Indonesia Today

by : Ian Mathers

West Papua has some of the most challenging and dangerous flying on the planet. Its high mountainous terrain and unpredictable weather as well as remote strips make for very intense flying. Even the slightest off course deviation could mean smacking into a mountain. This type of flying can kill those that are not ready or comfortable with it. On bad weather days it can become very intense and demanding. My name is Ian Mathers. I am a Canadian professional pilot and Susi Air captain on Cessna Caravans. We operate brand new state of the art Caravans, two crew and operate on the islands of Sumatra and Papua, Indonesia. Flying passengers as well as cargo into remote strips. I love it here. The flying is amazing. This video shows a landing into Ilu. A mountain strip which we use as an alternate when we cannot get into Mulia due to weather, which was the case this day. Notice all of the people on both sides of the runway. The clip continues as we taxi back to them and get out of the aircraft, waiting for the weather to improve at Mulia. You can also notice a MAF Caravan that had just landed before us. As with many other strips in Papua it has an upslope of 10 degrees or more leading to only one way to get in. It all makes for exciting flying. You can see many more aviation and travel videos and pictures on my site at www.worldtrip.ca as well as on youtube