Pattaya to Crown

A pilot stands stooped over his aeroplane connecting his headsets to it. It's approximately 06.15 hrs on Tuesday 3rd April 2012. Along with other flyers, he's making ready for the one hundred and forty mile first leg of a flight from Pattaya to Loeng Nok Tha in north east Thailand. Their destination is an airfield built by British soldiers in the 1960's with the code name of Operation Crown. This is the story of how this flight was at first imagined and then becoming a reality.

On my first visit back to Crown airfield in November 2010 some forty three years after I last left it. I stood on the vast expanse of concrete runway and imagined myself flying my little Gemini Flash 2 Alpha flexwing from it. A pipe dream! I didn't have any idea whether there were any Flexwing microlights in Thailand anyway? I stopped my musing and returned to enjoying the reunion trip I was participating in, with the other veterans. Sometime after returning to the UK my airfield thoughts returned and I Googled 'Flexwing microlights Thailand'. Amongst the resulting links was Fly Thailand the home of Sport Flying in S.E. Asia. I e-mailed Tom Grieve, told him who I was and what my dreams were. I somehow struck a chord with an award winning pilot and fellow microlighter. So here we were, some seventeen months later, at Nong Prue airfield Pattaya, waiting to take off.

We, being six flyers, five pilots and one Thai interpreter. 06.55 hrs, first to take off from runway 14 is Artem Istomin, a Russian, piloting a white GT 450 with Pom his passenger. I followed, P1 of a yellow GT 450 registration U-P98 with Tom Grieve my P2. Last to take off was Tony Storey in his red Kwik, Les Shorrocks a 3-axis pilot is seated in tandem behind him. We climb out and turn to port on a north easterly heading, for a small grass strip at a place called Wha Em. We were using Wha Em as waypoint and alternative strip in case of any problems.

The flight conditions were benign, with still air and a haze. I settled down to flying in T shirt and shorts, cruising at 70 mph in a British made flying machine. The P&M GT 450 is a world class technically sophisticated Flexwing and here I was, flying it over the terra firma of Thailand. I couldn't believe my good fortune! I was leading the formation using a Garmin GPS map 296 for navigation, a necessity over the vast tracts of paddi and rubber plantations. Thai airmaps seem featureless in comparison to most UK airmaps, I needed the GPS to show me the heading. My two companion planes stayed with me, although Artem being something of a free spirit, had Tom calling him on the RT for his position whenever he disappeared into the haze to explore whatever caught his eye. Tony and Les stayed in formation, reliably, so I didn't have to search the sky for them. The seventy five or so minutes it took us to reach Wha Em 'flew by', as I bashed Tom's ear with questions about the differences I was finding to flying in the UK. As we approached the field Tom radioed the other two pilots to make sure they were aware of the coming change of course . After confirming the course change, Artem had us smiling, as he buzzed the Wha Em strip to let them know 'The Nong Prue' boys were around. We changed to a more easterly heading for Watthana Nakhon, Tom instructing me in the use of the Garmin as I flew. He proved to be a patient man as I struggled with it at first, but I got the hang of it eventually. The conditions stayed benign but the misty haze persisted, not lifting as we expected. This leg was shorter, maybe forty, forty-five minutes. It didn't seem too long before Tom was requesting Tony to radio the Watthana tower warning of our imminent arrival. I think this was intended as good practice for Tony, to boost his confidence when using RT. He did a good job handling the comm's OK. Whilst all this was going on, I was heading towards a large factory with multiple chimneys pumping out greyish greenish smoke. Tom gently reminded me to avoid it, as we didn't know what kind of filth it contained. As I said, a patient man, it must be something to do with him having an instructor rating on his licence. Within a few minutes of Tony's comm's, we were joining the circuit at Watthana Nakhon with myself and Tom the lead aircraft.

I had never flown the type before, so my first landing at Watthana Nakhon was going to prove interesting as the P&M GT 450 is far more powerful than my Flash 2 Alpha, with different techniques on approach. My landing was a little hairy as at one point I was diving towards the ground at 90 mph, when I should have been doing 70 on a shallower descent. I did sort myself just as Tom was pointing this out, to make a half decent landing and save my face. The others followed me in and we taxied to our parking shelters.

We climbed out of the aircraft, stretched ourselves and started to move around to loosen up a little. The early morning start can be a little chilly as Tom had warned, so a few had worn long trousers and a light jacket to keep the chill at bay. My reasoning was that not being acclimatised, I wouldn't feel the chill so much and that's how it proved. Tom has a very good friend and fellow flyer, Mr Wut, who lives close to Watthana Nakon, his son came round in a pickup to take us to breakfast and then buy fuel.

Vietnamese food is similar but also different to Thai food. The style of eating is the same though, the many dishes are piled on to the table and we got stuck in. Some good conversation flowed which gave me the chance to get to know my fellow flyers a little better and for them to suss me out. The sun was burning the mist off and it was warming up. A beautiful day in prospect. Meal finished and our transport arrived to take us to the filling station where we loaded up the jerry cans.

We proceeded to fuel up the planes and stow away any loose items to make the aircraft secure. Someone noticed the wind had picked up as the tree tops were moving about. It didn't look too bad to me so I thought no more about it. We pushed our planes out of the shelter to climb aboard and taxi to the runway. Tom was piloting this leg as it was a much longer leg than the one I'd flown. We were first to take off, Tony followed and Artem bought up the rear.