The BN Islander on Station

I recalled the day I have bought the stuff at P75 at the rows of souvenir shops outside Cotabato Airport on the first day of my flight mission in the south. I have just done my first breakfast at the place on a food stall outside the airport with the crew chief and the pilots and even availed of the command pilot’s generosity of a cup of halo-halo for dessert, too late to have succumb to the ill effects of gluttony when I realized the chemical reaction drawing out air from my stomach at multiple bursts. So while I was on the wait at the tailoring as the command pilot was having the holes and splits on his flying suit sewn, the stuff hanging on the display caught my attention. Right then and there, its place on my neck was just at the right place at the right time. I haven’t had any bloody encounter like the typical soldiers who have seen action at the dreaded place donning it with the uniform. How it matched my worn out flying suit however when I have worn it in flight was quite a miracle. And what’s more, how I managed to find a comforting place at the airport to take out the contamination on my stomach before we took off to return at station must be another blessing. If the black color does have the property to draw in anything negative then I wouldn’t have made it home at station with clean pants if I had been a casualty on board an aircraft not equipped with a lavatory.  

Cotabato Airport

 We took off at around 0710H in the morning for the second try about an hour and a half late on our indicated departure at the itinerary. The silhouette of Zamboanga Airport  with  its  control tower slid past my view as we gained altitude along runway 09-27 and I have made a sigh to have been freed from the confines of the surface while the rest of the Vinta City remained asleep. On the first try, a magneto drop on the left engine prompted  PINSP LARRY C ALFONSO the command pilot to turn back and we we’re required to troubleshoot the cause. Opening the engine cowling and removing three spark plugs on the engine while it started to rain was quite a job to do. I was having trouble with my sneezing owing to a runny nose covering my head with the scarf and I am quite unfit for action but I managed to lend a hand somehow. After brushing the tip of the park plugs with  100LL gas and scraping the carbon deposit , we made to put them back in place and return the cowling. The slight rains stopped after we have put back everything in place. The test run proved satisfactory so we finally taxied the second time around allowing me to be lost in thought while we headed for our destination at cruising altitude. I was seated on the backseat of the aircraft while the senior mechanic took the second row of seats behind the pilot. I felt my back soaked in cold as we climbed at altitude thus I reached out for my bag to replace my damp shirt and I was relieved from the near outbreak of hypothermia. We were on the wake watching and listening to the twin Avco Lycomings spinning two bladed propellers humming in protest at 9,500 ft altitude. It’s my 3rd   day on the mission and if not for the onslaught of colds everything would have gone smoothly. We were set to ferry two drums of fuel to Cotabato Airport to support the airlift operations of the unit. A Cessna 421 unit aircraft, which ferried me to the station 2 days that passed remained on standby at the airport to support the arrival of the Chief, hence, the need for additional fuel. My runny noose is still oozing out as I was seated on the cushioned seat with a bit load in my head. My ears activating with a buzz in rhythm to the clicking of the two drums lying on the aircraft’s matting as we descend and ascend in altitude adjusting to the wind. Sitting in front of two drums of AVGAS 100LL fuel brings to mind the life of an average astronaut. Picture a space traveler clad in spacesuit sitting on a rocket ship with an average 526,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen on an external tank (the size of Cebu Pacific’s DC-9) fed into 3 main rocket engines blazing at altitude that may blow up anytime before it could even orbit the moon. The Challenger met that fate in 1986 along with its 7-man crew. There’s the glamour in wearing a spacesuit with the privilege to be exempted to pay taxes on a mission to the moon outside the jurisdiction of a regulating body. I’m thankful that my job doesn’t require me to sit in front of a pool of highly flammable fuel in exchange for that however. Instead I’m merely seated in front of two drums of sealed fuel, which assures me of a ticket back to the surface to return to my boring life. A 4-man crew twin-engined aircraft maybe a less sophisticated machine than any average spaceship but is a far safer vehicle at any rate. Maybe then, only the pain of clogged eardrums comes as my only embarrassment. This aircraft is not pressurized.

