Adzmi's Whirl

"LISTEN," says Captain Mohd Adzmi Ariffin. "Listen carefully." To the untrained ear it was just the sound of a helicopter engine revving. "No, listen. A good pilot should be able to tell what is wrong with his helicopter just by listening to the engine," he adds.
Adzmi was given the tip by an instructor in Redhill, Surrey, southern England, where he earned his wings some 20 years ago.
And he honed that skill over the years, first flying for Bristow Helicopters to serve North Sea oil rigs and later for MHS Aviation Bhd.
Pahang-born Adzmi ("don't call me captain, it's not my first name") is a rare breed. Currently chief pilot for MHS Aviation's rotary wing operations in Sudan, he is one of only a handful of civilian-trained helicopter pilots in Malaysia. Most local helicopter pilots are military-trained, serving with the armed forces prior to becoming commercial
helicopter pilots.
Although MHS Aviation has 126 pilots, few can match Adzmi's experience.
For example, he has flown Eurocopter's Ecureuil 355 from London's Gatwick Airport, across the English Channel and via France, Italy, Greece, the Mediterranean islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, on to Alexandria, Egypt, then south along the River Nile and finally into Sudan. Not once, but twice!
The second occasion, what should have been a five-day ferry flight, took an incident-riddled month to complete. It was early this year.
As he had to make stops every 3 1/2 hours to refuel, Adzmi had to chart his route carefully. An engine blow-out saw him grounded in Corfu (turning it into "an all-expenses paid holiday of sorts," he says). After the repairs made by Eurocopter, he flew across the Mediterranean into Egypt ("it was madness on our part... a pretty dangerous thing to fly a helicopter long distances over water").
Nearing his final destination in Sudan he ran out of fuel because he had deviated from his original route ("we had to land in the desert").
Unlike his commercial jet pilot friends who routinely fly scheduled routes, Adzmi, whose tasks change almost on a daily basis, feels his job is more like something out of the National Geographic or Discovery Travel and Adventure channels.
Located some 480 miles south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Heglig has been Adzmi's base for three years now, ever since MHS Aviation started providing helicopter services to the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company.
He heads a four-man team.
Although the company's core activity is servicing the oil and gas industry, it also undertakes community services such as humanitarian evacuations and the sending of engineers into the remoter reaches of the country to repair water wells. It also ferries VIPs visiting the oil and gas fields in the southern parts of Sudan.
MHS Aviation also operates a fixed wing service in Sudan, with six pilots, based in Khartoum.
Despite having been a helicopter pilot for almost half his life, Adzmi, who is rostered to return to Malaysia every other month, still feels the adrenaline rush whenever he tucks his 175-cm frame into the pilot's seat.
Helicopters, according to Adzmi, are extremely reliable flying machines, their performance only restricted by human limitations.
"Helicopters can reach altitudes of up to 23,000 feet, but given that we are not in a pressurised cabin like the cockpit of a jetliner, we can only comfortably climb up to 10,000 feet. Any higher than that and we would have to put on oxygen masks.
"Lack of oxygen leads to disorientation and we don't want that to happen... we constantly need to make important decisions. When flying a helicopter, we are flying by the seat of our pants. Anything can happen and we need to be mentally alert."
Unlike some commercial jet pilots who can renew their licences using simulators, helicopter pilots have to do it for real, usually having to perform a series of tasks to see how they react, among other things, to engine failures and onboard fires. The licence is renewed annually, but for pilots aged 40 and above, it's every six months.
"The helicopter," says Adzmi, who has covered the length and breadth of the vast land on Horn of Africa without any difficulty, "is the fastest and safest mode of transport in Sudan. Furthermore, a helicopter can land almost anywhere in the rugged country".
"We once landed on the main road in Muglad and caused a traffic jam. There was an accident and we were asked to send in a team of health, safety and environment officers to investigate."
Finding his way to towns and villages in Sudan poses few problems too, even though the places he has had to fly to cannot be found on conventional maps.
"We find our way by the latitude and longitude coordinates given to us by the Community Service officer. We punch the coordinates into the GPS (global positioning system) and let the helicopter take us there. We often also bring along a guide to show the way. Maafi mushkila (no problem)," he says, in Arabic, the official language of Sudan.
Winter, continues Adzmi, is the most challenging time to fly in Sudan due to the cold, dry air.
"Everything is brown as far as the eye can see. The dry conditions result in clouds of brown dust engulfing the helicopter as it hovers just above the ground prior to landing.
"The pilot will not be able to see anything outside the cockpit. He can become disoriented, lose his situational awareness, and any over-controlling of the helicopter can lead to a hazardous situation. Violent manoeuvring too close to the ground can prove fatal."
In such circumstances, Adzmi says, the non-handling pilot would concentrate on the artificial horizon monitor and warn the handling pilot of any aggressive movements.
"The handling pilot will be on the lookout for stationary objects that can be affected when the main rotor is down."
There is also the danger of what is called a dynamic rollover, caused by a helicopter making contact with the ground with only one skid or wheel. The threat is greatest when trying to land on sloping or uneven ground.
And in emergency situations, the Thuraya satellite telephone is a lifesaver.
"We can call for help from anywhere. We may try to rectify the problem ourselves or just wait for help, which comes by road."
In case of a fire on board, the pilot would have to come down immediately, irrespective of whether it's on land or water.
