Our route was basically west. Almost 80 miles. The first 30 miles plus was over foothills fringing developed farming areas interspersed with industrial sites and housing developments further north. Perhaps some scope for emergency landing spots. The second 30 miles or so was forest, coconut plantations and lots and lots of rice padi. The padi was in the wet phase. Not much in the way of roads or other infrastructure. Lots of padi in chequerboard, creeks, ponds and the odd river. Not very good for landings. At the 70 mile mark we would hit the beach and the last 10 miles was across a bay to the resort on a peninsula. The basic plan was to head for the coast as soon as possible and then work out our further options as necessary. Given the headwind, we might need to consider refueling as we try never to get below 30% full (which was roughly my fuel state when everything happened). The coast offered a lot of potential landing sites and represented our safety area given the padi and plantations inland.

 

 

    It was generally hard going, thermic and turbulent. We went up and down from 500 feet to 6,000 plus looking for a break from the headwind. It was worse higher up. There were periods when the wind seemed to let up and we got some speed going. As we moved much closer to the coast the wind got stronger and the wispy lower clouds at 3,000 feet plus were starting to roil and twist suggesting stiffer stuff up there. I kept looking at my GPS reading for "time to next", i.e. the coast, and it kept going backwards and forwards from 15 minutes to an hour plus as the head wind component fluctuated. Ground speed went from 42 mph to 10 mph and points in between. A good job we had refueled.

    Our flight was seven trikes, four with passenger. The significance of this is that weight and wing determine speed. We were all roughly on the same wing setting and similar wing performances but the passengers gave four of us an extra few MPH. We had a Front Flight Leader, Indra, Garuda's youngest 747 pilot and a natural. He always flies so well and with great panache, if a little too flamboyantly at times. His job was to lead the way, talk to air traffic control and look out for emergency landing sites. Mike, our organizer, flew as Rear Flight Leader. His job was to make sure that we all stayed in sight and together. He too would look for landing sites and generally be useful. If any aircraft got into trouble, one or both flight leaders would seek out a landing site, do a practice landing and guide the troubled trike down.

    As we traveled the heavier trikes got a few miles ahead of the three lighter aircraft. As I got closer to the coast, I could see a rain system developing out at sea as if growing out of the water. Given the wind, it looked as if it could give us trouble in a while and that we really had to get to the beach.  I had a feeling that it would be a close run thing.                                

    The heavier trikes were over the beach when Mike, some miles back, asked Indra if it was rain out to sea and coming at us or whether it was something worse. Rain is fine, you just get wet but a storm squall is another species of bad weather we have no business being near. Indra said no problems, maybe rain, and set about looking for a place for the group to set down. There was a deal of conversation on the weather as to some it looked more than rain. The wind got stronger. Indra said that maybe we should look slightly north to Carita where there was a good beach and resort. Mick, another pilot and experienced hang glider pilot, chipped in and said that the weather was developing fast, i.e. a squall. The wind was building even more.

    Mike was a few miles behind. Dragan, on an almost identical trike to mine, was a kilometre or so to my left (south) the last time I saw him. The two of us were probably about 500 metres or so from the beach. I could see the four heavier trikes twirling about a green spit of land, like gulls after herring, looking for a way to get down. The spit of land was grassed and offered a small soccer pitch as a limited but useful landing strip.

    I visited the soccer pitch a couple of weeks later with Mick and found it to be a great short field landing spot allowing a good approach from many angles. 

    I looked up the coast towards Carita and Labuhan and saw several beaches that were possibly useable. I also saw the two or three lines of coamers coming in to the beach driven by the wind.

    I kept focusing on the beach. I had to reach the coast. Things were getting untidy and the situation looked increasingly messy. I reckoned that we would probably spend half the day regrouping before we flew into the resort. At about this time, it dawned on me that I might never make the beach. By the looks of it, it was going to take anywhere up to 5 minutes to cover that 500 metres and I did not think I had that much time. I was also not really moving relative to the ground and the wind was picking up. When the oncoming wind is equal to your forward speed you know you are reaching the limits of flight.