A typical sight by the left side passenger window of the aircraft

The BN2A-21 Islander is an unpressurized aircraft with service ceiling at 13,000 ft. Yet with an average length of service at 27 years, she wasn’t that capable as in the good old days. However with the faith on good maintenance despite the typical flow of maintenance funding that is being trimmed by the bureaucracy, she was still at her best. We do hope she is, or else we have nobody to fool but ourselves if certain lapses deprive us to get back to the ground in one piece. Barely months that passed she survived a busted oil line while on flight. Good enough to have checked the command pilot’s mettle in returning her to the ground intact with the Presidential Assistant for Mindanao affairs, Undersecretary Dureza and 2 aides. She gained a page in the local tabloid how she survived a forced landing at Cotabato Airport after that ordeal. She gave her crew and passengers another lease on life and now she yields into another phase of her safety record to include me into it. I watched the expanse of the open sea and occasional wisps of silvery-white clouds pass the window as I felt sleepy in after effect of the cold tablet I have taken. I was seated alone at the backseat having nothing to do so my decision of bringing along my IBM T20 laptop computer did found its use in treating my boredom. Minutes of writing however, I resorted to shutdown the equipment finding difficulty to keep my ideas flowing, wishing I have taken along a thermos with hot water for a cup of coffee. We reached the coastline of Cotabato and felt the jolt as we meet strong gusts head on in a pattern to land. With landing lights on and throttle setting at 1800 RPM and decreasing at approach, we leveled with the coconut trees at treetop and aligned with the centerline of the runway. With nose up, full flaps and props feathered at full, a thud reunited us with the surface while the main gears touched the asphalted runway. The nose gear dropped down almost simultaneously and the aircraft settled on the ground. The engine hum dissipated on the surface as power was chopped. With landing lights off, booster off and flaps up, we shot past the silhouette of the terminal building and made a turn to taxi on the apron at 1200 RPM on the manifold. The Cessna 421 remained as we have left it the other day parked sideways on the left shoulder of the airport terminal. We found our usual position on the right wing of the Cessna and gave the twin engines a break for having done its best in the span of an hour and 25 minutes.

I opened the left side door of the aircraft and placed the chocks on the inner left landing gear. Opening the baggage door and putting the tie downs and the rudder lock in place, the cargo is ready for unloading. I took a discarded used aircraft tire on the apron and had it positioned directly below the rear passenger door. The chief mechanic rolled the drums of fuel from the aircraft as I assisted with the tip of the drums to cushion its fall into the range of the used tire. We accomplished unloading the cargo to the ground, time for me to kick the drums to roll its way at the far corner of the apron where our fuel stores are placed. 13 unused drums remained in the stock pile so I presumed the delivery truck from ARMM logistics have delivered additional stocks the other day. The temperature may have been looming at about 32⁰C and if not at the mercy of the breeze from the runway, we would have had a bad time on the wait at the shade of the aircraft’s wing. The cute, 5-inch tall portable plastic chair carried inside the aircraft had found its use for sometime. We sat there for hours conversing for eternity until the twin engines of a Learjet 35 echoed on the runway. We watched it taxiing and preposition in front of an Air Force Marshaller at a distance. The Chief and his staff stepped down at the aircraft’s ladder and was met by the local press and municipal officials. He was led with his party on a waiting Bell 205 Air Force helicopter which airlifted them to Camp Pendatun. I took my laptop by my shoulder and secured the aircraft as we were instructed to leave. We followed suit as we were directed to proceed at the waiting white Toyota Revo staff van to ferry us to Camp Pendatun by land. A driver with exposed scalp in his late forties donning the experimental dark brown and blue camouflage led us to take our seats as a six-man armed team in the same uniform occupied the back of the AUV for security. It seems like I’m having my first taste of surface combat without even trying.  

