What Happened?
Eventually, we negotiated a fair rate for our group rescue with the local village heads and locality chief and got our trikes to the resort.
That night, we had a couple of beers and dissected the events of the day. Indra was shaken. He had actually landed on the beach in an impossibly high crosswind. His skills as a pilot saved him but the experience shook him.
As I had landed, my right leg below the knee had obviously banged up on the upright instrument binnacle and my left chest took a thump from the edge of the seat or maybe the control bar. I felt nothing during the day but by the evening my leg was ballooning up and it hurt to laugh. We sat at the bar and watched a West Javanese magic show, rope tricks and beds of nails, etc. Agoeng was concerned about my knee and got the chief magician who doubled as the local Dukun Santet mystic to look at my knee. I was taken to a nearby Indian daybed and my Dukun had a look at my knee. He stroked and rubbed and then he began to hurt me. It was agony but Agoeng swore that I would be the better for it. The Dukun told me that he felt my pain and that it was hurting him more than me and then told me that it would be OK but make sure I saw the Doc when I got back to Jakarta (the Monday med check was OK).
My trike was the worst damaged of the flight. The wing cloth is made in sections and the ripped panels will be replaced and the whole segments tested for stress. The wing components are 60 percent damaged but given the whack they got from the trees I will have to get a new wing. So, a new wing from South Africa in due course. Otherwise, the long central main keel tube is bent slightly and the some ancillary bits of metal are twisted - all to be replaced. The front wheel forks took the whole impact and are buckled and the front wheel unit will need to be replaced. Oh, my amazing Baron Richthofen two-blade wood propeller is now fated to be a memorial plaque over the club bar. I really was very fond of that prop, it had character and amazing thrust and efficiency.
Overall, not a bad butcher's bill in the circumstances. The trike will be taken down to its component parts and every bit will be inspected and tested. I'll know better when I know what the inspection shows. Thank God the South African aircraft industry is world standard and the Rand is relatively cheap.
The cross-country to Tanjung Lesung was supposed to be a short distance, novice's first of the flying season tryout. The question turns to whether it should have been done at all and whether there was something that we could have done to avoid the total cockup we found ourselves in.
We had done our homework, reconnaissance and rehearsals. It was early in the season but the indications and the available met said it was OK. You could argue that we should have aborted when we found our first bank of cloud but I disagree. To abort at the first obstacle is just not the way you do things. We had alternate routes and procedures and we used them. The big obstacle was that vast expanse of padi, miles upon miles with nothing but water, mud and bunds, and the odd creek and plantation. The coast was safety and we had to make for it. We talked over the options and the alternatives. As we got to the padi zone, the winds were allowing us somewhat better speeds and the skies were reasonable to the objective and beyond to the horizon (though there was increasing haze later on). We could have turned about but there was not a good enough reason except that it was going to continue to be a long haul. As it was, once committed and nearer to the objective, the weather brewed up faster than we could fly. It was then a race and for three of us we were shit out of luck.