"We do think about it quite a lot before flying. Each and every moment, we ask ourselves if we are going to make it through our tasks and return in one piece."
In his two decades as a helicopter pilot, Adzmi has had to make his fair share of emergency landings. He vividly recalls that when he was based in Miri, he had on separate occasions to make emergency landings at the airport there, and in Labuan and Kota Kinabalu.
"The airport authorities had the Airport Fire and Rescue Services on standby on the runway all ready to shoot foam when I landed," he says.
When stuck in the middle of nowhere, tech-savvy Adzmi is not without company. He has an iPod that holds thousands of MP3 songs whe he has downloaded.
His taste in music is eclectic, from dangdut by local songstresses Amelina and Sheeda, to internationally-renowned Indonesian artiste, Anggun. He also listens to Linkin Park and Eminem.
"Some are from my children's collections," he says, sheepishly. He has four children aged from six to 16, who live in Subang Jaya with their mother, Zakiah Ahmad, a legal counsel with an oil and gas company.
And Adzmi could have acquired three other wives in Sudan if he had wanted to.
"It was a hot day and we had just landed in one of the community camps. I wanted to get some shut-eye before flying out again. I placed a mat under the belly of the helicopter and lay down.
"I don't think I had slept very long, when I suddenly became aware that I was surrounded by people... a bevy of Sudanese women. Then I saw this man who said: `Sauja, arbaa (wives, four)' pointing to the women.
"He was offering me his daughters. Of course, I declined. How was I to explain to my wife?" he laughs. He couldn't also imagine paying 15 head of cattle for each of the man's daughters.
Another high-tech gadget which is always with him is his four megapixel Olympus digital camera (which he is planning to upgrade soon). He has used it to take countless pictures of Sudan and its people.
"When I first arrived, I noticed that none of the people in the community camps we visited wore shoes. When we returned a year later, they were wearing slippers. On subsequent visits, they could be seen wearing sandals. Of late, in places closer to town, people are sporting Reebok sneakers. We attribute it to improvement in living standards and income levels," he adds.
That explains the many pictures of feet in his collection of photographs.
Adzmi admits that he didn't have a very favourable impression of the country initially.
"I knew it was a poor, war-torn country. And when I got there, I found that it was worse than I had expected.
"I can safely say that there has been a lot of improvement since. There are now better roads, more cars and lots of construction going on in Khartoum. Outside the capital, development is slow, but there is progress as well. Many shops have opened... the economy is picking up."
In Sudan, the staple food is fool, a type of bean, and dura, cooked maize or millet. Both are eaten with various vegetables and bread. For something little more reminiscent of home, the MHS pilots would don aprons and cook up a storm in the kitchen. Malaysian students studying in the country often also join in.
Whenever he's back home in Malaysia, the first thing Adzmi looks for is nasi kandar.
"I go for the food first. I go to specific places for certain kinds of food," he says.
Starbucks' Latte is a must-have too, although he did think the coffee in the north-east African nation was just as good - until he found out how it was made.
"We landed in a desert-like area and there was this little hut selling coffee. We saw a woman pounding coffee which she then poured into a cup and added sugar and boiling water. It was without doubt the best coffee I had for a long time.
"Then it dawned upon us that we were in the middle of nowhere and we wondered where the woman had got the water from to make the coffee. We looked around and saw her scooping water out of a container – brackish water.
"Surprisingly, it didn't make us sick. It probably built up our resistance."
To Adzmi, who has flown seven types of helicopters, flying is no longer done just for a living. "When you enjoy your job, the money doesn't figure much. It is all about passion. If you don't have that, then it's just another job."
Adzmi could easily be a doctor, a flight engineer or a commercial jet pilot today.
But the ex-Putra (Royal Military College) boy is not only passionate about flying but also feels challenged by the helicopter.
He was initially slotted to do medicine at Universiti Malaya in 1978 but found out, when visiting a mortuary, that he was squeamish around dead bodies and blood.
He opted out after four years and joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981 to train as a flight engineer.
"It felt as if I had been given a second chance. I wanted so much to do engineering. I was always tearing apart things when I was a child. I was curious to find out how things operated."
His stint with the national carrier, however, was short-lived. Training was terminated in 1982 when the airline upgraded its fleet of aircraft and no longer required the services of flight engineers.
In the same year, Adzmi left for the Bristow Flying Training School where he spent two years earning his commercial pilot's licence. Towards the tail-end of his training stint, he flew for Bristow Helicopters.
He returned home in 1984, joined MHS Aviation as a helicopter pilot and was posted to Terengganu for six years before moving to Miri as Flight Safety Officer for the company's operations in Sabah and Sarawak.
In the 12 years he was there, Adzmi developed and implemented the country's - if not the world's - first Aviation Safety Management System for Shell Aviation.
In 2000, he was appointed managing/chief pilot for MHS Aviation's operations in Sudan.
He has logged 8,800 flying hours so far. In between, he has found time to study and sat for an aviation safety programme management course at the University of Southern California in 1990 and earned his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Ohio in 1994. For good measure, he also earned a Master's degree in Science from Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2000.
Would he want to swap positions with his commercial pilot friends who, with the prettiest of cabin crew and even more attractive salaries, fly to the world's biggest cities?
Not at all. "I do have a choice... I could sit at home and view the world second-hand on the National Geographic channel, or I could be at the scene and experience it all first-hand.
"I think I'm getting a better deal."