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The Thai Bird Man.

     Patong Beach, Island of Phuket, Thailand

     Tuesday, 15th May 1993

     After the Vietnamese Pacific Airlines fiasco, I returned to “beachcombing” at Patong, while waiting for the next flying job.  In so doing, I literally stumbled across two very interesting pilots.

     The first was a Canadian by the name of Bill Stainethorpe, whom I accidentally sat down next to at Dooley’s Diner below the Rock Hard go-go bar at the corner of Bangla Road and Rat-U-Thit Road.  Bill was a blond-blue-eyed stocky kid of medium height, in his late twenties, with a pleasant, soft spoken manner. He was also what I call a “bullet-magnet,” for bad luck seemed to follow him everywhere.

     For example:  What prompted me to strike up a conversation was the visible eight-inch, fresh slash from a knife down his right forearm.  I could see the cut through a long, clear plastic dressing revealing a dozen staples clamping the flesh together.  Even though it was lunch time, the sight of Bill’s arm devastated my appetite.

     Bill had recently come off a helicopter job, I believe in Indonesia if I remember correctly, and on a lark decided to pay his first visit to Hong Kong.  Coming out of the Holiday Inn at Kowloon on his first night, Bill brought an expensive camera for some night shots of Hong Kong’s spectacular lights across Victoria Harbor.  

     He had just crossed the street in front of the hotel when he was attacked by a local with a knife; also wanting Bill’s camera.  Bill stood his ground – fought off the assailant – kept the camera, but got knifed for his efforts.

     The police took him to the hospital where it was discovered that in addition to the slashed arm, Bill was stabbed in the side; the knife tip puncturing a lung.  This latter injury requiring 24 stitches in order to secure the various cut muscles under the skin.  From time to time, Bill was still coughing up blood from his punctured lung.

     I also learned that a couple of years before, Bill lost his wife in a car accident.  Bill had been driving sober only to get hammered by a drunk driver.

     Later, on a layover in Singapore, Bill’s buddy wanted to use a massage parlor, however Bill wasn’t interested so he sat on a low wall outside and waited for his friend.  During which time, even despite quietly minding his own business, Bill was attacked by one of the massage girls and a guard with nunchuks or chainsticks.  I saw him later on and he was really banged up.

     Afterward, on a contract for the U.N. in 1994, Bill was flying a Bell 212 helicopter at Mogadishu in Somalia.  He was returning empty to the airport when the baggage compartment fire warning light came on.  Bill spotted an empty field, landed, friction-locked his flight controls and left the helicopter with its twin turbine-engines running, driving the rotor blades.  Upon reaching the helicopter’s tail cone, he opened the baggage compartment’s door and stuck his head inside.  No smoke.  No fire.  Apparently it was merely a bad sensor-connection.

Bill’s Bell 212.

     When Bill pulled his head out of the baggage compartment he got the most surprising jolt of his life.  Bill was wearing a white helmet with a dark blue flak vest, and on this trip no sidearm.  Now, he found himself face-to-face with a ragged-assed, skinny local armed with a huge machete!  Who took a swing at Bill’s head with the afore mentioned machete!

     Instinctively, Bill blocked the blow with his left arm.  The blade sliced into Bill’s arm, skittered down the bone and lodged itself in his elbow!

     Then began the “tug of war,” as the skinny assailant pulled with all his might; except he couldn’t dislodge the machete from Bill’s elbow!  While Bill also pulled backward – in a vain attempt to escape this idiot!

    As a last resort, Bill managed to get a fire extinguisher out of the baggage compartment with his right hand, and took a swing at the skinny local.  Unfortunately Bill didn’t connect; the local dodged the blow, spun around and took off up the hill, resembling a scalded dog, towards a village!

     Bill then also diligently attempted to remove the machete; nevertheless the blade was jammed so tightly into his elbow he couldn’t budge it. 

     Frustrated, he gingerly dragged himself back into the cockpit of the helicopter and contacted Flight Ops on the radio; appraising them of his situation.  Because of the machete lodged in his left arm, Bill was uncertain if he could operate the Collective Pitch control.

     Okay, dear reader, helicopter ground school is presently in session.  Think of the Collective Stick as the up and down control.  Designed solely to be operated with the left hand – raising it, you’ll go up – lowering it, you’ll go down.  This is the control that allows you to hover and then take off.  Without it, you’ll sit on the ground similar to a lead paperweight.

     Therefore Bill recommended they fly out another pilot to operate his helicopter.  Flight Ops told him to “standby.”

