Chapter 1 - A Taste Of Things To Come
The fax from Helimission came as a complete surprise that morning in March 1998. While daughters Michelle and Christine were twenty and seventeen respectively, my youngest, Damian, was only thirteen years old at the time and I had not planned to get involved in missionary work until he was at least eighteen. Yet there it was in black and white - “…would you be available to assist our pilot while in transit to Irian Jaya?”
Only a matter of days earlier Helimission had received the official go-ahead to a request from the Vice-Governor of Irian Jaya to make a helicopter and crew available for transportation needs associated with famine relief work in that country. The famine in Irian Jaya, to Australia’s immediate north, was caused by an El Nino induced drought which had spread fires claiming at least 400,000 hectares of forest, and was the worst in Indonesia in fifty years. Helimission’s intention was to airfreight the helicopter, a Bell 206 Longranger, from Switzerland to Sydney. There it would be re-assembled and flown up the east coast of Australia to Horn Island then across Torres Strait to Irian Jaya in Indonesia.
While German Helimission pilot Johannes Rehm, who was also a mechanic, would be responsible for putting the aircraft back together, my job was to assist him with the re-assembly of the aircraft then to help him negotiate the Australian airspace and radio procedures enroute to Irian Jaya. The trip offered me the opportunity to be exposed to new Australian airways procedures, which had changed significantly since I had last flown seven years before.
In July 1991 I was grounded from flying due to a diagnosis of bipolar affective disorder, or manic-depression, and placed on a life-long course of the mood stabilising drug Lithium. Three years later I learned that my condition and consequent medication was no impediment to returning to flying one day. I pursued this with great vigour, and a further three years later, and following six months of physical and psychological testing and evaluation, I finally regained my aircrew medical certificate in November 1997.
I then sent numerous resumes seeking work throughout Australia as well as Papua New Guinea and the oil fields of the Middle East. Over time I began to feel uneasy at not receiving any feedback. While I didn't expect a job to simply fall into my lap, especially without any recent flying experience, what I was really concerned about was any possible negative reaction to my diagnosed condition.
Rotor In The Green had been out for over a year by then and I knew that it had infiltrated the helicopter fraternity in Australia. So to me it seemed that while it was one thing to read about a pilot’s mental condition, it was another to want to employ or fly with him. I resolved this dilemma by acknowledging to myself the fact that I had at least been honest and up front about my condition, and that it was the Civil Aviation Safety Authority which had re-issued my medical certificate, a consideration not to be taken lightly.
There was only one person I did not need to convince that I was at last back on track and ready to fulfil my promise to undertake missionary work. God was right there with me all along, and now He was about to give me a taste of what could be in store for me.
I readily accepted Helimission’s offer to be involved in their project and by virtue of that acceptance I became their Australian “leg on the ground”. Over the next couple of weeks I set about organizing the multitude of things which needed to be done, many of which could only be achieved through local knowledge. One of the first things I did was to obtain an Indonesian visa application form and submit it to the consulate in Sydney.
I was able to organize hangar space with a hoist at Sydney's Mascot Airport, and ground handling wheels to move the helicopter once it was assembled. All requests, handled initially by phone, had to be followed up in writing on behalf of Helimission. Initial contact was made with the shipping agent to help co-ordinate the arrival of the helicopter then its customs clearance and subsequent transport to the hangar for re-assembly. Once the ultimate purpose of the helicopter and the trip it was undertaking was explained I found people were more than happy to offer their services or equipment, often free of charge. Where this was not possible a nominal fee normally sufficed. It felt good to be associated with such a worthwhile cause.
From my contacts at the Army's 5th Aviation Regiment in Townsville where I had flown Blackhawk helicopters for two years I managed to get hold of some maps of the area of operations in Irian Jaya. I also purchased goods to make up a survival kit for the aircraft when operating in this remote area. The expense of purchasing a life raft for a “one-off” crossing of the Torres Strait was not justified so I located a four-man life raft in Mackay, Queensland. The operator was prepared to loan us a raft so arrangements were made for us to pick this up on our ferry trip north up the coast.
Among the problems which also had to be addressed were anti-malarial medication and customs clearances out of Thursday Island into Indonesia. Another perceived requirement was the possible need for portable oxygen for while the aircraft would be operating from an altitude around 5000 feet the main mountain range in the area was from 13,000 to over 16,500 feet. For the most part this range was uninhabitable but there was always a possibility of the helicopter transiting the area at greater than 10,000 feet, above which oxygen is a requirement.
In the days prior to my departure for Sydney I became concerned that I had not yet received my passport with the Indonesian visa I had applied for. As the Consulate was only ten minutes drive from Mascot Airport I rang and asked them to hold my passport for me and I would pick it up personally following my arrival in Sydney.
On Monday 30 March 1998 I travelled from Townsville to Sydney, hired a car and drove straight to the Indonesian Consulate to pick up my passport. In spite of indications to the contrary I was dismayed to find that my visa had still not been issued. I couldn't get a satisfactory explanation as to why this was the case and indicated that we would be leaving in about a week and that I would contact them regularly to check on the progress. I then proceeded to our accommodation in South Sydney. This was with the mother of a missionary doctor Johannes had flown with in Ethiopia a couple of times.
The following morning I was up early for the drive to Sydney Airport to meet Johannes who was due in from Germany at 5.30am. I made contact with him in the arrival lounge and I was quite surprised to find how young he was. I'm not sure what I expected but I assumed that missionary pilots would have spent the best part of their flying life earning their bread and butter before devoting their latter years to the Lord. It turned out that Johannes was only in his late twenties, as apparently were many of the other pilots in Helimission's mission fields. Most of the pilots were also mechanics so that they could carry out routine maintenance and repairs which were beyond the expectations of a non mechanic-qualified pilot in the field.
