25 Kuala Lumpur - Jakarta
13. Feb 2007
I was in airport at 9 in the morning, and the mr. Mutalib was there, as arranged the day before. I taxied to his hangar, and he did the 100 hour engine check. He did it outside, in the sun, in what must have been about 40 C air temperature.
Turned out that he was a US qualified mechanic, so he could sign for it and all.
When he was done – and just as I had taken on fuel - I had a phone call from Mike form White Rose Aviation providing me with the Flight permission number for Indonesia. I was prepared for a delay, so it was a great joy to be able to get going.
Mr. Mutalib took me to, what used to be the domestic terminal for Kuala Lumpur. Sitting down at a café in the air conditioned terminal was a relief from the soaring humid heat outside. After some waiting time, he managed to get an acquaintance, Mr. Abrahams to make me up a General declaration for the Indonesian authorities, and then Abrahams took me to the airport office to pay the 5$ airport fee.
Then through passport control and to the met office for a TAF for Jakarta, and finally to the company, that was supposed to be a Cessna Service station, to return the security tag, they had issued me with. After a short walk to the plane, I was ready to take off.
Climbing to 11000 feet I cruised south over the Malacca Strait, passed west of Singapore before coming in over Sumatra. For the first time on my trip, I had to ask for permission to deviate from the route in order to stay clear of a line of CB’s showing up on the Stormscope along the planned route.
South of Palembang I had to do some “scud running” among towering CB clouds.
Just as daylight ended, I arrived in Jakarta in Halim airport via ILS to runway 24, and the Indonesian connection of Mike’s was waiting for me.
As soon as I had landed, it was off in a van to the terminal, and after a very short wait, I was through emigration. I just stayed in the van, whiled the handler took my passport to emigration. Then it was off for a short drive in the busy Jakarta traffic to the hotel, that was arranged for me.
