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When I was
a boy, the first recognizable airplane I was made aware of was a Piper
Tripacer and by golly that airplane is still around in Malaysia. It
happened like this……
One of my
uncles was an administrative employee with the DCA at Kuala Lumpur’s
first airport, the one most people have forgotten, at Sungei Besi
right in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The call sign of the airport is
Sempang and its ICAO four letter code is WMKF.
My uncle,
bless his soul, decided to take his five year old nephew to WMKF and
bought me a ride in the Tripacer which was then operated by I believe the
Flying Club. The plane was painted yellow and and smelt of oil and
leather. That’s as far as I can remember.
in 1958
………
In 1972, I
soloed a spam can Cessna 172 at WMKF !....... and my life’s trouble began
in earnest. Aviation swallowed me up whole .Just ask my dear wife!
In 1990 I
was reunited with my first airplane when I flew THAT same
Tripacer
9M-AMC,
presently owned by a former student pilot of mine, John McCullagh
And would
you believe this, in 1997 , I sent Denis Gautier on his first solo
flight on 9M-AMC at Ulu Bernam and later checked him out for his PPL in
the same aircraft! The airplane is now in Johor Flying Club owned by Denis
and undergoing a full restoration.
What has
all this got to do with Dec 17th……..plenty.
You see
the honest brothers Wright have been my ultimate Heroes for a long, long
time and it is to these boys from Dayton Ohio that I, nay, ALL of us, owe
a huge debt of gratitude for what we enjoy so much today.
The life
of the Brothers itself is an enigma. They were ‘religious’ boys who made
no excuses for their life style. They didn’t complete high school, but
that didn’t make them any lesser or fill them with a negative complex.
Curious to the n’th degree; everything mechanical around them aroused
their interest. Did you know that Wilbur had invented a Newspaper folding
machine and lathe machine attachments. They pursued the theory and
practice of early flight with the frenetic and unmatched fervour of
evangelists. No available engine for their plane? no problem….lets design
and build our own engine, which is exactly what they did.
Flight was
life to them, and they pursued that ultimate goal with a conviction that
we can all take a lesson from.
On one
despondent train ride home to Dayton Ohio from Kitty Hawk after various
failed experiments with their gliders, Wilbur is famously quoted as saying
with a sigh : ‘Man will not fly in a million years’
Well as we
all know now, on 17th Dec 1903 they did fly. The World was
changed forever, and a young boy’s life was also transformed in a little
yellow plane in 1958.
In the
nineties, when the EAA at Oshkosh announced plans to celebrate the 100th
Anniversary of the Wright Brothers achievement, I decided that I would
lead an effort to pay tribute to my heroes out here in Asia.
In Sept
2003, we ie my wife and I (by now she understands that she is a mandatory
partner) set up a photo exhibition at LIMA the bi-annual Airshow in
Langkawi. We called it the ‘Wright Experience’. Among others we had
members of the Red Arrows visit the booth and they admitted that there
were a few things about the Wrights they didn’t know. One Russian visitor
to the Show threatened to steal our Wright Flyer model if we did not get
him one!
Come Dec
and we decided to mount the same exhibition in Kuala Lumpur. Menara KL,
the Kuala Lumpur landmark was chosen as the venue for a reason. As this KL
Tower reaches up to nearly 1500 feet over the KL skyline, access to the
top of the Tower actually gives a sensation of Flight. And it was around
this KL landmark, that I had decided to pay my tribute on the 17th
of Dec.
Calling
all our like minded friends around KL elicited a positive response. We
decided to fly a formation of aircraft over KL on the 17th in
our personal Salutary Tribute to the
Inventors of Flight.
The
briefing was held at the Control tower at Subang airport with the
Controllers who would on duty on the 17th. We left nothing to
chance. There were five fixed wing airplanes and one helicopter.
The
formation was called the WRIGHT FLYERS. We were numbered Wright Flyer One
to Six. Proudly, ALL the Wright Flyers were Sport Aviators and were paying
themselves to fly this tribute. Wright Flyer One, that is me, would
fly an Aviat Husky towing a banner reading ‘100 YEARS OF FLIGHT ’
Wright
Flyer Two was a Piper Warrior crewed by Allan
George and David Low.
Wright
Flyer Three was young Mazri Effendy flying his
own Eagle
Wright
Flyer Four was Ahmad Jauhari ‘AJ’ and Zul
flying in AJ’s RV-9
Wright
Flyer Five was special : Robert ‘Bob’ Gannon
had flown all the way around the World to join us to pay his tribute. He
was in Malaysia on this auspicious occasion and was astonished at being
invited to join in a tribute to the Wright Brothers. He was joined in his
airplane by Stanley Tiong EAA Member from Kuching.
