Can you see that, look they put a red carpet out for Echo Yankee Zulu! It's
the first time I've ever had a red carpet with Echo Yankee Zulu so thank you oh well
we'll do it for all our customers in Darwin I love it I feel special.
In the previous episode of over the top you would have seen me leaving my hometown of Melbourne
Bright and early in the morning to fly right the way across the continent of Australia it
was over 11 hours of flying with three refueling stops flying over some of the most remote rugged
unforgiving but stunning terrain. The final leg saw me landing at Darwin International Airport which
is where I am today ready to take Echo Yankee Zulu out of Australia for the first time ever
So that's all good yep. Hi Michael. Greetings! I'm going to be flying this next leg with my good
friend Michael who's not only another pilot but he was also Australian Geographics Adventurer of
the year after he flew his single-engine Searay flying boat around the world. Michael's got a ton
of experience on what it's like flying your own aircraft from one country to another so I'm going
to be leaning on that experience and expertise as I finally take my own aircraft and fly it
out of Australia to a brand new country for the first time ever. Michael I see land go on, say it... LAND AHOY!
You can tell by the way we're dressed yeah do we look like air crew I've got shorts on
and everything. This is Pearl Flight Center here at Darwin International Airport. The guys
here are helping me out with the crossing across now to East Timor it's nice to have a space like
this where you can just stretch out relax it's air conditioned as well because it's
about 30 something degrees outside. So Sevie is helping me out here he's giving me this wallet
of documentation that I need to fill out what's in here you've got some crew declarations which
are like your incoming passenger cards that you would normally do for Border Force pretty much
the same questions it's just a different format for crew. The other thing we've got in there is
the disinsection spray certificate as well. What I have to do I have to spray the insect
spray when I'm in flight? Yah that was the old procedure now we spray it on the ground
pre-departure and you don't have to use the whole can either they usually say about five
seconds and especially for an aircraft of your size it won't take much at all is it horrible
it's not that horrible but it can that size would probably do the fair most of an airliner I would
say okay wow we've submitted the flight plan we've got the documentation on the way home the
final thing that we need to do as well though is clear Customs on the way out we've organized an
off-terminal clearance today so we're really lucky we don't have to go through the terminal Border
Force officers they're going to come down here look at your passports check your faces and then
they'll do the paperwork when they get back into the office so that's all good yep thanks very much
um thanks for making it easy okay how easy was that compared to queuing and all the other stuff
yeah that was really good so thanks again to Pearl flight center because they helped us out here this
was probably about two minutes just giving the passports over and back again and they've prepared
all the paperwork beforehand which is good by giving them all this a week ago it's all done it's
easy your plane's fueled red carpets out let's go Victor Hotel Echo Yankee Azure don't deliver
two daily environmented route verifi route one maintained two thousand squawk one seven four two
player daily viromended VFR Route 1 2000 one seven four two okay Yankee all right so initial altitude
is two thousand what did we file eight and a half eight and a half yeah good okay Yankees will run
up on my two nine crossing a dash out ahead on Broadway on two nine and copy the traffic okay
okay to take off mate right turn right between likely take off right turn Okay flaps away
okay Yankee Zulu contact departures one two three decimals very good eh oh two three zero
so the engine's just it'll happily climb all the way to eight and a half yes I'm leaning
back on the mixer a little bit just to reduce the fuel flow because otherwise it's just uh
too much fuel as you lose the altitude fuel pump the Boost pump off just to keep all the vapor out
the lines as well ah gotcha and yeah it just sits there and please sits there climbing us
up nice thousand feet a minute turn left heading three three zero veterans left three three zero
Direct
activate GPS steering air con is it's good yeah it's good
four zero mile verification and control services
uh four zero miles uh identification terminated and change of frequency
um can you just let us know what the best mops are going to will be okay 40 miles one minute
the in-flight catering is pretty impressive I could take no credit for this again this
was the Pearl flight center guys who put this together I've not only got a delicious sandwich
and a fruit snack here but I don't know whether you can see that vegan label on
top as well I think now apparently this goes here oh it's a legal requirement for going
into East Timor that you have to wear it I think what have you got? Neanderthal! No not
as a sticker! What have you got for yourself? Oh it looks like chicken salad.
