standards of professionalism in busy airspace. However, that’s hard to do when the ATC side does not comprehend your performance profile. Anyway, I landed fine and was met by my handlers – again, I had a giant parking spot.
22 August 2024: Bangkok to Nagpur, India
And then there was crossing the Bay of Bengal. I had lined up my friend Pierre again to provide some ground support. The route would take me overhead Myanmar as that was the only way to avoid a large section of restricted airspace southwest of Yangon. I knew again from OpsGroup that I was definitely getting all GPS signals jammed over Myanmar, so I was at least somewhat prepared for that. I took off from Bangkok, and things were pretty benign flying over Thailand. There was some weather around, but again, requests for diversions were easily granted. Then, as I approached Myanmar, the GPS disappeared, and I started flying dead-reckoning and with references to VORs. (VORs are ground-based radio navigation stations). The controllers in Myanmar were friendly and efficient. Unfortunately, none of my Iridium devices worked, so there was no way to get messages from Pierre. (I found out afterward that these are jammed also).
So, as I headed out over the notorious Bay of Bengal, I was entirely on my own. I knew there was a band of convective weather to the north of my planned route, and I could hear the airliners asking for diversions again. I was still scarred by my experience going into Singapore, and here it seemed I was headed for a repeat. It was also a real struggle to get hold of Kolkata Radio on HF, but that also cheekily allowed me to do my own thing. There’s no radar coverage, so they don’t know where you are – and over the entire Bay of Bengal, I’m the only light aircraft at those levels, so it’s not like I’m likely to run into anyone. So I ended up at one point fifty miles left of the track to avoid the weather. The benefit was knowing I was not heading into something dead-on again as before Singapore. Since the weather was to the north, my default option was to turn to the south. My worry was how far I may have to turn south; dodging the weather this way was intensely stressful. The entire time, I see my strikefinder light – indicating intense storms.
I get folks asking how I while away ten hours of flying and whether I read books or listen to podcasts, to which I laugh. I spend my time stressing, checking systems, scanning instruments, working out plan B’s and C’s, and doing it all over again for hours.
Once I made landfall in India south of Bhubaneshwar, it was another two hours to Nagpur. I was now able to dodge some impressive weather to my south. Finally, coming into Nagpur, there were substantial storms again in the area. I weaved my way through them, resisting the kind female approach controller who wanted to turn me right into them for the ILS approach into Nagpur. She was very understanding, though.
Finally, I flew the ILS approach to about 800ft AGL before breaking out and landing. And then, of course, just after I landed, the storm moved over the airport with meaning, and I left refueling for another day. It was quite a flight, after which I still had to deal with the Indian love of paperwork and bureaucracy, which took another hour and a half before I could leave for the hotel. Doing this without handlers would be impossible. They were great again.
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26 August 2024: Nagpur, India to Al Ain, Abu Dhabi
Turns out that was only the start. I now had to contend with getting out of India during monsoon season. I was now getting a fair amount of weather stress fatigue. Admittedly, my weak point is that I can’t relax in these situations, and I check weather apps probably every half hour. The issue with the Indian weather was a persistent area of thunderstorms over Gujarat (Ahmedabad being the regional capital) and a line of weather along the Indian West Coast that was there every day. Both lasted for days, and I stayed in Nagpur much longer than anticipated. I have to admit part of it was also wanting to reduce weather risk as much as possible, as I was now carrying a few recent weather-related psychological scars! For weather planning it’s impressive how detailed apps like Windy have become. Again, it was very helpful to have both Pierre and Jon as partners to cross-check my planning with, and we ended up mapping a southerly route that would mostly get me through cells of weather – except for that coastal band north of Mumbai, which I was going to have to get through one way or the other.
I finally felt that 26 August was the cleanest run I could get, so I went for it. I also changed tactics and switched to running Signal as the messaging app I used. Interestingly, it is much easier to get messages through Signal than WhatsApp when faced with the minimal bandwidth of my Iridium satellite connection.
So Pierre could follow along as I flew, which was hugely helpful. I got through the coastal band and then flew about another hour before the weather cleared up. I crossed the Arabian Sea without drama. As a side note, I did discuss with Jon what to do in the case of an encounter with US Naval assets in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman. (Jon is Cdr Jon S, USN Ret, a past F14 Tomcat pilot and veteran of US actions in the Middle East).
I made landfall just south of Muscat, Oman, and then crossed the mountains for a hazy approach into Al Ain. Al Ain was again really smooth, made even better with Nufaiz, the excellent handler. I had booked a desert resort which turned out great – although one has to make the most of the mornings since it gets into the late 40s Celcius in the afternoon!
28 August 2024: Al Ain, Abu Dhabi to Hurghada, Egypt
From Al Ain, I finally had a flight where I didn’t have to worry about the weather (too much). Although right away, it’s damn surprising how much afternoon CB build-up there is on the West Coast of Saudi! When I was taxiing out from Al Ain, it was also great to hear all the South African accents on the radio. There’s a substantial amount of South Africans operating in the area, and that morning, everyone from the runway inspection vehicle to ground control and Tower was South African!
My flight would take me over the Persian Gulf to avoid large areas of restricted airspace in Saudi. But they kept vectoring me east and to the north, well around both Qatar and Bahrain, until I eventually complained that they were messing with my fuel planning and that I needed direct or I may have to declare a fuel emergency. At that point, the Saudi controller kindly gave me a direct route to Al Wahj on the Red Sea. (This wasn’t an exaggeration – this was another ten-hour flight, and the reroutes were eating into my reserves).
With that done, it was one of the most peaceful flights of the trip—incredible desert scenery for hours on end. This is hard to capture in photos, and I sometimes don’t bother. Some of the best memories of this trip are treasures in my mind alone, and I think the best justice I can do is to try and describe them over a whiskey and around a campfire to those interested. I will say that I was listening to the English Patient soundtrack, and some of my friends know that it’s by far my favorite film. It is also incredible to think that I was flying over some areas where, more than a century ago, Lawrence of Arabia participated with the local tribes in substantial battles with the Ottoman Empire. (I passed right over Al Ula, where the Hejaz railway was bombed in 1917). So, I ended up just watching the scenery go by for hours.
The approach and landing into Hurghada were seamless. I was worried about getting my GPS jammed again as this area is notorious for that – but that wasn’t the case (that would happen again when leaving Egypt!). One thing about landing at these larger international airports is that they have rules to follow regardless of the size of the plane (like having to be displayed on the departures board in Al Ain). Passengers and crew get picked up by airport bus. That doesn’t matter if it’s only one crew; the Captain gets a bus. (Oh, also, the form of address is “Captain” wherever I go. And that’s why you wear the pilot shirt and epaulets in these countries – you can’t be “Captain” without looking like one). I must say, I already miss that. There is nothing I hate more than those crowded airport buses at OR Tambo in Johannesburg!
