My mindset was based on a belief that landing on wet padi was absolutely not an option. I decided that I was not going to run before the wind and hope for a track or soccer field amongst the limitless expanse of padi fields (and I had seen none). I had to get to the beach. If not the beach then I would land on the coast road. Anything but the padi.

 

No Place To Land - West Java Kampungs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Things got a bit compressed here. I could see the trikes at the beach beginning their landings. Mike was telling everyone that we faced a squall not just rain and that the wind was really going to blow. "Make your decisions now. Get down, anywhere, get down, now!" He said this several times.

    The terrain in front of me was a series of parallel belts: padi, coconut trees, houses and backyards, the road, houses and backyards, coconut trees and the beach. I was going west towards the beach and I was still over padi, while immediately in front of me was a belt of coconut palms. I was starting to fly backwards.

    Up until fairly close to the final obstacles before the beach I had been flying at between 1100 and 1300 feet, I wanted altitude for options. I then started to descend as it appeared as if it was quicker going closer down but I did not like it. But did it. I was now at about 60 feet or so and almost stopped in the air. I still had hopes of crossing the coconut palms and maybe making a landing on a grassy area. A bit more than just desperate but conceivably doable. Not so far to walk either, I thought. My forward movement and the wind made that look like a long shot, I guessed that I would have to land in the wet padi.

    My problem was that I faced a 20-foot high north-south power line that connected all the kampungs (villages) parallel to the road. Power lines are dangerous and I had visions of cutting the power line on descent and then being electrocuted in the live water below. I was twenty feet above the power lines and almost stopped in the air. The wind started to get very strong and I could barely control the aircraft. I was bucketing about, swinging this way and that and for all the world I felt as though I was on a horse that was baulking a jump. The music playing on my in-flight entertainment system was Billy Connolly's "Jesus Christ I'm Nearly 40 (My Pubic Hair is Going Grey, I'm too old to cut the mustard, I think its downhill all the way)", all to the tune of a Salvation Army brass band playing "I have a Friend in Jesus".  

    I had little experience of this foul weather though the work I had done in the previous weeks was paying off in that I was still nominally in control of my aircraft in an impossible situation. Mike's demand that we get the hell down Now! was only a few seconds old and I conceded that he had the right of it. I forgot the other aircraft and the beach and focused for real on these damned power lines and the 30 or 40 meters between the power poles and the belt of trees. I had this thought that since I was almost stopped relative to the ground that I would simply plop down on the padi. My aircraft had a fantastic suspension system and the padi was soft for a foot or so under the water. The aircraft was thrown about and I corrected and found myself past the power lines.   The wind coming across the tops of the coconut palms was gusty and vicious.

    Amongst all the bucketing about I leant forward and switched the ignition key off. I dropped down below the level of the treetops and there was momentarily some sweet, still air. I thought I would be able to do it. I was dropping with some forward momentum and tried for a stall landing and thought I would just make it to the last of the padi, not the trees. Then, with only feet to go, I started to move fast forwards straight at the tree line only 15-20 metres away.