Wednesday, May 19, 2010
A pilot's tale
Matt exited his cockpit, a vast sea of paddy field greeted him and not far from where he is standing he saw what's seems to be a farmer. He gave it a thought and decided to approach the farmer to ask for directions. Slowly at first he ran and halfway through the 4 lanes highway he sprint toward the farmer who is still clearly stunned with the sight in front of him.
" Assalamualaikum tuan! Tumpang tanya. Saya ni kat mana ye ? ( peace be upon you dear good sir, may I know where I am? ) " Matt nervously ask the farmer With a crooked smile and his tobacco stained teeth shines gloriously under the golden evening sun the farmer replied " ... Sawadeekap ! "
That's when Matt realized he really is in deep shit...
It was a warm summer sunday afternoon in 1999 that I met my long lost buddy Matt enjoying his coffee alone at Canai and Such in Subang. Ring a bell? It's used to be one of the hippiest mamak joint in the last century but it's history now. After the usual meet and greet how's life? How's the girlfriend? How's the family yada yada yada bla bla bla then we came to the "so what are you doing now?" topic which invites a very uncomfortable smile from Matt. He told me he is doing trust fund recruitment for a very well known company. Then it struck me, what happened along the way? What happened to his career?
I gratuated from Malaysian Flying Academy in Batu Berendam Malacca in 1996 and Matt was 2 batch my junior. This Matt guy is quite a nice guy actually. The typical " lelaki melayu terakhir (not!) " he is in a way trustworthy, honest and kind.
Thing about life is, you can plan all you want but life always pull some surprise on you, sometimes HUGE ones.
As for Matt he managed only half of the qualification to earn him the licence to fly the big bird and with more money spent on exam papers he eventually runs out of fund to complete his course.
Now, Matt is really in deep trouble. After discussing with a few of his batch mate and advice from some of the flying instructors, Matt decided to apply for a Private Pilot flying Instructor with an experimental aircraft association based in Sungai Besi.
Time goes by and everything seems to be going fine with Matt until one fine day a student from hell found him. This guy, we're gonna call him Al as in Al pacino's Al. Al is notoriosly known for his sense of direction. Well his lack of sense of direction actually. This one time, his first solo. Al is supposed to do a circuit and landing which consist of a take off, one big round around the airfield- in this case Sungai Besi and a landing ALONE but somehow Al flew and lost all the way towards Klang Port. Those days Subang Airport is still being use by Airasia and it is kinda busy .
Due to Al's critical situation, the airport authority put all arriving airplanes on hold and guided Al to Subang Aiport for landing.
While all of this event unfold Matt was still waiting for Al at Sungai Besi and not long after that he received a call from Al explaining to him about the whole charade. Matt immedietly took a cab to Subang Airport for the rescue and upon reaching the aircraft he saw Al was still in the cockpit stunned and fiddling with a device. Matt finds out later that it's actually a GPS. Yup! This is 1999 and this guy already owns a GPS which is a luxury item at that time and yet he is lost. Remember that scene in the movie 'UP' where the kid lost his GPS ? Yup he should've just throw it outside the cockpit.
As time goes by Matt managed to secure a few teaching contracts and one fine evening lady luck did smile on him and he managed to nail a contract to present the experimental aircraft to the Prime Minister of Malaysia then, Mahathir during the LIMA event in langkawi but there's a catch. He must bear all the costs himself. From the aircraft fuel, food, lodging and what not for the whole trip. Who better to provide all the mulah if not for the notorious Mister "I don't know where I am" Al. Matt proposed the idea to Al and after consulting his dad, finally he agreed to cover the expenses for the whole trip.
Thing about chains of error is it's kinda hard for you to stop it once it has started unless you wake up jump up and really do some drastic manouvre to break it.
The experimental aircraft range is not that great. It's a very basic aircraft with very basic equipment. After giving it much thought Matt decided it is best for them to spend a night in Ipoh and then proceed to Langkawi the morning after. Ipoh is a small town but that doesn't mean it lacked a decent nightlife. To celebrate their future success Matt went to a small bar there and oh boy, celebrate they did.
