Seychelles

by Carolyn

There are lots of islands around the world. So it is not surprising that we land on more islands than continents for this particular circumnavigation around the Southern Hemisphere. Of all the landmass on earth, 68% is in the northern hemisphere, so much of the Southern Hemisphere is ocean. Early explorers were convinced there must be a missing southern continent to balance the land up north, but of course there is not.

However, The Seychelles are considered a micro continent, now sitting on its own tiny piece of continental plate that was first pried off the Gondwana supercontinent with India some 167 million years ago, and then separated from India 100 million years later. Today this collection of 115 islands sits 200 miles northeast of Madagascar. It was essentially uninhabited (save a few random pirates) until the 1700’s when the French took control. In 1794, the British took over in a bloodless war when the French administrator declined to fight back. Independence from Britain was granted in 1976 and after some socialist experiments/coup attempts in the 1980’s the parliamentary Seychelles today boasts the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa.

Seychelles International Airport

We enjoyed a very leisurely three days of pampering at the Four Seasons. The setting for this property, only 10 years old, was dramatic. Imagine a giant amphitheater, with the bay serving as the stage. Up the granite hillsides were the villas, positioned to ensure perfect views and total privacy. We did go “off campus” one morning to visit Le Jardin du Roi, but mostly enjoyed the beach, snorkeling, and a creole cooking class.

Enjoying the beach

Every villa has a view

Cooking class: octopus salad, creole fish curry, banana fritters

One thing that never ceases to amaze me in tropical locales is the abundance of huge tropical fruit trees. You could live surrounded by avocado, mango, banana, citrus, papaya, coconut, passion fruit, and breadfruits. I mentioned that possibility to a local woman and she laughed and said “it’s great until the fruit bats fly in to fight over the ripening fruit or until it’s dropping on your roof all night.” Speaking of bats, there are loads of them lumbering back and forth across the sky all day. I described Austin’s bats and she was shocked at their small size and asked “so how do you eat them?” I was shocked at that question, but apparently bat is a delicacy in Seychelles. We didn’t see it on the menu at Four Seasons, however.

Papaya

Mango

Coconut Palm

Breadfruit

Seychelles fruit bat

Le Jardin du Roi is a small private spice garden, scratched into another steep hillside overlooking another turquoise bay. It was well marked and the long established spice trees and plants include nutmeg/mace, clove, curry, lemongrass, vanilla, cardamom, ginger, etc. The most famous garden entry is the Coco de Mer, or sea coconut, the Seychelles’ endangered endemic palm which has the world’s largest seed, a buttock shaped monster that weights up to 50 pounds. Since it was Sunday, there was a lunch special of local salads, chicken curry, grilled fish and rice.

200 year old Coco de Mer

Lunch time!

Seychelles is leading the way in environmental protections, and it shows. They have banned import and use of many single use plastics (straws, bags, take-away boxes, etc.). Forty seven percent of the land area is under legal protection. And, in 2016, through an innovative debt-for-nature swap, the government will increase the country’s marine protection from 0.04% of their Exclusive Economic Zone today to 30% by 2020. Money that previously had to service debt can be placed into a national trust fund disbursing over $600,000 per year to help with marine management. Seychelles' “blue economy”, based on tuna and tourism, depends on a healthy ocean.

Flying Maldives to the Seychelles

By Jack

On January 11 we flew the relatively short (for this trip) 1,221 NM (1,405 SM) flight from the Maldives/VRMM to the Seychelles/FSIA.

The weather for the flight promised to be typical tropical conditions with some tall cumulus clouds, but not much in the way of serious weather.  We did the standard small diversions around any clouds we could not fly over and had a smooth flight the whole way.

The pre-flight satellite image showing some high clouds, but nothing serious (i.e., thunderstorms) and easily flown over or around.

The big challenge on this flight was communications. Departing the Maldives, we had good VHF until we got to the boundary with Mumbai FIR (flight information region) which we would traverse for about 600 NM or more than two hours.

Mumbai had three HF frequencies they were working (no VHF) with different people on each one.  On initial call to the primary frequency, they said our transmission was weak and to try the first back-up frequency. Just getting that information across took about five minutes and several back-and-forth exchanges. Once we made contact on the second frequency, we got the same "weak transmission" message and were sent to the third frequency. After much effort establishing communications on the third frequency, we were sent back to the first!  We got the impression none of the Mumbai controllers wanted to handle our little plane given all the big airliners they had to deal with and thus just passed us around to their colleagues.