The helicopter arrived on a freighter aircraft around midday and along with the appropriate paperwork was scrutinized by customs and immigration officials before being released. The fuselage of the helicopter was mounted on a purpose built frame while the tail boom, rotor head, two main rotor blades and the vertical stabiliser were in individual boxes. There were a number of other boxes making up the consignment as well as a massive 500 litre plastic ferry tank for the trip. We supervised the unloading of the aircraft in our allocated work area and made preparations for commencing work first thing the next morning.
Over the next five days we worked solidly from around eight in the morning to seven or eight in the evening. While Johannes concentrated full-time on the re-assembly of the helicopter I helped where I could while still trying to organize administrative matters associated with the ferry trip. This included further visits and phone calls regarding my visa to the Indonesian Consulate and phone calls and faxes to the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra where I got no satisfaction either.
We took a break on the Sunday and went to our respective churches for the morning service then I took Johannes for a look at Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. It was an absolutely glorious day, which we finished off with a harbour cruise. We were back into the work the following morning. The Wednesday was an Indonesian public holiday so nothing was going to happen with regards to my visa as the Consulate and Embassy would be closed. By late that afternoon the helicopter was ready for a test flight so Johannes manned the controls while I handled the radios. The aircraft started okay and we breathed a sigh of relief. After the run-up and systems checks and with the instruments indicating everything was behaving as it should we departed for a short test flight out over Sydney’s Botany Bay.
No problems were encountered during the flight so the aircraft was shut down and put to bed for the night. We planned to spend the next day cleaning up, loading the helicopter and tidying up any loose ends including a final effort to secure my visa. If we were able to achieve all this we would get away first thing the following morning, which happened to be Good Friday. This created a further problem in that if I didn't get my visa on the Thursday it wasn't going to happen before we left Sydney. As well as the Indonesian holiday the day before, the Consulate was also closed for our Christian Easter holidays from the Friday through until the following Tuesday. I began to feel disappointed that after all the work and effort I had put into the project I was not going to get to see it through to its culmination - the flight from Australia to Irian Jaya.
On Thursday we packed and fuelled the aircraft and made final preparations for departure. The ferry tank occupied most of the cabin space and potentially gave us an endurance of around seven hours. However our all-up-weight precluded taking on full fuel but our eventual endurance of around four hours allowed us the luxury of covering a good distance between fuel stops instead of landing every couple of hours as would normally have been the case.
I visited the Indonesian Consulate right on closing time in a last ditch effort to secure a visa. I made an impassioned plea on the basis of having devoted the last month to this worthwhile cause in attempting to get the helicopter into an area where the needs of their own people were great as a result of the famine. Unfortunately my protestations fell on deaf ears so I retrieved my passport and resigned myself to the inevitable conclusion.
Good Friday loomed miserable with overcast cloud and rain showers. Conditions up the coast were not good either even for a helicopter. After hanging around the airport for a while, willing conditions to improve we decided to give it a miss and spent the rest of the day catching up with relatives of mine. The following day was much better so after saying our farewells again we strapped in and prepared to depart.
As Johannes pressed the starter button we could hear the familiar “tick-tick-tick” of the igniter plug but there was no ignition when the throttle was opened and fuel was introduced. After several unsuccessful start attempts it became obvious that we weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. We unpacked the toolbox, opened the engine cowls and set about getting to the root of the problem. After three hours Johannes deduced the cause as being the incorrect adjustment of the fuel nozzle. The insertion of a washer solved this and the engine behaved itself on the next start attempt.
We finally became airborne and I took the controls while Johannes got some great video footage as we flew over Sydney Harbour and the northern beaches. We began to make our way up the NSW coast but due to the delay in getting away we only made it to Coffs Harbour by late afternoon, and decided to stay there for the night.
The following morning we departed Coffs Harbour with the intention of getting to Townsville to stay overnight with my family. We landed at Bundaberg for a refuel and on attempting to start the aircraft for our next leg we had a recurrence of the same problem experienced in Sydney. Eventually the helicopter was fixed and it gave us no further hiccups for the remainder of the trip. However due to this latest delay we ended up spending the second night at Mackay instead of Townsville.
Before leaving the next morning we loaded the life raft which had been loaned to us. The flight time to Townsville was less than two hours and we arrived there late on the morning of Monday 13 April. At this stage the aircraft still did not have permission to go into Irian Jaya so we gained approval from Helimission to remain in Townsville with my family until this came through. We treated Johannes to the sights of Townsville and had some friends over one night for a good old Aussie barbeque.
The permission for the aircraft to enter Indonesian Airspace finally came through on the Thursday so we aimed to get away from Townsville first thing the following morning. We refuelled along the way at Coen before arriving at Thursday Island late Friday afternoon. This was as far as I could go without my Indonesian visa so the next morning I filed a flight plan for Johannes and briefed him on the procedures and radio calls required to cross the Torres Strait. I placed the life raft next to him on the now vacant seat and we went through the drill he would need to carry out in the unlikely event of an engine failure over the water, and subsequent ditching. We said a prayer together then our goodbyes. Johannes started the helicopter and disappeared out over the water for Irian Jaya.
I felt great disappointment at the long and frustrating process I had been through trying to get my visa approved. My feelings were of pure selfishness though, for I truly felt that to go on to Irian Jaya would be a just reward for the time and effort I had put into the project. But this wasn't meant to be. I was soon brought down to earth though by the realization that I had actually achieved all that had been asked of me. We had re-assembled the helicopter and flown it from Sydney to the top end of Australia from where Johannes was more than capable of going on alone. So I simply praised the Lord and thanked Him for what would hopefully be the first of many opportunities to be of service to Him, in fulfilling my promise to work for His glory. It also taught me a very humbling lesson:
For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man,… and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:16-17
