Whiskey St. John's & the Chandelles

It was only the second time the opportunity presented itself. Kay would have an opportunity to go flying with me and my instructor. The first time was 4 years ago when I was still earning my private license. She & my dad were our passengers as my instructor and I flew them on a sight seeing trip around north Texas, landing in Denton and then back to McKinney.


This time, Kay was visiting me in Singapore and was going to ride back seat as I continued my orientation lessons in Singapore airspace. The weather was dicey in the morning so I told her to expect nothing but pattern work, a series of take-offs and landings.

But the weather turned perfect as flight time approached. After we took off, instructor Raman asked me if I wanted to take advantage of the clear weather. Of course I said yes, so he instructed me to radio Paya Labar Approach as ask for "clearance Whiskey St. Johns one thousand five hundred". It took me a couple of tries to get it right. Turn out that Whiskey is an airspace reference point and St. John is an island at the edge of Changi's airspace. Approach thought about it a while, but gave us a special aircraft identification (transponder) code and the clearance we'd requested.


Singapore airspace is tightly confined, and what we'd been given was permission to fly pretty much down the middle of Singapore at 1,500 ft above the ground. We'd pass the southern shore, then turn east to a specific island that serves as reference point for the Paya Labar airforce base. No wonder special clearance was needed!

We then got the required clearance to reverse course and enjoyed the views on the way back to the practice area over the center of the island. Then Raman asked if I wanted to do some commercial maneuvers as a demonstration. Kay was OK with this so we cleared the airspace and proceeded to do a chandelle followed by some lazy 8's. My instructor did the flying.

These two maneuvers can seem like aerobatic maneuvers, but they are basic airmanship skills required for commercial pilots. The lazy 8 is pretty amazing and I'm sure we looked like an airplane in trouble to anyone hiking around the Macritchie Reservoir. Inside the plane, you're alternately looking a sky and ground, pulling a lot of "Gs" at the bottom and feeling pretty light at the top.

When we were done with these, he headed back to Seletar where I did some pattern work to finish up the lesson. The pattern at Seletar airport is pretty and interesting, you can see Malaysia on the other side of the straits. You have to pay attention to tall ships which may be navigating the channel. That's something I never had to contend with back in Dallas!

It was a great flight and a memorable addition to Kay's visit.