My Life So Far

I now have 5.5 Nepal flight hours. Flying here is so different from the US. For one thing, we are the only flight school in the country, so there is no one else up there practising. The airport has about 3 flights a day that arrive from Kathmandu: 2 from Buddah Air and one from Yeti Airlines. If there is a demand, more flights come in. There is no such thing as General Aviation; everything is commercial. Most of the airline pilots have gone to the US for training. Also, there is no Avgas in Nepal. My boss has it trucked in barrels. The feuling process is quite a production. The roll a barrel out to the airplane, hook up some kind of a siphoning system, and fill the tanks. It takes about 5 people to do this.

We have a full crew at the airport: engineers, mechanics, security guards, and others. The students like to hang around also. They help each other out and practise their hand signals. They bring the aircraft into the ramp just like the Big Guys. They are all on the Airline Pilot track, so it is good for them to be familiar with procedures.

Starting the airplane is quite interesting. They hook up the APU each time (just like the airlines) and have a fire extinguisher standing by (required by Nepal law). Then the pilot has to call the tower and ask permission to start the engine. The full crew stands around and waits for this to happen. When the engine has started, the APU is removed, and then the crew signals the pilot it is OK to proceed.

The tower was intimidated by all this at first, having only dealt with commercial airlines. But now they take it in stride. They get a little stressed when a flight is due in and a student is in the pattern. Usually, the student must do some 360s from the time the airline is within a mile of the airport until they have landed. This is complicated by the fact we have no taxiway. We must back-taxi on the runway before we can take off.

Once in the air, the Himalayas really shine. It would be hard to get lost with that landmark. We are very close to India, however, and must be sure not to fly too far south. Some day we hope to get permission to fly there.