It looks pretty good straight ahead doesn't it
This will be a fun sequence on camera, us just sitting here munching away in our sandwiches! Yeah
So once the wing passes that we are heading off into international waters. Okay
Yeah first time I've taken this aircraft further north of Darwin, first time I've taken
this aircraft outside of Australia, first time I'm going to East Timor. So this is a big deal .I know
it's a massive deal for you. And what happens at the other end then so the other end will be
equally helpful but no Rainier is efficient okay around it's a small airport and I don't think
there's any commercial flights around the time we're arriving I think in your normal day-to-day
flying you would normally fly IFR if you're going yeah twin towns yeah generally especially airports
I'm not familiar with as well the benefit of flying VFR today is we can't be guaranteed of
radio coverage on VHF all the way to Timor so a lot of people do actually temporarily put an HF
in for a trip like this but yeah really there's plenty of others to do what we're doing which is
you file VFR when you do a flight plan you have to nominate the spot there are official Crossing
points so you can see now we're heading to TODOT and that is the official spot where we can cross
and we track via that point and once we cross into Timor we'll try to call call them and
that's just to let them know that we're in their FIR. That's not a clearance per se because uh but
for Timor or it's not there are some countries that when you pass into you need to be contacting them
before you pass in a good example being Israel. Oh yes? Yeah right like very very strict, envelope
with a code in it. That you have to read back on the radio? That's very
secret agent. Yeah and uh but I can't talk about that! We've got what an hour and 45 until
we get to our destination hour and 12 minutes until we get to that Waypoint that Mike was
talking about I might have another sandwich yeah yeah I think you should I still have three foreign
good afternoon Victor Hotel Echo Yankee Zulu is a cirrus maintaining 8500 Crossing
todot and inbound for Delhi will be tracking via pet bow and we'll update
ETA as we get closer now I wouldn't expect a reply yeah now our next week Michael I see land
oh yeah there you go that's always a good moment go and say it
so I'm punching through there look I think over the top here feels good I mean yeah I
think where we are is fine so I just keep I just maintain this heading that's what I was
thinking I'd do the same Michael I reckon just past these clouds this makes me feel
better yeah yeah I agree yeah and then I started to send all the way down to two
and a half we can drop altitude quite quickly if we need to yeah uh well hello East Timor
first time I've seen it until he approached good afternoon Victor Hotel Echo Yankee Zulu
Victor Hotel Echo Yankee Zulu read you five foreign
Victor Hotel Echo Yankee Zulu Cirrus inbound from Darwin
to four miles South East descending estimate at Dilly three eight and tracking via Juliet at 3 7.
Julius
one zero zero Niner thank you Michael at that island is a Toro oh that's where we're gonna go
nice as we come over so yeah you can see I can see the statue yeah Statue is actually
magnificent I'll probably make you walk up there before dinner tonight yeah let's do
it down there in this Bay yeah our hotel hotels that's down here yeah
oh amazing Echo Yankee Zulu is Juliet uh descending through 1 800. stop it
Yankee Zulu
well we're here well done ready good job thank you for doing the radios as well it's always nice to
have another pilot on board as well you know it's so rare for me but when you have it you think oh
I get it now yeah yeah that box is in the car here are our passports so we'll just tie down
the plane and do you want us to walk over or get a lift with you I just want to leave it here okay we
can get a lift a lift will be good yeah I left will be good if you've got air conditioning in
there yeah yeah lift will be good and we really Seymour yes we've made it we finally made it to
East Timor it was a good flight coming in we had to lose quite a bit of altitude coming in in the
last sort of couple of miles but uh pretty good Landing in the end we've been greeted by the team
from MAF here as well the handlers are down here just giving us a hand with the aircraft
too we are going to get it refueled but not now we're actually going to get the aircraft refueled
tomorrow I think but we're still just working that out but for the moment Echo Yankee zuga
has a new home welcome to East Timor little plane sending the batteries in the morning
so this is GA baggage handling this is can you even say you've been in an
international airport if you haven't used a baggage carousel on a trolley
absolutely not I should be helping you no no really I'm I'm I know mobile
so we've cleared customers we're here at the airport now it's just a little delay
because we're waiting for immigration to actually release this into the country
and it appears that immigration has gone to lunch I think that's my fault because we're
actually supposed to land here at 12 30. kind of got in about 12 45 so rule number
one if you are flying yourself around internationally try and be on time that
definitely helps but the immigration guys are being really nice about it I think they're going
to break from their lunch and come and let us into the country which I'm grateful for
and which is funny because we're the only flight today yes that's true there's no one else here
at the end of the day as the sun was going down Michael did in fact maybe walk up all of those
steps to see that statue of Jesus it was baking hot there were like a million steps but he was
right about that view and then I had a couple of nights in each team or I took a flight across
with MAF to one of the islands I made some new friends bye guys thank you bye I had an awesome
tuk-tuk ride and I just took some time out to explore this really fun and friendly Island
that video of my time in East Timor is actually going to be on my other channel
on Steph's world but coming up next on this channel in the next episode of over the top
Victor Hotel Echo Yankee Zulu we are negative two-way Communications with Brisbane Center