The Chittagong airport is not a 24-hour operation, and Mohammad had let us know that an 0700 takeoff was about the earliest that could be managed. We therefore planned to meet at 0630 at the airport. We’d been assured the previous day that there would be no problem getting an Uber in the early morning for the ride from hotel to airport. This turned out to be inaccurate, and in the end we took help from the hotel staff to call a “CNG”, a little gas-powered tricycle. Our requests to the driver to take the elevated expressway were lost in translation and we weaved through the backstreets of Chittagong with almost the level of reckless abandon displayed by the Dhaka rickshaw drivers. It was surprisingly cold! We made it to the airport not long after the appointed time though, and met the handlers outside departures.

Immigration was not entirely straightforward. Crew visas (the stamped General Declaration) were valid for 72 hours, and this was causing trouble. Despite the fact that we’d been in Bangladesh about 60 hours, the immigration official was somehow convinced that we had overstayed. Eventually things were sorted out and we continued out to Planey where Mohammad met us. We pre-flighted as we waited for our ADC number – this arrived shortly after 0700. We called for start-up and were soon on our way.

The mist enveloped us as we took off, and we climbed through a white world until breaking out into the sunshine at 1500 feet. We climbed slowly to FL090 on our way to the Myanmar border. As was becoming typical, it wasn’t possible to contact the next ATC center, Yangon, so we relayed a message through HiFly flight 1707, and passed the time to the border by hunting mosquitoes in the cockpit.

After a while we could talk to Yangon. They handed us over to the approach controller at Sittwe, who didn’t have much to say, just asking us to report abeam their airport on our way past. It was more of a challenge keeping the engine cool now, and we needed to have the cowl flaps fully open at times to keep the hottest cylinder around 380f – up here at FL090 the air temperature was still 11C.

This leg over Myanmar would be a long one – about 6 hours from one border to the other – and for some reason it felt like the remotest section of the trip. This might be because Myanmar is probably the country I knew the least about. What little I did no was not encouraging. The country has suffered from one of history’s longest ongoing civil wars, and after a brief promising period in the 2010s when elections were held and a civilian government was formed, the military seized control again and the internal fighting has been as bad as ever.

One symptom of this ongoing conflict was GPS jamming and spoofing. GPS jamming is exactly what it sounds like – it simply disables GPS navigation. GPS spoofing is slightly more sophisticated, sending false GPS signals that overpower the weak genuine signals and cause receivers to return a false position. We first experienced some intermittent jamming over northern Myanmar and as we continued south towards the capital Naypyidaw and the main city Yangon, this was replaced by persistent spoofing.

The Garmin InReach was entirely non-operational, and it seemed as if Garmin or Iridium had deliberately disabled it over Myanmar. This was unimpressive. Although the Myanmar military ban satellite communicators in the country they can hardly claim to have any legitimacy as a government, and it would be disappointing if Garmin and/or Iridium would compromise safety by bowing to the leaders of this coup. Garmin did not yet respond to a request for comment/clarification.

The spoofing was unpredictable. The Avidyne 540 panel-mounted GPS was the worst affected, with the Aera 660 and the iPad having long periods where they were functioning correctly. In the end, though, all three GPS gave up. Most of the time they showed our position as stationary over a position near the capital – this had some odd effects such as making the avionics on board Planey think that we were flying into a 143kt headwind. I had expected GPS problems in the Persian Gulf and although we hadn’t encountered any back then, the thought that I’d put into alternative navigation meant that now we were encountering issues here, it wasn’t a big deal. We reverted to more basic forms of navigation; pilotage through matching ground features to the map, and radio navigation using VORs. During the periods that ATC could actually see us on radar and talk to us, they could also give us vectors to keep us on track.

We continued to relay messages, the next two going through Emirates flights bound for Bangkok and Hong Kong. Air France and Condor flights could be heard on frequency too, heading from and to Bangkok respectively. Several airliners could be heard reporting that they too were experiencing GPS failures and requesting radar vectors, although I believe that many have inertial navigation systems that can keep them on track.

