After two nights of rest in beautiful Singapore, on January 10 we undertook the flight half-way across the Indian Ocean from Singapore/WSSL to Male, Maldives/VRMM. This would be a two leg trip with a fuel stop in Banda Aceh, Indonesia/WITT. The total distance per the fight plans was 1,968 NM (2,263 SM).
The satellite image before departure showed some weather between Singapore and Banda Aceh so we were planning on using the onboard weather radar and deviating if required to keep the ride smooth.
Onboard weather radar is an essential tool for a trip like this one as no satellite downloaded radar images are available like back home. In the US, I tend to only use radar ranges of 40 NM or less because the onboard radar is more effective at the shorter ranges and the downloaded radar images (NEXRAD) are good for the longer range picture. However, without the benefit of the downloaded radar images I tend to use the 80 NM range frequently (and even 160 NM on occasion) on these international flights. A typical 80 NM radar image is shown below.
Using aircraft weather radar is a bit of an art in that the tilt of the antenna is important. In the image below, most of the returns are ground and not weather. The green is lower lying ground and yellow mountainous areas. If you look closely, you can even see a valley between two mountain ranges. This radar picture does not indicate any weather along our route, but it takes some interpretation get that mental image.
We made some minor deviations enroute to Banda Aceh, but nothing significant. The ride was smooth and and no ice or rain at cruise altitude. As we started the descent to Banda Aceh, we could see some small rain showers along the approach path both visually and on radar. They were just run-of-the-mill rain showers (not thunderstorms), so we flew through them on the approach path without any difficulty.
Banda Aceh was the scene of the horrible December 26, 2004 tsunami that killed an estimated 170,000 people. For that reason, I expected the airport operations might be less than optimal and allowed extra time for the fuel stop. I could not have been more wrong...we had one of the quickest and most efficient fuel stops of the entire trip.
Somes scenes landing at Banda Aceh...
A video made by Carolyn of the landing...
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/UtR-3I3ODxk
The airport terminal buildings and the FBO office (although they don't call it an FBO)...
The ground crew at Banda Aceh were very nice and efficient. They were fascinated by our plane asking if they could see inside and take selfies in front of it. I don't think they see many PC-12s. Before departing, we even got a couple of fun group shots...
We got a pretty cool passport stamp from the Banda Aceh immigration folks..."Crew Visit"...
After the quick "turn" at Banda Aceh, we departed heading west for the Maldives. Carolyn captured the take-off as usual...
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/fE7PuxGD4vI
The pre-flight satellite image showed some weather along the first part of our route and then essentially clear.
We requested a minor reroute to a fix north of NIXUL (see above) which kept us away from the serious rain showers and even saved a few miles on the route. We still had about 30 minutes of IMC, but it was smooth and no ice or precipitation. Most of the communication was on HF, but it was fairly clear and using SELCAL allowed us to mute the static inbetween communications.
We did experience some intermittent warning flags from the heading portion of our AHRS (attitude and heading reference system) which we also experience in this area of the world on our 2015 trip. Evidently the vertical component of the earth's magnetic field is much stronger than normal in this area and the AHRS "thinks" it may be an internal error and thus flags that the heading information may not be reliable. First time this happened in 2015 it caused us some concern as we did not know exactly what was happening and how long it would last. Now we know it is just an intermittent problem in this particular area and not evidence of some more serious instrumentation error. I'm not sure if it is related, but while flying in the area the old fashioned backup "whiskey" compass also looked a little wierd (the photo below was in absolutely straight and level flight)...
The heading warnings went away quickly and were nothing more than a temporary nuisance. Everything else about the flight was uneventful. We basically saw nothing but water for the 5+35 flight until on approach at Male where we saw many small islands that appeared to be dedicated to a single resorts...
The Male airport is a busy international airport with many commercial flights and business jets. Once again our plane was probably the smallest on the ramp. The handler sandwiched our little (relatively) bird in amongst the big private jets.
We were told the Maldives were a favorite destination for wealthy (as in billionaire level) Russians. In fact, we had a nice conversation with the crew of a large business jet that was heading back to Moscow that evening with the children of a wealthy family and then was to return the next day to pick up the parents. This crew had some very interesting stories about flying all over the world for this Russian billionaire and his family.
Getting refueled turned out to be a hassle because all of the fuel trucks were configured for the single-point pressurized fueling used by airliners and most larger jets. Our plane has ordinary over-wing (not pressurized) fueling. There was some delay getting the fuel truck properly configured to handle our plane, but it eventually happened and Josh and I got back to the nearby airport motel (the worst hotel of the whole trip!) for our one night of rest before heading off the the Seychelles early the next morning.
