Postcard From the Maldives

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Postcard From the Maldives - February 06

“THEY LAND at about 50 knots don’t they?” I asked of the tall young man with four gold bars on his epaulettes, as I climbed the stairway into the twin-engined seaplane. “We’ll show you a good landing today, mate,” he replied and he grinned at his smaller second officer, who had just three bars on his epaulettes.

I was late aboard the 16 seater as, having been fagless all the way from Dubai to Male, the capital of the Maldives, overindulgence in Queen Nicotine had ruled and made me late. The last of the sixteen seats had been saved for me by Lady Achloa and I found myself seated on the aisle immediately behind the two pilots. They both looked too young to drive a car let alone a twin turbo propped seaplane.

The big jets from Europe and SE Asia land on an island, next to Male, extended by the Maldivians to give the mandatory mile runway for these 450+ people carriers. To get from Male to the many resort islands lying 50-100 miles away would take up most of the day by Dhoni, the single diesel engined work horse of the islanders. Hence the bright idea of sea planes handling people and there luggage transfers.

Full power, two hands to hold the throttles in position and another hand holds the propeller pitch at fully fine. So this is why we were given water and earplugs. It’s sweltering in the cabin and those two turbo props are very raucously loud at full thrust.

The aircraft rose out of the water at about 60 knots and we then climbed slowly to the cruise at 4,500’. Little sunlit atolls, mostly uninhabited, slipped by below. We hammered through puffy white clouds and then slowly started to descend all the way down to about 500’, when the isles of Rangali came into view.

The captain put the flaps down in stages to their maximum 37.5 degrees and his second officer reset the propellers to fully fine pitch. We touched the water gently at about 60 knots riding the bow waves created by the hulls before decelerating very rapidly and then taxying to the jetty,

I let the other passengers disembark then asked the captain, “Is this a DH6C?” No, he said, it’s a DHC6, in fact a De Havilland (Canada) 6. Remarkable aircraft this, equally at home in the freezing waters of Northern Canada as in the tropical heat around the equator.

Then it came to me as a flash. Rog, my neighbour at Achloa, is an aircraft freak and I have an out-of-date private pilot's licence. So, in our dotage (ie tomorrow), we could acquire a DHC6, moor it on Loch Tay and then give joy rides to many of those frightfully wealthy guests soon coming to Taymouth Castle

The only problem, apart from convincing Rog of the proposal, would be to get the CAA to grant us flying licences. That…. and who would wear four bars and who would only have three on his epaulettes.

Well, one can dream, for - once dreams go - you’ll soon be on your way to the land of Infinite Dreams.

Bob Arthy