Camp Salipada K Pendatun, Parang, Maguindanao

 I found my place at the second row of seats at the back of the driver. It was a tight fit to share with the senior mechanic and the co-pilot resting my laptop on my lap enduring poor ventilation having been rocked to and fro as the attitude of the terrain goes. I dozed at halfway of the trip that seemed to last more than the typical flying time from Cotabato to Zamboanga. It was an uncomforting sleep that sent me terrifying visions of having been set in an ambushcade and being caught in a crossfire while in flying suit. An unlikely end for an airman who rather choose to end life in an aircraft wreckage. I reawakened in sweat to check my Casio wristwatch and realized we had been traveling for almost 45mins. I clung to my wakefulness watching the remaining bend of a desolate highway stretch from the airport at Awang to Parang, Maguindanao unfolding. The road that leads to Camp Pendatun is like a multi-faced monster with unpredictable temper. Once the road is concreted if not asphalted and the greenery brought by the vegetations on both sides of it gives the average motorist an invigorating feel of the outdoors. At another phase it maybe gravel laden and dusty. A variation of sugarcane plantations, rice fields, coconut trees and scattered communities are passing panorama that greets the traveler. There maybe the typical noise of a populated barangay and the deceiving silence of steep slopes in sandy loam covered road that intersects mountains and hills. Once there, you’ll never expect what to happen next. There are age-old bridges, which outlived the words of politicians who promised their reconstruction crossing historical rivers, which have nurtured settlers near its banks. The rivers may have overflowed in heavy rains washing the bloodshed in the terrain which have embraced the fallen bodies of rebels and government forces who fought in the differences of ideologies and written orders. Only the road remained the silent witness of the great struggle, which have been waged. We reached a continuous span of asphalted road that remained unchanged leading to the main gate of Camp Pendatun. Once there I took a sigh of relief for having made it in one piece without a bullet hole in my chest. The camp was lined with trees adding cooling effect to a once heated journey. The white Bell 205 Air Force rescue helicopter taken by the Chief and party was already nestled on the grass at a distance from a grandstand. We continued on our way to the heart of the camp and decided to get away with the ceremony which was about to begin. PINSP ALFONSO directed the driver to ferry us at the Regional Director’s Quarters instead where a breakfast call with the Chief has just culminated. The activity was over when we arrived so that we just helped ourselves to make up for our late breakfast with the left over on the table. The catering staff was clearing the mess and we were still lucky to avail of the serving dish of the meal course uncollected so we managed to thrive from the foodstuffs initially corrupted by flies. The mystery of human appetite seemed uncertain. Sometimes it’s strange how discarded food about to be spoiled in the open seemed far delicious and satisfying than meals served at closed doors in strict sterile conditions. For one thing, the stuffs keeping our mouths in full function are free while the menus served in restaurants are not. Yet there are times that the health assurance that one could get for paying a clean meal doesn’t go with the price being paid. For one thing, the cook hides all the unsanitary instincts in preparing the listed menu behind the kitchen wall. We killed our appetite in eating watching the catering crew replace the old breakfast stuff on the table with sizzling broiled Lapu-lapu topped with lettuce, mayonnaise and a swarm of flies buzzing around.

The delicacies for a luncheon party would have been another thing, which would have kept our stomach fantasizing but my assessment of watching the main course laden by flies for minutes gave me the daring to skip lunch. It amuses me knowing that a typical house fly landing on food in a few seconds could lay an average 150 eggs in an area a mere square millimeter. Swatting a swarm of it would leave a millimeter of white spot on top of a saucy chicken unnoticed by the naked eye. Then the eggs hatch into cute larvae that giggle as you maybe crunching a portion of the menu licking your thumb out of mouth-watering delicacy. The enjoyment of lunch left me not enjoying the main course finding its way by my stomach but watching the top brass consuming the foodstuffs on the presidential table with innocence unknowing that police visibility hasn’t been that reassuring to safeguard its officers against microscopic corruption. Now, that’s what I may call corruption in the service in the first degree.

I forgot how long I have waited in embarrassment watching my sneezing worsening. The festivity has gone into mass proportions. Ranking officers get the ultimate filling while non ranking officers (Police Non-Commissioned Officers)in their typical experimental fatigue burdened by their basic combat load and their long firearms appearing like personal cross remained scattered gawking at a corner. One or two maybe in great relief for slipping through  the lunch table with a softdrink in can or a portion of the served menu. A local police band was playing a popular tagalog song in accompaniment to the warm voice of a guest singer, a young, tall and slim majorette sporting the typical white upper uniform with mini skirts which overemphasized a voluptuous figure. I presumed there are lots of fresh, beautiful talents out there just waiting to be discovered. The eyes of uniformed men were divided among the delicacies on the table and beside it with their appetites rising up to the call of the music. It seemed more had been triggered with what meets the eye. There’s enough trees and vegetation inside the Camp to have neutralize the afternoon heat but my colds sent me perspiring soaking my inside shirt on my flying suit. I felt terribly bad. The move for us to leave with the Regional Director on his Toyota Grandia staff van at around 1315H was a big reprieve. I managed to keep my discomforts at bay on board the van with only the RD, his aide, the pilots and the senior mechanic and me devoid of the usual armed security (which had me thinking) I didn’t suppose the peace and order situation at the area was that credible. But I was amazed to have enjoyed a far smoother ride than the route we have taken previously. We were approaching the last bend to get back to the airport when I caught this sexy silhouette of a lady passing the window on my right at the moderate speed of the van hampered by the afternoon traffic. As I was turning my head in the direction of the subject to make up for a face behind the figure, the van sped up so I lost focus. Turning my head back in position I was caught off guarded to face directly at Gen. Omar seated in front of me looking back still fixed on the subject in my direction.  Now looking straight on my face and amused, he broke the silence between us saying “see, we’re both thinking the same thing”. So it was a bit fun to see a general in his late 50’s fall to the usual old habit, and accepting his fondness to such petty fancy at that.

