Another Day in Paradise

Buddha Air departs.

Buddha Air arrives.

New bus station built by Germany and its donations. But, no buses, no people, no anything? That is my bike to the right.

Meet Mamata (Mum"-ta), Asst VP of Scheduling and Student Records. The aircraft in the background is "my" aircraft, known as Foxtrot. 9N-AIC is Karl's airplane, known as Charlie. Delta is in the hangar awaiting a newengine.

Reena and Mamata leaving the airport for the day. That sun can still be hot! The style of dress for these girls is of interest. They will alternate between Nepali and Western dress each day.

Hello All! It has been very hectic this week. I have been flying hard and this left little time and energy for blogging. My biggest hurdle is the time required to upload pictures. Very time consuming. Oh well.

Today is SAT, an off day but here I am at the airport preparing to give some Instrument checkrides tomorrow. You can't just throw this stuff against the wall and take what sticks. So, not really an off day. Oh well.

One of the students came by to butter me up for his checkride. I took a look at his license. Nepal Private Pilot Lic # 01 (there may be Private Pilots here in Nepal but they all got their licenses in other countries and converted them). He was in the first batch of students and was the first to take his Private Checkride. Nepal has NO GA and, in fact has no one to administer a Private or Instrument Exam (except me). So, Sunjog has Numero Uno. In fact, Numbers 1-8 are right here. Shivani Air is the First and Only fixed wing flight school in Nepal. Kinda neat, no?

The WX has moderated a bit lately, hence, you have not been subjected to my constant complaining. Today, it got to 95 degrees, a welcome relief from the constant 105 degrees previously. The Monsoon is dumping rain several times a day for a 1/2 hour or so at a time. This makes for some interesting flying. When you leave the airport, you have to consider that your returm may be delayed. The options to not returning to B-pur are few and fewer still if your tanks are not full.

Yesterday, I had an unusual event. The prop delaminated parts of itself just after takeoff, requiring a quick review of emergency procedures. Great traing for the student but they don't pay me enough for that kind of work. We made it back to the runway OK but the a/c was performing very poorly. MX cannobalized the prop from the aircraft awaiting a new engine (rumored to be in Kathmandu last week but likely several weeks away from arriving here. Nothing happens quickly here) and we were good to go in a few hours. These MX guys are OK. There are about 5 or 6 true MX (mostly retired from Nepal Airlines and worked the B757 and are called by their first 2 initials, PJ, DL, NB, etc) and 5 or 6 others that are MX wannabes/ramp folks. I'll try to get some pics.

I uploaded some pics while I wrote this so I will add comments when they pop up.