We continued south over the Gulf of Martaban and as we flew further offshore, some GPS coverage returned. ATC gave us radar vectors further out from the coast, and then turned us back in again to follow the airway towards the Dawei VOR in southern Myanmar. The GPS spoofing returned just north of Dawei, affecting all three GPS once again, so we remained on radio navigation. It was hard to go wrong at this point, though, with the coastline to follow. KLM 844, from Bangkok to Amsterdam, relayed our position report at Dawei for us – GPS returned to the iPad just south of this VOR, and the Avidyne resumed normal operations about ten minutes later.

Singapore flight 21 checked in on frequency at FL410, requesting FL430. This was higher than I’d heard an airliner before, and it piqued my interest. Looking it up later, I found that it was an A350-900 flying from New York to Singapore, one of the world’s longest flights at more than 18 hours in length.

The quality and availability of ATC steadily improved as we flew into Thailand and continued down the coast into Malaysia. We passed overhead Langkawi Island, where I had spent a happy couple of nights on my way through back in 2019, and then over the city of Penang. As we neared Subang the evening started to draw in, with the sun dropping below the western horizon. We were cleared to fly an instrument approach to runway 15, and I noted that conditions were clear and we could accept the visual. Apparently night VFR is not permitted in Malaysia as the response came back “Negative, It is after sunset, remain on the instrument approach”.

Captain Jo had helpfully provided an airport diagram with the taxi route to the Air Adventure Flying Club highlighted, and we followed this to be greeted by several club members in high-vis vests directing us in to parking. They had very kindly stayed on after normal club hours to assist us on arrival. We quickly parked Planey up opposite the hangar, and for the first time this trip I put his cover on. Rain was forecast, and he is not entirely waterproof. The club members drove us to the terminal to pass through customs and immigration, and said goodbye to us as we called an Uber and headed into Kuala Lumpur city.

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I met Ben at breakfast after a good night’s sleep. He had woken up to a text from our driver in Karachi, saying “I miss you so much dear”, and signed off with a heart emoji. It was nice to see that they had established such a connection, but I was not sure that Ben’s wife would be so impressed.

We started the day with a walk to the KL Tower, although we didn’t go up it – we had no shortage of aerial views on this trip. From here we headed to the fashion district which might seem like an odd choice. The reason was that Brishty had let us know that her uncle, Shohag, owned a shop here, and suggested we visit and surprise him. We settled on the idea that I’d say I was looking to buy a gift for a friend but didn’t know her size, and show him a photos of this friend (Brishty) for his guidance.

Shohag was suitably surprised and offered us coffees while we called Brishty for a video chat. He told us a bit about his story, of coming to KL before COVID and then the efforts to get the shop going. It seemed as if things were working pretty well now, with a majority of his business coming online, but plenty still happening through the shop front. We said our goodbyes and walked back to a nearby metro station, to take a ride towards the historic city center.

Alighting at the Masjid Jamek metro stop, we walked past the beautiful Sultan Abdul Samad Jamek Mosque and over the pedestrian bridge towards Independence Square. Previously the cricket green of the Selangor Club, it was here that the Union Flag was lowered, and the Malaysian flag hoisted for the first time at midnight on 31 August 1957. Since then, the Independence Square has been the usual venue for Kuala Lumpur’s annual Independence Day Parade. One side of the square is dominated by the impressive Sultan Abdul Samad Building, which was built at the very end of the 1800s and originally housed the offices of the British colonial administration.

From here our walk took us to the Botanical Gardens, and then down the hill towards the National Museum of Malaysia. It was too late in the day to go in and look around, but there were plenty of interesting things to look out even outside the museum. The first items we came across were a collection of old railway locomotives, including a KTM Class 22 diesel locomotive built by English Electric in the early 1970s for service in Malaysia. Alongside it was an older steam locomotive, also built in England, this time by Kitson and Co, and in service from 1921 until 1969.

On a pedestal nearby was an Eagle 150B light aircraft. The museum claimed that this was “the first Malaysian built” aircraft with key engineering work done by Malaysia, but online sources don’t necessarily back this version of the story up. What is undisputed is that it was initially designed and constructed by Australians Neil and Deryck Graham, with further development by Australian aeronautical engineer Graham Swannell and American aerodynamicist John Roncz. It is truly odd-looking.