Eventually (about 30 minutes after crossing the boundary into the Mumbai FIR) we found a controller that checked us in and provided a SELCAL check. Whew. Once the SELCAL check was confirmed, we could mute the HF and motor-on in peace-and-quiet.  The controller had only asked for our estimate for the OTKIR fix which was on the other side of their airspace (615 NM distant) and made no mention of checking-in at any other fixes or times. We think she just wanted to be done with us.

So we flew along over the middle of the Indian Ocean for about two hours talking to no one. Prior to signing-off with Mumbai, we got permission to deviate 30 NM from course as needed for weather and we did some zig-zagging to stay in smooth air and avoid any potential for ice. We were IMC for a while, but it was smooth.

After about two hours and 100 NM or so from the boundary with the Seychelles FIR, we thought it would be a good idea to check-in again with Mumbai to give them an updated arrival time estimate for the OTKIR fix (on the boundary of their airspace) and get their instruction to contact the Seychelles FIR at the boundary as is typical in oceanic operations. So we un-muted the HF and were greeted by a jam-packed frequency with dozens of airliners calling Mumbai - sometimes with more than one at the same time. The frequency was absolutely chaotic and we could not get a word in edgewise.

After about 30 minutes of trying to contact Mumbai, we gave-up and started trying to raise the Seychelles on the long list of HF frequencies listed on the charts for them. We also monitored their VHF frequency and could weakly hear aircraft talking to the Seychelles controller, but not the controller. But, it was good to have some sort of communication as we could always ask the aircraft to relay a message for us. Eventually we heard an aircraft read-back an HF frequency for the Seychelles controller and we tried that frequency and immediately got a clear response. We were back in business.

The approach and landing into the Seychelles International Airport (FSIA) was uneventful. Once on the ground, we found that we had to deplane our "passengers" (Becky and Carolyn) at the VIP terminal for GA aircraft and then start-up the plane and taxi it to a remote parking area. While we normally try to fuel the aircraft on arrival, regulations at this airport do not allow fueling until within two hours of departure. That was a new rule for us and although I asked for the rationale, the explanation was not clear to me. We were also told they could not fuel in the remote parking area. Thus when returning four days later for the departure, we would need to taxi the plane to the main ramp and refuel there. Sort of a hassle, but manageable.

The Seychelles was another stop along our route where we planned a somewhat extended stay of four days. It is a beautiful island and the view from our "villa" was not too shabby...

So we have a nice four day break until January 15 when we fly 2,217 NM (2,550 SM) from the Seychelles to Maun, Botswana with a fuel stop at the tiny French island of Mayotte along the way.

Flying Singapore to the Maldives

By Jack

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.

Singapore and Maldives

By Carolyn

We had a resting stop in Singapore, which means two nights instead of one. It’s the rainy season but rain showers are unpredictable. You look out the hotel window and there’s chunks of blue sky, but you start walking and sprinkles become a downpour. But, the next day could be worse, so just carry on!

Becky and I headed to the Singapore Botanical Garden which was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site on July 4, 2015, exactly the last time we were here. This garden is spectacular with dense plantings and rainforest collections from around the tropical world. We are only a couple of degrees north of the equator and the garden showcases orchids, gingers, palms, frangipani, bonsai, and more. For a change of pace, here are sculpture photos.

Swans in flight

Child on Bike

Girl on Swing

Pouring Water

Watering Trees

Girl on Hammock

But, even intrepid nature lovers eventually tire of the rain, so tomorrow we’ll return to see more.

Which we did, until the steamy temps drove us inside to the small Peranakan Museum. In the 1400’s, Chinese immigrants began moving to the Southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Their descendants (as well as those of other immigrant communities) use the term “Peranakan" which means ‘local descendants’ to distinguish themselves from more recent immigrant arrivals. No photos to share of the elaborately carved Asian furniture, gaudily painted chinaware, and intricately beaded clothing and wall hangings...it must have been sensory overload to live surrounded by so much colorful detail.

This city-state is spotlessly clean, full of trees and expertly manicured medians, and mixes new architecture with colonial/Victorian era buildings.

Trees everywhere!

Thursday, we had a smooth flight to the Maldives and stayed one night at a less-than-lovely hotel near the airport in a messy part of town (does anyone here ever put trash into a trash can?) Quite a contrast from Singapore. Becky and I walked through a high rise residential area to a “park” to look for birds but didn’t see much.

Ferry terminal is across the sidewalk from the airport

The Maldives is a collection of 1,192 coral islands, grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls, spread over 35,000 square miles in the Indian Ocean, making it one of the most geographically dispersed sovereign states. It is the lowest country on earth, with an average elevation of 4’11” and therefore extremely venerable to rising sea levels. In 2009 government pledged to make the Maldives a carbon-neutral country by 2019, but I can assure you they are not on track to pull that off! Cars, busses, ferries, motor cycles were everywhere. They are still running on gas.

