- If you asked me
what was one of my
most exciting aviation trips,
I would tell you it was a trip to Pakistan in 2012.
(upbeat dramatic music)
In three days, I'd flown eight times
behind the cockpits, exploring the whole country.
- Hello.
(upbeat dramatic music)
- [Control] 50.
(upbeat dramatic music)
50, 40, 30, 20, 10.
- My Pakistan trip started from Dubai.
It was organised by my good friend, Aroosh.
He was a PIA pilot at that time.
It wasn't easy to go to Pakistan,
so security was a big concern for me.
- We arranged a tour of the country together
where I picked him up from Dubai and flew him into Karachi.
And then over, just a weekend, over two days,
we did the eight flights across the country,
going up to Islamabad, Lahore, Gilgit,
and then back to Karachi.
All of that just over the weekend, a whirlwind tour,
where we did some great sporting across the country
and had a good time.
Ate some great food as well,
and give Sam a brief tour of what the country was like
and hope he can come back soon.
(upbeat dramatic music)
- [Sam] Having a Aroosh actually as the first officer
on that flight really calms my nerve
and I start to feel very comfortable.
- Sam and I were lucky to fly the 310 together,
and the 310, if you remember,
was a hybrid in between sort of aircraft from the A300.
They shortened it and put bigger engines on it,
so it became an overpowered aircraft,
which was sort of a mix of the analogue and the digital.
- On our flight we actually had lots of labour.
They were checking in lots of baggage
and some even checking a bottle of Holy water.
We had about an hour delay out of Dubai.
We departed a lot of 8480, and 777 out of Dubai
around 3:50 in the morning.
(aeroplane taking off)
- [Sam] So after takeoff, we were served a late dinner.
I was quite surprised there was no one in business class.
The only other passengers were actually PIA pilots
that heading back to Pakistan.
The dinner was extremely tasty,
actually beyond my expectation,
and then to wash it all down,
we have a dessert called barfi.
And the flight attendant were also extremely friendly,
and I was taken by surprise.
Honestly, I was going to a country very little well known,
and there were lots of negative in the press about Pakistan,
but then during the flight, I started warming up
and I started feeling good about going to Pakistan.
And toward the end of the flight
we started to see the sun rise over the horizon
as we flying eastbound.
And we had a very foggy weather in Karachi
just before we land, but it was a good landing,
and I was really glad that I flown on the A310 again.
- [Control] 50, 40, 30, 20, 10.
(aeroplane landing)
- And Karachi airport was very typical way,
very crowded airport,
lots of people at arrivals picking up relatives.
(upbeat Pakistani music)
I had a couple hour rest in Karachi
before in the afternoon, getting on my second flight
which was a 777 200ER, from Karachi to Islamabad.
It was great at that time in Pakistan
you can still fly a lot of wide-bodied aeroplane,
across domestic flights.
And we took off around 4:00 PM and landed just after dark.
We can see the whole Islamabad skyline under clear weather.
And it was the old Islamabad airport
which is extremely small
and very much looked like a bus station, actually.
(upbeat Pakistani music)
Then I over-nighted at Islamabad Marriott hotel
which was actually famous to being bombed a while back.
So it was heavily fortified at the entrance to go in,
and had really great, tasty Pakistani food.
(upbeat Pakistani music)
There are many advantages using a VPN
that you don't want to miss out.
Personally I use Surfshark VPN to bypass internet censorship
to find cheaper travel and to secure my data.
Internet censorship is a growing pain.
Many countries I travelled to,
Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram is blocked,
and I couldn't connect
with my friends, family, and followers.
So I simply you Surfshark VPN to connect to another country
to access all the content I want.
Moreover, I can access to most Netflix library
with just one simple subscription of Surfshark.
With the help of Surfshark VPN, there are good possibility
to finding cheaper travel, cheaper air tickets,
cheaper rental car, and cheaper hotel,
when connecting the VPN to another country.
For frequent flyers like myself, I often use public wifi
at the airport or into hotel
to send sensitive information like banking credentials.
I use Surfshark VPN to encrypt and secure my data.
Here's the best deal for our viewers today.
Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.com/sam.
And to promote code Sam, you will get 83% off,
And three additional months for free.
This video is sponsored by Surfshark.
So the next morning
it was the most exciting part of my trip in Pakistan,
flying into the northern area of Gilgit.
I had no idea how much of a thrill was on that flight.
- So one of the flights we did with Sam
was from Islamabad up into the mountains in Gilgit,
which is a very unique kind of flight
because it's all a visual rules flight,
which operates every morning.
You never know if it's going to go, basically,
because it depends so much on the weather
at the destination, which is Gilgit.
So literally you rock up to the airport
and there's a guy in the hills above Gilgit
who checks the weather every morning,
and calls the airport and says,
"Yes, the Valley is clear,
"I can see in, the aeroplane can come in today."
- [Sam] Fortunately the flight eventually ran
and we got on the flight.
It was an ATR 42.
He actually has a premium economy section in front,
with one row reverse-facing the other,
and then the economy in the back.
We took off in the early morning.
Within 15 minutes of departure,
we start seeing snow-capped mountain,
and we were flying really, really close to these mountains.
(upbeat dramatic music)
I remember in the cockpit, the warning from the GPWS,
the Ground Proximity Warning System was coming on nonstop.
So the pilots actually have to turn off the GPWS
because it was turning all over the place.