On the road the authority tells you not to drink and drive and same goes with flying. Nobody in their right mind would drink and fly. That's just plain crazy. MAS has the golden rule of 10 hours bottle to throttle. That's 10 hours sobering up before flight. In Indian Airlines they up it 1 step further by installing a breathalyser in the office !
As luck or rather bad luck, Matt and Al was piss drunk that night. I still recall Matt confessed he doesn't even remember how they managed to get back to their room.
Come Saturday morning departure time, they were not at the airplane. The Ipoh Airfield control tower managed to get hold of Matt to inform him that the latest that he can depart to attend the event is at 12 noon which means after that he won't be able to catch the prime minister in time. Half awake and sobering Matt wakes up and get ready for the flight. En route to the airport Matt realized that he is in no shape to fly but the show must go on and he asked Al to fly and he would do the monitoring duty like preparing the documents, calling the air traffic control ( we call them ATC ) for clearance- read you work and I sleep
" rotate! " Matt commanded. Slowly Al lifted the little aircraft and heads for the sky. You see if you've been in a small aircraft before it is so easy to doze off. The droning of the engine sound, the wind on your face, oh so peaceful. That's exactly what happened to Matt. Not even 5 minutes into the flight Matt was already heading to slumberland...
After quite some time Matt opens up his eyes and a surprise sight of deep blue sea under him and clouds and bright blue sky in front if him. Thing is, in aviation, Peninsula Malaysia is not that big. As you're cruising about say 3000 feet you can easily see the east and west coast and with only the sea under him it is quite worrisome because they're either in the gulf of Thailand or south china sea OR the Indian ocean.
" eer bro where are we? " Matt asked casually, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Al just look at him with a face that as if he has just seen a ghost and answered "... I don't know captain ..."
With that, Matt immedietly look around, trying to grasp the weight of the situation and guess what? They're runnin out of fuel. " how long did I dozed off ? " Matt asked in desperation. " about more than 1 hour "
Slowly Matt pulls out a stick of marlboro reds and light it up, thinking. Talking to himself, Matt whispered " if I'm gonna go today so be it but god, please have mercy on this two lost souls amen " with that Matt turn to his left and saw between the clouds, rainbows peeking at them. It got him thinking, if there's rainbow, there must be land somewhere there. " okay Al, my controls and you revert to support duty okay. Inshallah we'll be okay. God's willing" Matt immedietly turn the small bird to the left and descent to a lower level. They did try to call various ATC ( air traffic control ) but their radio seems to be failing them. Talking about Murphy's Law.
On the descent Matt saw a patch of beach and decided that would be his landing strip just in case he ran out of fuel before he could do the landing.
" alhamdulilah Al look!! In case we runs out of fuel we're gonna crash there okay. " Matt pointed to the beach. At this moment, Al is totally panicked and to be honest he's just a passenger then. As they were decending the engine started to cough out black smoke and startled not long after ... total silence
What happened after, will change Matt's life forever. As they were approaching the beach he saw a stretch of road not far away and decided to gamble to glide towards the road. Thing about powerless glide is you can only have certain amount of lift to get you certain distance. I can get into all the technical details but I wouldn't want to bore you to death now do we? So back to the misadventure. After checking around for cars Matt managed to successfully land his aircraft in the middle of the freeway. Slowly the airplane rolls to a complete stop . Without delay Matt got out of the plane and push it to the left most lane to avoid collision. The weird thing or luck, whatever you want to call it, there is not a single car in sight.
Matt noticed a farmer not far from where he is standing. He gave it a thought and decided to approach the farmer to ask for directions. Slowly at first he ran and halfway through the 4 lanes highway he sprint toward the farmer who is still clearly stunned with the sight in front of him.