Wright
Flyer Six was Cliff Fournier and Earling Andre
Wennevik in their ‘egg beater’ Robinson R44.
0800 on
the morning of the 17th revealed a horror picture of weather,
ah the weather, always the weather……….Rain, low clouds, gusting winds and
the picture got worse looking along our flight path towards KL.
We sent
Cliff up to do a short recce of the route towards PJ and KL and he came
back with a reasonably encouraging report. Read that to mean we were
going…..
A special
feature of our Tribute was the time of departure. We had decided that we
would all get airborne at 10:35 am, to mark the exact time of the
Wright Brothers first take off on 17th Dec 1903, one hundred
years to the exact time. How many of us can boast of that?
Final
briefings were held on the tailplane of Allan’s Warrior and we awaited the
Director of Civil Aviation Malaysia whom we had invited to flag of this
auspicious formation.
The
Director arrived at 10:20 and we were flagged off.
Wright
Flyer One, the Husky with me trailing a grapple
hook to pick up the banner jumped off the deck in an ultra short field
performance take-off at exactly 10:35.
And I
missed the hook up…..! For the first time, (well there is always the
first time} but not today of all days. In a rather embarrassed and
furious curling turn, I wrapped that Husky around its right wingtip with
full flaps and came back for a second hook up. The real story as told to
me by the ground crew later was that the tow rope attached to the banner
had dropped off the top of the pick up pole in the gusty winds, but who’d
believe that story? In the meantime, ‘egg beater’ Cliff hovering and
photographing the proceedings from the side of the runway was having the
time of his life telling everyone what a lousy pilot Siva was. Eventually
I made the pick up and grandly announced to Malaysia that we were
celebrating 100 Years Of Flight…….the Wright Flyer formation of five began
their roll on runway 15.
The cloud
base was 1100 feet agl and the visibility adequate………enough said.
The plan
was for me to take off first, bearing the banner and the remaining five
would overtake me en-route to KL and I would slot in behind them on the
run in to the KL Tower. Well that was what we did, after a fashion.
I saw the
formation running in below the scud like minnows in a fish tank, with Bob
in his flying tanker of a C182 lagging behind. Somehow Bob reminded me of
the character in the movie instructing his taxi to ‘follow that car…..’
We had
told Bob to just follow all of us and you won’t get lost !
The
formation made one pass by the Tower where we were told that the press and
TV had taken up station to get us from the observation deck. I went by
behind the formation and someone in the Tower said that they could hear
my plane and see the banner but they couldn’t see the plane. Well
I was in IMC while the banner was in VMC !
Turning
around the Tower we were in a better position this time and went past the
Tower in grand formation with everyone in view. While I was dragging my
rag around a very different scenario was being played by the rest of the
formation now lead by Two, but in the end all of us went past twice and
began to disperse and recover back to the airport as planned. It was just
great hearing Sempang Tower calling Wright Flyer formation, do this,
Wright Flyer two break for Sempang, Wright Flyer Six confirm hovering etc
etc. One hundred years to the date, six Wright Flyers were wreaking their
havoc over KL and having great fun.
I made
another pass for the cameras, this time with Wright Flyer Six
(Cliff) hovering beyond the twin Towers to catch me passing.
Allan and
George in Two, broke away to land in Sempang, AJ took over the lead to get
Three and Five back to Subang and finally One and Six dwadled our way
back to Subang. Cliff is a great flyer and took some great pictures with
AJ’s long lens digital.
I dropped
the banner at 11:20 and smartly side-stepped to land on 15 and taxied over
to park. We then drove to Menara KL to be greeted by the Director of Civil
Aviation and his
Officers.
Every Wright Flyer in the formation received a beautiful Certificate from
EAA and a mounted model of the original Wright Flyer marking their
participation.
I hope
each of them enjoyed it as much as I did celebrating that monumental
achievement 100 Years ago by our heroes….The Wright Brothers.
My
satisfaction was complete as I realised that there was no where else in
the World I would have liked to have been, than at the controls of an
airplane, at 10:35 am on the 17th of December 2003. I had paid
my personal tribute to my Heroes.
Thank You,
each and everyone of you who took time to remember and Honor the Inventors
of Flight on the 100th Anniversary of The first Powered
man carrying Flight.
"Siva" Sivaraman
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
January 05, 2004
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