We made it inside Cotabato Airport without difficulty. The van stopped a distance from the waiting BN 2A-21 Islander exposed at the excruciating afternoon heat. I found my way next to the general in alighting from the vehicle with my dangling Laptop on my shoulder. I moved on the double to rest my baggage at the backseat of the aircraft and proceeded with the pre-flight procedure. Removing the chock and all the tie downs, I guided Gen. Omar in finding his seat behind the pilots. The general was adjusting his wristwatch, a crudely designed Casio wristwatch equipped with a digital wrist camera. It was the same watch I have lately bought which have made me quite famous at the unit for being some sort of “inspector gadget” fooling my colleagues with it. Out of some hidden reserve for opening a stray talk, I got a general burned out for using a spy toy. “I didn’t thought you have that watch sir, actually there’s a newer version to that, a colored version.” I caught him off-guarded so he placed the watch aside instead of wearing it. I closed the passenger door to lock when he was strapped in seatbelt as his aide took the seat behind him. Everything happened as in a normal take off procedure after I was back on my seat and we left the surface for Cagayan de Oro at about 1420H.

Crossing above waters and back to land while beating wisps of clouds with propellers

Cagayan de Oro Airport

The afternoon was filtered with scattered clouds with the flight that lasted an hour and 5 minutes. We climbed past 12,500 ft. avoiding a thick cumulonimbus above a mountain trail 30 minutes before reaching Cagayan de Oro Airport. It’s nice to have flown above places whose essence in your life may seem trivial; a dead mountain trail with bald surface, a vast wilderness covered by a field of thick forest, or a calm, open sea with tempting tranquility. Out in the middle of nowhere on whichever destination stated merits your life, just a chance in a million possibilities that two restless Lycoming engines conk out and you will be an insignificant issue to ever talk about in the world of the living. I always have a better gasp of air savoring the joy of being alive whenever I made it back at the surface of another airport. Risking my life in exchange for the ease and speed of traveling the distance from my port of origin allows me to value every moment. A senseless moment on the ground may have been too boring to ever talk about but it will be the same moment of time you will value in the air. Life is a stream of boring and wholesome experience that needs both to nurture itself. A happy life is a combination of both. If you try to justify never being bored on your time then you must have been drunk if not drugged. I was feeling quite better when we touchdown at Cagayan de Oro Airport. All that sort of thinking for an hour and 5 minutes and you’re back on the ground losing whatever better ideas may have sparked on your mind and mingle life like the way it has been. I found my way out of the aircraft when the twin engines shutdown putting the propellers at a halt. I opened the door for the RD to unboard and distributed the baggage. I was required to lend a hand so I helped in carrying another bag that turned out to be that of the co-pilot. We stayed awhile conversing with the crew of the unit’s Cessna 421 which was already there and I managed to lend a hand for the gas-up. Just minutes of break on the surface until we finally opted to find our way to return back to station, we left our colleagues as the sun was falling off the horizon in the late afternoon. We took off at 1605H on the route back to Zamboanga racing for the sun on the hard dive by the east. We climbed at 11,500 ft. and cruised above water for more than an hour with the flight that lasted an hour and 40 minutes. I was caught shivering at the cold, alone at the back seat while the senior mechanic took the seat in front of me. I opened my laptop from its case and added the lines on the story that made the day yet the cold seemed to have frozen my thinking to get ahead with the details that must be written. I returned the equipment into the case and endure the rest of the waiting. We reached the airport before dusk. The same runway gripped the landing gears on our landing. We shot past the terminal of the airport and taxied at the back of the control tower in front of the station. The twin engines had finally been silenced. I found my heavy steps to get down of the aircraft and rested my combat boots on the grassy ground. Working my tired neck for a stretch, I managed to loosen my flying suit to cool off. It was 1755H in the near evening and my day didn’t seem to end up in bad luck after all. I was able to get back to station in one piece as the black scarf lay on my neck swaying by the late afternoon breeze.