One of the MANY carbon energy magazines in our hotel

The sign outside the school...maybe the next generation will be better.

Because Islam is the mandatory religion, we couldn’t buy a glass of wine. We’d brought a bottle with us in the luggage and later found out we could be arrested for smuggling alcohol. So we finished it and smuggled the bottle back out. The resort islands have managed some kind of workaround because resorts couldn’t exist is a dry environment, but don’t even “dream of a wee dram” off resort.

Sunrise was beautiful

Flying Broome, Australia to Singapore and the Saga of Seletar Airport

By Jack

[Note: This is a long post mainly intended for hard core aviation geeks. Click on any of the images to see them with better resolution.]

On January 8, we undertook the second longest non-stop flight of the trip...the 1,614 NM (1,856 SM) flight from Broome, Australia/YBRM to Singapore/WSSL over parts of Indonesia and the Java Sea.

This flight was through an equatorial region known for lots of moisture and clouds. While the satellite image and forecast for the flight showed some enroute weather, it was mainly scattered high clouds and a few thunderstorms that could be topped or circumnavigated without much trouble. 

We were able to arrange an early (0530 local) outbound customs clearance with the friendly Australian Border Patrol folks and thus were able to depart Broome by about 0600 local.  

In general, weather is typically better in the morning hours rather than afternoon as the heat of the day has not had much time to fuel thunderstorms. That is not always the situation, but is a fairly safe bet. Thus, departing early on this day of flying through a tropical region was a benefit. While we brief the enroute weather well, unless there is an unusual situation (large tropical storm, etc.) at the altitudes we use in cruise (FL300 or 30,000 FT for most of this trip), we can usually either fly over or around enroute weather. However, if the weather is very bad at the destination or departure airport, your only option is to wait or, in the case of a destination airport, divert to another airport. 

The big challenge: Seletar Airport

Josh and I knew the big challenge for this flight would be the arrival at our destination airport - Singapore's Seletar/WSSL airport. We had flown into Seletar once before on our 2015 RTW, but that arrival turned out to be fairly straightforward (story here). Today's arrival at Seletar would be much different. 

We spent a long time briefing the arrival at Seletar because it is an unusual and challenging airport for several reasons. One reason for the challenge that we did not expect until a few days before the flight was a massive diplomatic battle between Singapore and its neighbor to the north, Malaysia (more about that later). 

Seletar is essentially the only general aviation (GA) airport in the country of Singapore. The main international airport, Changi/WSSS just eight nautical miles to the southeast has very limited parking for GA aircraft and is essentially unavailable for typical GA flights. With Singapore being a major trade and financial center for Asia, there is a lot of demand demand for GA flights and dozens and dozens of large business jet are parked at Seletar most all the time. The airport also is a hub for aircraft maintenance activity with major facilities owned by Pratt & Whitney, Airbus, GE Engine Services, Bell Helicopter, and Fokker. 

Suffice it to say, Seletar is a very busy airport .

However, due to airspace constraints, Seletar is a VFR (visual flight rules) only airport meaning there are no instrument approaches. Every arrival must be visual or the airport closes down. 

Adding even more fun to the equation, Seletar is sandwiched in very busy airspace. There is an off-limits military airport just three miles to the west, another military airfield five miles to the southeast, and one of the busiest international airports in Asia just eight miles to the southeast. To top things off, there are residential areas within two miles of the airport than must be overflown at a minimum of 1,500 feet for noise abatement. 

The combination of all these factors means there is a very constricted area to maneuver for landing around Seletar.  While there are no instrument approaches, visual approaches (weather permitting) are strictly prescribed with detailed charts (a few presented below for the true aviation geeks). 

As if things could not get more complex, the north end of the Seletar airport is located just a mile from the border with Malaysia. Singapore and Malaysia have an agreement allowing Malaysian airspace to be used for approaches to Seletar. For example, in the "joining procedure" shown above, traffic from the Kong Kong NDB approaching Seletar could descend to as low as 1,500 FT on radar vectors before arriving at the airport making the airport easier to spot in poor visibility and putting aircraft at a fairly reasonable altitude to make the visual approach using normal descent rates.

This all changed in early January 2019 when Singapore announced it was commissioning an ILS (instrument landing system) approach to runway 21 at Seletar. For complex diplomatic and historical reasons I do not fully understand, Malaysia objected to the establishment of the ILS approach. Singapore took the position that they had the right to establish the approach under prior agreements with Malaysia. With the ILS set to "go live" on January 2, Malaysia responded by establishing a large block of restricted airspace up to 6,000 FT just north of Seletar which effectively made the ILS impossible to fly and also made visual approaches much more difficult (as we learned). 