Ben led us from here to KL Sentral, the main station which is co-located with a large shopping mall. Here we found some delicious local cuisine for dinner, before rounding it off with what Ben declared was a celebratory ice-cream for our achievements so far. We were so close to the finish line for this section of the trip that I decided this was not premature.

That evening, I took a walk to a money changer to obtain a large quantity of local cash. Although the promised refueling of the aircraft had not happened during the day due to rain, it was planned for the next morning instead, and payment would be in cash only.

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We left the hotel just after 7 the next morning, under light rain. This was a bit concerning as although conditions here were still fine for flying, the weather radar south in the Johor area was showing a bleaker picture. Electing to head to the airport and see how things developed, we jumped in a “Grab” (the local version of Uber) and met the Air Adventure rep as planned at Starbucks in the departure area. No immigration was needed as this was a domestic flight, so we headed straight to Planey.

The rain had continued, meaning that fueling could still not be completed. Not to worry – we still had plenty to get to Johor. We pre-flighted, and discussed the weather with the club owner Andreas who very kindly offered us hangar space at his club in the event that we couldn’t make it into Johor. This removed a lot of the self-imposed pressure that I was feeling to make it as far as the Johor flying club, where I had arranged to hangar Planey until the final flight down to Australia.

We started up just after our planned time of 0900, with the weather radar giving a firm “maybe” when it came to our chances of getting to Johor vs having to turn back. We took off on runway 15, pointed straight at our destination – the controller working Kuala Lumpur approach was having none of that however and turned us almost 180 degrees left so that we were now heading away from Johor. She took us on a huge loop out to the west and offshore, apparently not having the confidence to take us anywhere near Kuala Lumpur International. We only managed to get back on course when handed onto the next controller, and asking quite strongly for a left turn as we didn’t have our water survival gear handy or, indeed, a permit to enter Indonesian airspace.

We flew down the Malacca Strait with Indonesia clearly visible off to the right, and Malaysia to our left. The city of Malacca was clearly visible as we cruised past, home of the illuminated and brightly coloured rickshaws which had captivated me when visiting back in 2019.

As we approached Johor airport, also known as Senai, the weather started to become cloudier, but nothing too stormy was evident and it was safe to continue. Johor approach assigned us the EMTU 1E arrival, and then asked us to hold over the EMTUV waypoint to allow for arriving traffic. A mile from the waypoint they cancelled this request and allowed us to continue straight in for the ILS approach.

We were in the clouds at this point, with light rain showers scattered along our route. We intercepted the localiser and glideslope and flew the approach. There was quite a strong tailwind which caught me out, and left me too high until I figured things out and increased our rate of descent to match our increased groundspeed. 500 feet above the ground, the approach lighting and then runway came into view. We touched down and taxied to Six Aero, the aviation business owned by Dr Yang who would be hosting us.

The Six Aero workers pushed us into the hangar after I shut down, and we set to work. There was a lot to do – I wanted to change the oil and filter as well as service all twelve spark plugs before leaving Planey. Ben had booked a mid-afternoon flight out from Senai airport to Perth, so he helped out for the first hour or so, at which point we headed off to visit customs and immigration.

Despite the fact that Ben was leaving on a domestic flight to Kuala Lumpur, we were visiting immigration because the arrival procedures at Subang had not felt entirely right. They had not stamped or passport or the General Declaration, instead giving us little slips of paper titled “Crew Card” with nothing but a barely visible, and certainly illegible, signature on it. We had questioned this and been assured that this was all we’d need. A quick consultation with the immigration people at Senai confirmed that this was most certainly not all that we’d need, and that there was no record at all in their system of us having entered the country. Cursing the immigration staff at Subang, we hung around for about an hour while four very helpful immigration officials at Senai figured out how to set things right, and sent us on our way.

Ben and I said our goodbyes and Jane accompanied me back to the hangar where I continued the work of cleaning, gapping and rotating the spark plugs. I finished up with an engine run-up to check all was ok and circulate the fresh oil and Camguard anti-corrosion additive, before replacing the cowl and tidying Planey up for his upcoming rest. Now it was just a case of taking the bus to the causeway, crossing into Singapore for the night, brunching with my friend Pei Bei, and flying back to Perth. The longest section of the adventure was complete.

Click here to read the next part of the story (coming April 2025).