     A new player then arrived on the scene, a Bell Cobra helicopter gunship, which was shortly joined by a second Cobra.  

Bell Cobra Gunships.

Cobra’s pack a lot of fire-power!

     At this point in Mogadishu’s history everyone was paranoid of a repeat of last year’s “Black Hawk Down” episode, whereby two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and Americans were mobbed, killed and dragged through the streets.  This was why Cobra gunships were kept on patrol 24/7.

The Black Hawk.

Mogadishu Mob dragging dead American from the downed Black Hawk... and then through the streets.

Delta Team retrieving the dead from a downed Black Hawk.

     And as Bill was asked by the Cobra pilot to point out the village that his attacker ran to, a very cold realization seeped into Bill’s heart.  No doubt his skinny attacker was forming a mob to come back and whack Bill!

     Even so, as the Cobras go to work on the village, literally tearing it apart with rockets and cannon fire – destroying any chance of a mob being formed – Bill acquired a terrible pang of guilt.  Witnessing all this destruction was too much for him; he begged the Cobras’ pilots over the radio to stop.  They refused.  As long as Bill was stuck in that field they had to protect him.

     Out of sheer desperation, and in terrible, grinding pain, somehow Bill managed to work the Collective Stick despite the machete stuck in his elbow.  Upon lifting off in his Bell 212 and leaving the field behind, the Cobras stopped their assault.

     Bill’s attack was subsequently reported in both Time and Newsweek magazines. 

     A year later a U.N. Ground Team actually rounded up Bill’s machete attacker.  When asked why he attacked Bill, he said he was protecting his goats.  A lot of people in his village needlessly died that afternoon.  I hope his goats were worth their lives.

         1946 Grumman G-73.

     The second pilot I stumbled across was Capt. Federick J. McNulty.  Before going to Vietnam on the Pacific Airlines’ contract, “Cap’n Freddy” dropped by my office, at TRAC Aviation in Bangkok, to apply for a captain’s slot on the 737.

    Fred was perhaps one of the most talented pilots I’d ever come across.  He was a Florida boy who had experience with yachts, helicopters, and all manner of light planes and sea planes, as well as heavy jets.  In fact right after I left Air Florida, back in 1979, Fred got hired by them and flew both their DC-9s and B-737s until they went bankrupt.  Afterwards he was hired by Midway Airlines out of Chicago and flew for them until they also went bankrupt.

     Unfortunately, the Vietnamese Government wouldn’t allow me to use Fred because he had served two tours with the U.S. Army in Vietnam as a paratrooper.  In spite of this set back, Fred and I became good friends.

     So what was “Cap’n Freddy” doing out here in Thailand?  He had been hired by a new airline, Tropical Sea Air, as their Chief Pilot.

     And here’s where it gets really interesting, dear reader.

     TSA (Tropical Sea Air) had a fleet consisting of a solitary aircraft, a 1946 Grumman G-73 amphibious, twin-engined seaplane, with an 18-passenger capacity based at the Phuket Airport.

     Wow...an aircraft right out of “Terry and the Pirates,” dear reader!

     And on this day, 15^th May 1993, Fred called me up and told me to get my “furry-aviator’s butt” down to the Pearl Hotel at the south end of Patong Bay.  Where a zodiac would pick me up and ferry me out to the G-73 that was presently floating in the middle of the bay.

     From the Phuket Airport, TSA used the G-73 for hauling tourists to Patong Beach, Phi Phi Islands and Krabi.  Today Fred was operating “empty,” running a re-currency flight check on his Australian First Officer.  He was also going to give me a two-hour training introduction to the G-73; whereby I’d be flying it from the captain’s seat.

     As I approached the G-73 in the zodiac, I ran my eyes over its sleek, white lines.  Whether floating on the water, or taking off and climbing out this “bird” was the essence of beauty.  When fired up, the deep throated growl, of its two Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engines, got an aviator’s heart pumping with its sound of impending adventure.  Having 500 HP a piece, they gave the G-73 a cruise speed of 180 mph, with a service ceiling of 24,500 feet.  Its fuselage was 48 feet long, while its wingspan was over 66 feet and it grossed out at 14,000 lbs.

Cap’n Fred on the right.

     As I closed on the G-73 in the zodiac, I spied Cap’n Freddy and his F.O. resting on top of its high wing; sunning themselves.  They wore white, short-sleeve airline shirts, plus Sebago Docksides without socks. 

     Climbing out of the zodiac into its spacious passenger cabin, I was met by the Thai Flight Engineer and a cute Thai Flight Attendant; all the comforts of home.