" Assalamualaikum tuan! Tumpang tanya. Saya ni kat mana ye ? ( peace be upon you dear good sir, may I know where I am? ) " Matt nervously ask the farmer
With a crooked smile and his tobacco stained teeth shines gloriously under the golden evening sun the farmer replied " ... Sawadeekap ! "
Meanwhile in Langkawi, the PM is still waiting for the aircraft and since there is no contact have been made they have initiated a search and rescue operations. Matt also told me that one of the Thais airforce general is so furious with their air defence force for letting this small bird entered their airspace undetected.
With no passport or any kind of travelling document our ambassador have to fly all the way from Bangkok to rescue them and fly somebody from KL to bring the aircraft back.
Unfortunately Matt was stripped off his flying licence and banned for life. As for Al god only knows what happened to him.
As Matt uttered the last line. I was totally speechless with my friend's adventure. Should I laugh? Or should I be empatic towards him? We went our separate ways after that cup of coffee and that was the last time I've seen him.
Putting on my helmet and firing up my faithful Honda C70, I thanked god that I managed to complete my whole flying course without a glitch. Well maybe not with flying colours but hey! A little bit of odd colours wouldn't do any harm right?
Now do you still think that everyone can fly? Maybe not.
Till then adios
" Assalamualaikum tuan! Tumpang tanya. Saya ni kat mana ye ? ( peace be upon you dear good sir, may I know where I am? ) " Matt nervously ask the farmer With a crooked smile and his tobacco stained teeth shines gloriously under the golden evening sun the farmer replied " ... Sawadeekap ! "
That's when Matt realized he really is in deep shit...
It was a warm summer sunday afternoon in 1999 that I met my long lost buddy Matt enjoying his coffee alone at Canai and Such in Subang. Ring a bell? It's used to be one of the hippiest mamak joint in the last century but it's history now. After the usual meet and greet how's life? How's the girlfriend? How's the family yada yada yada bla bla bla then we came to the "so what are you doing now?" topic which invites a very uncomfortable smile from Matt. He told me he is doing trust fund recruitment for a very well known company. Then it struck me, what happened along the way? What happened to his career?
I gratuated from Malaysian Flying Academy in Batu Berendam Malacca in 1996 and Matt was 2 batch my junior. This Matt guy is quite a nice guy actually. The typical " lelaki melayu terakhir (not!) " he is in a way trustworthy, honest and kind.
Thing about life is, you can plan all you want but life always pull some surprise on you, sometimes HUGE ones.
As for Matt he managed only half of the qualification to earn him the licence to fly the big bird and with more money spent on exam papers he eventually runs out of fund to complete his course.
Now, Matt is really in deep trouble. After discussing with a few of his batch mate and advice from some of the flying instructors, Matt decided to apply for a Private Pilot flying Instructor with an experimental aircraft association based in Sungai Besi.
Time goes by and everything seems to be going fine with Matt until one fine day a student from hell found him. This guy, we're gonna call him Al as in Al pacino's Al. Al is notoriosly known for his sense of direction. Well his lack of sense of direction actually. This one time, his first solo. Al is supposed to do a circuit and landing which consist of a take off, one big round around the airfield- in this case Sungai Besi and a landing ALONE but somehow Al flew and lost all the way towards Klang Port. Those days Subang Airport is still being use by Airasia and it is kinda busy .
Due to Al's critical situation, the airport authority put all arriving airplanes on hold and guided Al to Subang Aiport for landing.
While all of this event unfold Matt was still waiting for Al at Sungai Besi and not long after that he received a call from Al explaining to him about the whole charade. Matt immedietly took a cab to Subang Airport for the rescue and upon reaching the aircraft he saw Al was still in the cockpit stunned and fiddling with a device. Matt finds out later that it's actually a GPS. Yup! This is 1999 and this guy already owns a GPS which is a luxury item at that time and yet he is lost. Remember that scene in the movie 'UP' where the kid lost his GPS ? Yup he should've just throw it outside the cockpit.