This dispute resulted in Singapore issuing a most unusual NOTAM just seven days before our arrival. 

Here are some more details of the dispute. 

We had been looking forward to having the option of using a nice ILS approach for our arrival. Now it appeared not only would there be no ILS, but we would be restricted to no lower thousand 6,000 FT until practically over the airport since the only visual approach route was from the north over Malaysia due to the other airports and the high buildings of the city to the south. 

Ugh. 

We needed to be on our "A game" for the arrival to Singapore. 

Arriving Singapore

As we descended into the Singapore area, of course the weather could not have been clear-and-a-million. It was a typical tropical afternoon with scattered rain showers and a ceiling of broken clouds.

Given the density of traffic in the airspace, deviating for weather down low over Singapore is not always easy. While none of the weather in the area was dangerous - just garden variety afternoon rain showers - we wanted to give our ladies as comfortable ride as possible. We had the onboard weather radar on with the range reduced down to the 10-20 NM range for maximum effectiveness. As we were being vectored to the north of Seletar for landing on runway 03 (which would require a tight circling pattern to the south of the field), the controllers did a good job keeping us clear of the rain (some "painting" red on the radar). In just one case it looked like we were heading for a fairly intense rain shower and asked for a small deviation which they quickly approved. 

The general arrival path was to the east and then north of the main Changi International Airport.

About five miles northeast of Seletar, we were turned over to a controller that evidently is completely dedicated to vectoring traffic into the visual pattern at WSSL. She was professional, but spoke quickly and expected us to know the local procedures. 

As we passed about three miles north of the airport we were still at 6,000 FT in order to avoid the new Malaysian restricted airspace. Carolyn and Becky later commented that looking out from that altitude so close to the airport they had no idea how we would land. 

Being so high so close to the airport and knowing flying a very wide pattern to lose altitude would not be an option, we elected to configure the plane for landing (gear and flaps down) while still at 6,000 FT. Having all that extra drag proved helpful allowing us to descend quickly without gaining too much airspeed. 

However, once established on downwind at approximately mid-field we were still at 3,000 FT (assigned) and thus way too high to do an even somewhat stabilized approach directly to base and final. 

We aren't sure, but we think the 3,000 FT restriction had something to do with the fact that the controller was vectoring us over the airspace of the military airfield just to the west of Seletar. It also may have been because there were two training aircraft in the pattern doing touch and goes and she needed to keep us above them. Regardless, when the approach controller finally turned us over to the tower we were still at 3,000 FT and just 1-2 NM from the runway on downwind. A normal pattern obviously was not going to work. 

The tower controller almost immediately told us to "enter the overhead pattern for runway three." We hesitated responding for a moment because that is not a common instruction back home. We asked her to "say again" and she evidently sensed our uncertainty and told us to "fly across the runway and enter upwind."  About that time I recalled from some of the airport briefing materials that an overhead pattern was basically doing a big 360 degree descending turn over the airport as described below.

After it "clicked" what the controller wanted, when she cleared us for "a visual pattern" as we turned upwind I knew what to do. Already fully configured for landing (from 6,000 FT), we executed a wide 270 degree descending turn over the top of the airport to line-up on about a 1.5 NM final. I asked Josh to keep an eye on the AOA indicator while I kept my eyes mainly outside on the runway.  There were two other aircraft in the pattern, but the controller's instructions kept us well clear of them which allowed us to focus on flying the unusual pattern. It actually worked out pretty well in terms of altitude and airspeed on final. 

The landing went well and we were instructed to "exit echo three, right on echo pappa, left on echo charlie four, to stand bravo five five." With Josh's careful coaching, I managed to get to the "stand" (parking spot) without looking to lost. 

Whew! We shut down and were greeted by four staff from our handler and two vans. One van quickly whisked the ladies away to the brand new GA terminal building (an $80mm facility) where they quickly cleared customs and enjoyed the VIP lounge (complete with food, wine, and liquor) while Josh handled refueling the plane (we always try to refuel on arrival) and I got our bird "buttoned-up" for our two night stay.

What's the moral of this long story? 

When going to a challenging airport like Seletar, brief until you think you can't stand it anymore and then brief some more. For this particular arrival, having two pilots in the cockpit was crucial. After doing it a few times perhaps with a plane like the PC-12 that can slow down and fly at a leisurely approach speed, perhaps one pilot could handle it well. But first time to an airport like Seletar is definitely a two pilot operation in my book.

Overall, a rewarding day of flying. After a day of rest, we will head off across the Indian Ocean to the Seychelles.