     Moving forward to the cockpit, I found a basic layout right out of WWII.  The dual flight control wheels were mounted on a Y-frame, and all the controls one would normally find on a center console (throttles, mixtures, prop-pitches, cowl flaps, magnetos, etc.) were instead mounted overhead in the cockpit’s ceiling.  The pilot’s chairs were genuine, metal bucket seats with pads; which were surprisingly comfortable.

     The zodiac abandoned us, all the doors and hatches were buttoned-up, and Fred fired up those marvelous sounding Wasp engines.  Fred had his F.O. make the takeoff.  The bay was dead calm that morning, and smooth as glass; majestically we lifted off its surface shedding a white trail of water.

     Wow, dear reader!  Terry Lee and Hot-Shot Charlie eat your fucking hearts out! 

     We were off for the exotic Phi Phi Islands (pronounced Pee-Pee) where Fred had decided to run the re-current checks on his F.O.  

     This location consists of a group of six small islands located 25 miles southeast of Phuket Island, between Phuket and the mainland.  We’re heading for the largest island of the group called Koh Phi Phi Don, which is utterly fabulous for sightseeing.  It has two long, tall limestone ridges heavy with jungle, connected by two semicircular bays lined with sandy-white beaches. 

     It’s the type of out of world, exotic location that movie scouts would sell their mothers for, dear reader.  However, don’t take my word for it.  Instead, ask Leonardo DiCaprio, this is where he filmed “The Beach.”  Get a copy and see for yourself.

     Normally tourists wanting to visit Phi Phi from Patong Beach, on Phuket, would be required to taxi across Phuket to the east coast; afterwards catching a speedboat.  The process would take them roughly five hours.  For us, in the amphibious Mallard G-73, it took 20 minutes flat.

     Cap’n Fred has his F.O. perform a series of landings and take offs alternating between Loh Dalam Bay on the island’s north side, and Ton Sai Bay on the south side.

     Satisfied with his F.O.’s performance, Cap’n Fred then had me slide into the captain’s chair, and I flew a series of takeoffs and landings. 

     This was my very first exposure to seaplanes, dear reader, and it blew my socks off!  Where had this been all my life?

     I learned that day that the toughest, most dangerous part of the G-73 operation is the takeoff as it tends to “porpoise.”  Applying full power for takeoff, as it builds speed, the G-73’s boat hull lifts out of the water onto “the step,” a hydraulic platform of water, allowing it to accelerate rapidly.  In this mode as it strikes waves it tends to “porpoise.”  If not checked it will pop the G-73 into the air below flying speed causing the wing to stall out; this is the G-73’s Achilles’ heel; its wing was designed wrong at the factory.

Capt. Fred.

     Virtually all seaplanes’ wings are designed so a stall will begin at the wing’s root, and then progress outward to the wing’s tip and the ailerons.  So when the seaplane stalls the pilot can still control the wing – leveling the wing in order to hit the water in a level attitude. 

     Unfortunately the G-73 Mallard’s wing begins the stall at its wing tip, negating any control from the ailerons, causing a wing to drop, digging a pontoon into the water!  The G-73 will then cartwheel and destroy itself! 

     And there isn’t one fucking thing the pilot can do about it, dear reader, if he doesn’t nip the G-73’s tendency to “porpoise” in the bud.

     Cap’n Fred wisely rode the controls with me, and, before the G-73 could “porpoise,” he’d anticipate it - stabbing the control wheel forward – stopping this bad tendency cold. 

Me with my hands full.

     It was as if Fred had developed a sixth sense, dear reader, anticipating the “porpoise” well before I could feel anything.

     Once airborne it was then a piece of cake flying the G-73, and landing on the water; an aviator’s dream. 

     The other thing Cap’n Fred taught me was how to “Hunt the Wind” in an amphibian.  That day there was a mere 4-knot wind, not creating any whitecaps, making it difficult to accurately judge its direction.

     Once again, dear reader, it’s imperative to takeoff directly into the wind.  A pilot needs all the help he can get.

     With a seaplane it’s simple.  Cap’n Fred told me to bring both engines to idle – which I did – then told me to wait.  Gradually, this 14,000-pound seaplane gracefully “weather cocked,” all by itself, directly into the wind.  By holding this new heading it enabled us to takeoff safely.

     Cap’n Fred revealed a whole new facet of aviation to me that day.  And I’m forever grateful for his time and patience.

     I’m also happy to say that in the future our paths would cross again in Laos; where we’d both operate the B-737 as captains.

Departing Koh Phi Phi Don.

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