As time goes by Matt managed to secure a few teaching contracts and one fine evening lady luck did smile on him and he managed to nail a contract to present the experimental aircraft to the Prime Minister of Malaysia then, Mahathir during the LIMA event in langkawi but there's a catch. He must bear all the costs himself. From the aircraft fuel, food, lodging and what not for the whole trip. Who better to provide all the mulah if not for the notorious Mister "I don't know where I am" Al. Matt proposed the idea to Al and after consulting his dad, finally he agreed to cover the expenses for the whole trip.
Thing about chains of error is it's kinda hard for you to stop it once it has started unless you wake up jump up and really do some drastic manouvre to break it.
The experimental aircraft range is not that great. It's a very basic aircraft with very basic equipment. After giving it much thought Matt decided it is best for them to spend a night in Ipoh and then proceed to Langkawi the morning after. Ipoh is a small town but that doesn't mean it lacked a decent nightlife. To celebrate their future success Matt went to a small bar there and oh boy, celebrate they did.
On the road the authority tells you not to drink and drive and same goes with flying. Nobody in their right mind would drink and fly. That's just plain crazy. MAS has the golden rule of 10 hours bottle to throttle. That's 10 hours sobering up before flight. In Indian Airlines they up it 1 step further by installing a breathalyser in the office !
As luck or rather bad luck, Matt and Al was piss drunk that night. I still recall Matt confessed he doesn't even remember how they managed to get back to their room.
Come Saturday morning departure time, they were not at the airplane. The Ipoh Airfield control tower managed to get hold of Matt to inform him that the latest that he can depart to attend the event is at 12 noon which means after that he won't be able to catch the prime minister in time. Half awake and sobering Matt wakes up and get ready for the flight. En route to the airport Matt realized that he is in no shape to fly but the show must go on and he asked Al to fly and he would do the monitoring duty like preparing the documents, calling the air traffic control ( we call them ATC ) for clearance- read you work and I sleep
" rotate! " Matt commanded. Slowly Al lifted the little aircraft and heads for the sky. You see if you've been in a small aircraft before it is so easy to doze off. The droning of the engine sound, the wind on your face, oh so peaceful. That's exactly what happened to Matt. Not even 5 minutes into the flight Matt was already heading to slumberland...
After quite some time Matt opens up his eyes and a surprise sight of deep blue sea under him and clouds and bright blue sky in front if him. Thing is, in aviation, Peninsula Malaysia is not that big. As you're cruising about say 3000 feet you can easily see the east and west coast and with only the sea under him it is quite worrisome because they're either in the gulf of Thailand or south china sea OR the Indian ocean.
" eer bro where are we? " Matt asked casually, yawning and rubbing his eyes. Al just look at him with a face that as if he has just seen a ghost and answered "... I don't know captain ..."
With that, Matt immedietly look around, trying to grasp the weight of the situation and guess what? They're runnin out of fuel. " how long did I dozed off ? " Matt asked in desperation. " about more than 1 hour "
Slowly Matt pulls out a stick of marlboro reds and light it up, thinking. Talking to himself, Matt whispered " if I'm gonna go today so be it but god, please have mercy on this two lost souls amen " with that Matt turn to his left and saw between the clouds, rainbows peeking at them. It got him thinking, if there's rainbow, there must be land somewhere there. " okay Al, my controls and you revert to support duty okay. Inshallah we'll be okay. God's willing" Matt immedietly turn the small bird to the left and descent to a lower level. They did try to call various ATC ( air traffic control ) but their radio seems to be failing them. Talking about Murphy's Law.
On the descent Matt saw a patch of beach and decided that would be his landing strip just in case he ran out of fuel before he could do the landing.
