{"id":1200,"date":"2014-11-25T09:06:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T22:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2014-11-25T09:06:02","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T22:06:02","slug":"foxbat-and-the-philippines-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/?p=1200","title":{"rendered":"Foxbat and the Philippines – 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sleeping<\/a>I arrived at Mati Airport on Monday afternoon, after the 2-3 hour\u00a0drive from Davao City with Capt Sam, one of the club instructors. This is a beautiful part of the Philippines, with lush tropical vegetation and temperatures in the mid-30’s with very high humidity. A bit of a shock my thick blood of\u00a0the mid-20’s dry heat of Melbourne!<\/p>\n

On the way, we passed ‘the sleeping dinosaur’ (photo above) which is an optical illusion which makes the island look like a dinosaur lying down – head on its side to the left, with a humped back and what look like front and rear legs splayed out in a recumbent position.<\/p>\n

This morning I met Sam Afdal, chairman\u00a0and founder of the Mindanao Saga Flying Club (MSFC)<\/a> and Capt Sam. We had breakfast at the hotel where I spent the first night, before visiting Sam’s hangar at Davao Airport. Here he keeps a couple of Jetranger helicopters and a collection of motorcycles – most of which belong to friends and relatives.<\/p>\n

At Mati, there is a 1.6 kilometre long, 30 metre wide runway, orientated 14-32 – enough room for even the most timid of Foxbat pilots!<\/p>\n

The MSFC Club House\u00a0and accommodation is situated on the north east side of the runway. Most of the building has only just been completed and a formal opening is planned for early in 2015. All the rooms are air conditioned (phew!), with ensuite showers and toilets. What luxury in a flying club.<\/p>\n

Although the hangars are currently large marquees, there are plans to build more substantial hangars in the future.<\/p>\n

The main club aircraft have, until now, been mainly ‘rag and tube’ ultralights: a Kolb Mk 3\u00a0Xtra (a single engine tail dragger) in which Sam Afdal solo’d for the first time in December 2013, as well as a bevy of Quicksilvers, Drifters, and others. As well as the two Foxbats, the club has recently acquired some other Light Sport Aircraft, the names of which I find myself strangely unable to recall!<\/p>\n

I will be setting up an album in FoxbatPilot Flickr<\/a> so that you can see some of the photos – ultimately including (I hope) some taken from an airborne Foxbat. Watch this space…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I arrived at Mati Airport on Monday afternoon, after the 2-3 hour\u00a0drive from Davao City with Capt Sam, one of the club instructors. This is a beautiful part of the Philippines, with lush tropical vegetation and temperatures in the mid-30’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,1],"tags":[328,635,658,753,861,862],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foxbatpilot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}