It was an incredible clear day of flying,
lots of mountains including the peak of Nanga Parbat,
which was the ninth mountain, highest mountain in the world.
It was beautiful to see the top,
the snow blowing at the top,
and then suddenly the weather changed
and became deteriorated.
The sun gave in back to the cloud.
The captain at that point has to make a decision,
whether we are continuing into Gilgit,
or abort the trip and return to Islamabad
because there were no instrumental aid,
and landing and Gilgit.
(aeroplane engine)
- You may know that we've lost a number of aeroplanes
in that area due to the high terrain.
The flight itself starts with only
the departure station weather and the destination weather.
In between the high mountains,
there is no meteorological reporting there.
So the aeroplane took off,
if the weather en route was bad, we come back.
- [Sam] So fortunately the visibility was still good
to allow us to make all the way into Gilgit.
So we continued the flight,
and that was really an exciting flight
because it was flying so close to all the mountains.
I remember coming into Gilbert, we made a huge left turn
to avoid the mountain top in front,
and then we started to do a steep descent into the airport.
And talk about the airport, I didn't see it.
While we were on final approach,
I still didn't see the airport.
It was actually hidden in the fog behind a line of trees.
Only about three or four seconds before the touchdown,
we finally saw the airport runway.
It was that close and that tricky.
(aeroplane engine)
- [Pilot] 40, 30, 20, 10.
(camera clicking)
- [Sam] And then we have to quickly land and reverse
because it was a short runway, it was a thrill.
Let me tell you this, it was like nothing I've experienced.
I remember after we landed,
we were actually given a tour to the ATC tower
with the tower guys, who had very simple equipment.
We had tea and biscuit with them,
and talk about aviation in general.
Later of the day, the PIA local station chief
were actually giving us a tour around Gilgit.
He took us to Serena Gilgit's hotel to have breakfast
and to look around the Rift Valley
where lots of suspension bridges.
- The surprising part to most foreigners about Pakistan
is the Northern area.
There is tremendous potential there.
It's beautiful and it's untouched.
It's worship area.
- [Sam] Beautiful area, just like Switzerland.
I can't believe it.
And it's time to leave Gilgit, our return flight has landed,
and then we got on board,
and the weather was all clear on this time of the day.
And then we see all the beautiful, spectacular
snowy mountain on our way back to Islamabad.
(upbeat dramatic music)
- Islamabad is a beautiful green city
of the foothills of the Margallas,
which is a modern city, very well laid out,
sparsely populated compared to the other cities,
and really worth a visit to Assam.
So within an hour, you can be up in the mountains
about 6,000 feet altitude.
In the winter it's snowy there.
There's some snow and lovely resorts there as well.
- I have to admit, I really liked the food in Pakistan.
I love the grills, all the meats,
and also they have a special version
of Chinese Pakistani food
which is very close to Chinese food.
So I love the hospitality of the people in Pakistan.
They treat you like royalty.
There were very, very few countries
that people were so interested in you
and any foreign tourists,
any Western foreign tourists going to Pakistan
will instantly get treated like celebrities.
They were just so warm heart people,
would invite you to go to their house
and they love having a good time with you.
- For his flight back from Islamabad to Karachi,
he got a little delayed enjoying the food up in the Hills
and he got to the airport 10 minutes
before departure time of the flight.
And the captain was waiting outside the airport
at curbside to pick Sam up,
and grabbed his bags for him,
rushed him through security
and took him straight onto the aeroplane,
and the flight departed ahead of time
even despite all that.
So that's how well people get treated over there.
(upbeat Pakistani music)
- [Control] 50, 40, 30, 20, 10.
(aeroplane landing)
(upbeat music)
- [Sam] So the next day, another exciting trip ahead.
It was flying the 747 300.
At that time, PIA 747 were mainly doing
Saudi Arabia Haj Amra charters,
and also they were doing ad hoc domestic runs
between Karachi and Lahore.
I was expecting probably a quiet flight,
a hundred passenger, and I was wrong.
Almost 500 passengers rocked up to the flight.
And then the entire boarding process took about an hour,
about half of the length of the flight itself.
In fact, that entire jumbo was economy class.
The upper deck has better leg room,
they had the economy plus section on it,
and then the entire lower deck was mounted with
very large overhead bins because of lots of luggages.
I was sitting behind Captain Safar on the 747
and watching him training other junior pilots
on the right-hand seats.
(aeroplane engine)
- [Sam] I had a quick turnaround at Lahore
at Allama Iqbal airports.
I really liked the architecture of the airport.
The red coloured building at the airport.
One thing on PIA I realised, they pay lots of respect
to the flight crew, the captains.
They were actually giving better food
to the captains and the flight deck crew,
than to the passengers.
You can see the amount of food was insane.
(aeroplane engine)
When I land back at Karachi,
and I was then given a tour at the PIA maintenance site,
and then there were lots and lots of old aeroplane part up,
and then lots of 747 at that time were dismantled.
It was really sad to see the states,
lots of Avery 10's, Tupolev 154, BAC 111,
Shaheem 737 200 were all there.
And then to end the day,
we went to a young engineer's house.
His name was Zane, and then we had a good time
spotting at his rooftop.
(upbeat Pakistani music)
Well that was my trip eight years ago to Pakistan.
I loved everything on that trip,
the people, the food, the hospitality,
and of course aviation.
And I only know one thing, I will be back
(upbeat dramatic music)