" alhamdulilah Al look!! In case we runs out of fuel we're gonna crash there okay. " Matt pointed to the beach. At this moment, Al is totally panicked and to be honest he's just a passenger then. As they were decending the engine started to cough out black smoke and startled not long after ... total silence
What happened after, will change Matt's life forever. As they were approaching the beach he saw a stretch of road not far away and decided to gamble to glide towards the road. Thing about powerless glide is you can only have certain amount of lift to get you certain distance. I can get into all the technical details but I wouldn't want to bore you to death now do we? So back to the misadventure. After checking around for cars Matt managed to successfully land his aircraft in the middle of the freeway. Slowly the airplane rolls to a complete stop . Without delay Matt got out of the plane and push it to the left most lane to avoid collision. The weird thing or luck, whatever you want to call it, there is not a single car in sight.
Matt noticed a farmer not far from where he is standing. He gave it a thought and decided to approach the farmer to ask for directions. Slowly at first he ran and halfway through the 4 lanes highway he sprint toward the farmer who is still clearly stunned with the sight in front of him.
" Assalamualaikum tuan! Tumpang tanya. Saya ni kat mana ye ? ( peace be upon you dear good sir, may I know where I am? ) " Matt nervously ask the farmer
With a crooked smile and his tobacco stained teeth shines gloriously under the golden evening sun the farmer replied " ... Sawadeekap ! "
Meanwhile in Langkawi, the PM is still waiting for the aircraft and since there is no contact have been made they have initiated a search and rescue operations. Matt also told me that one of the Thais airforce general is so furious with their air defence force for letting this small bird entered their airspace undetected.
With no passport or any kind of travelling document our ambassador have to fly all the way from Bangkok to rescue them and fly somebody from KL to bring the aircraft back.
Unfortunately Matt was stripped off his flying licence and banned for life. As for Al god only knows what happened to him.
As Matt uttered the last line. I was totally speechless with my friend's adventure. Should I laugh? Or should I be empatic towards him? We went our separate ways after that cup of coffee and that was the last time I've seen him.
Putting on my helmet and firing up my faithful Honda C70, I thanked god that I managed to complete my whole flying course without a glitch. Well maybe not with flying colours but hey! A little bit of odd colours wouldn't do any harm right?
Now do you still think that everyone can fly? Maybe not.
Till then adios
Saturday, May 08, 2010
If Rozita Che wan is...
Was talking rubbish with Bebet the other day after I saw Rozita Che wan's mother's day article in The Star and suddenly a vision struck me...
What if Rozita Che Wan is my wife?
Ya I know it's hilarious. Rozita? My wife? you must be rolling on the floor laughing by now. Hey! But just for argument sake,don't burst my bubble just yet alright.
I don't dress smart all the time. Usually shorts and Tees. Say if I were Rozita's hubby would she sit with me when I'm dressed like that? As a public figure surely people would look at her and wonder who the hell is this loser by her side? Is that her driver? My god, I'm the husband you fart! Rozita as always would elegantly dressed and here I am with my bermuda that I bought from Giant and my faded Astroboy tees ...what the f... Oh well let's imagine another scenario.
You know Burger Longkang? No? Never heard about it? well It's a term the Mrs and I Coined to describe those El cheapo burger that you usually see by the roadside with semi bright tungsten light that runs on half depleted car battery. It never cease to amaze me how in the world they manage to actually see what they're cooking in that kinda lighting condition. To be honest some of them are really good though and it's kind of a default 'meal' when I'm too numb to think what's for dinner.
Okay back to the story. What if one fine day maybe back from shooting and Zeta ( since we're hubby and wife now that's her cute name by the way ) is hungry and I suggested the Burger Longkang and I wonder would she say " are you OUT of your freaking MIND Momot? I have to look after my calorie okay! we wouldn't want to look FAT now do we?" and she would give me the whole 9 yards talk about how she need to earn a living and look good, slim and the sort and she would refuse to talk to me all the way cos I actually suggested 'high calorie' food and think that i'm sabotaging her...
and guess Who wouldn't get laid that night... Ya ya laugh some more...
I love photography. My niche is Urban life. You know, pictures of people in the city, buildings, streets and the lot. You don't have to go far to look for subjects even your neighbour's 18 year old daughter CAN be a subject if you want but hey! That's another story. Oh where were we?
I was imagining another scenario with Zeta. Say what if I have an itch, well let's up the ante a bit, a deadly itch for a photograph outing and since I'm flying most of the time and Zeta's schedule is pack as well, we are left with only 1 weekend together. Now I have to cramp Zeta's shopping session vs Momot's photo shootout and the kids outing in 1 day ... Let see how am I gonna do this...
Okay there are a few elements in this outing. Zeta's shopping, the kids outing and my photoshoot. The most ecomical and productive sense to do it is to cramp all that and to do it in one go and what better place to do it than Petaling Street? I can imagine how loud Zeta would
scream as I turn and park my car in the Central Market parking lot. What? Never heard of Petaling Street? Okay there are Pavillion SuperDuperHyperIronman-ishShinyMiney Shopping Mall in Bukit Bintang for the royalty and the rich and famous and then there is Petaling Street... Which is the total antihero of Pavillion. It's hot, the seller harass you, pack, I'm talking about sardine can pack here and it's the whole definition of cheap and replica ( read rip off fake ) stuff. Oh and I would imagine Zeta screaming louder than a Boeing 777 taking off at full power yelling "what the F@%K ARE WE DOING HERE MOT?! ( contrary to popular belief pretty lady DO scream, and they scream LOUD! ) As a very famous artist, I guess she wouldn't wanna be caught dead cruising the street of Petaling and in the end we just have to chill at Pavillion SuperDuperHyperIronman-ishShinyMiney Shopping Mall sipping a rm17 latte instead of rm1 tau foo fah... Oh well there goes the photoshoot
By now it's dinner time and I would've guess the kids and Zeta must be hungry. 1 of my favourite spot is The Curve's Tony Roma's. I did tried a few diners around town but I still prefer The one at The Curve. I will order the burger for me, Zeta would order her salad and ribs for the kids. As with famous celebrities there will be fans everywhere and so does Zeta. I would imagine they would just ignore our family dinner privacy and would just greet her for photo session and autographs. Those are normal fans wait till you see the Datuks. I would imagine these Datuks, itchy ones yes, would just ignore me and the kids and would just crash into our dinner and sit by her side and take her hand and talk to her as if we are invisible and the kids would look at me with their big round eyes wondering, demanding an explaination on what the hell is going on and why is this old fart holding their mom's hand?
Come to think about it, it's too much pressure for a peasant, a commoner like me. I love fatty food, I roam at the street of Petaling , I love Burger Longkang, I hate itchy Datuks and I love my faded Astroboy t-shirt. In view of all the above I don't think I can be happy with Zeta and hence we have to go our separate ways sooner or later. Gosh I'm sobbing now... NOT!
After what I have been through, I thank god I met Bebet. With her I don't have to pretend and I get to keep my Bermuda and faded red Astroboy tees.
As for Rozita Che Wan, all the above is just for laugh please don't sue me cos I don't think I can afford the amount you demanded
Cheerio
- momot & Bebet -
Friday, May 07, 2010
P.ramlee says ... Dugaan...
Mama said if you're having too much fun,
you might shed some tears at the end of the... Joy (?)
Kinda hard to comprehend when I was a kid
Kinda hard to comprehend when I was a kid
but in a way there are some truth in it ...I guess.
Having a blast of a time few days ago. Should've known it won't last that long :)
But then,
I am grateful that it was fun while it last you know
Alhamdulilah
Like how P.Ramlee put it "...dugaan... :)"
Having a blast of a time few days ago. Should've known it won't last that long :)
But then,
I am grateful that it was fun while it last you know
Alhamdulilah
Like how P.Ramlee put it "...dugaan... :)"
till then,
oh
by the way, have i told you I just got myself a Mac?
it's bloody fast :)
- momot & Bebet -
- momot & Bebet -
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
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