Being an aviation fan, I never pass up on an opportunity to fly.

When I heard that the ‘hot-shot celebrity pilot’ Johan Farid Khairuddin or better known as JFK was organising night flights to earn his night flying hours, I quickly grab the opportunity to experience for the first time flying on a light plane during sunset.

After a couple of tweets and BBM messages, we agreed to fly on Sunday 080112.

Weather was not on our side. It was cloudy and raining prior to the flight. While it is perfectly safe to fly in this kind of weather, the view would not be that great. Luckily the weather improved throughout the flight.

A Harimau Malaya die-hard supporter, aviation enthusiast and airport staff. All about me in one photo. 😛

JFK doing his pre-flight checks.

JFK is currently attached to Berjaya Air and earning his hours on Berjaya’s ATR72. He is still a part-time announcer at Hitz.FM. I got to know him for the first time at a Youth’10 Festival (click here to read) and since then we met at a few events including the launch of MAS New A330 (click here to read) and I even flew with him once, touring KL City with my other half (click here to read).

It’s always nice to catch up with someone that has similar passion towards aviation. 🙂

Taxiing to the runway.

All set for take-off.

“Positive rate of climb, gear-up”… eh fixed-gear bird lah! Airborne at 7:13pm.

Subang tower cleared us to join the circuit, a circuit is a pattern flown around an airport to ensure smooth and orderly traffic flow.

First Touch and Go with still a bit of light.

Touch and Go is a manoeuvre in which an aircraft touches the ground as in landing, and immediately takes off again. For the second round, I was in control of the yoke and enjoyed the sensation of doing some turns and change in altitude. JFK would make a good instructor!

The fun part was getting the 2 Reds and 2 Whites on the PAPI lights. Flight sim rocks but this thing is super cool and real minus the P button! 🙂 Ok i suck. 3 Red lights. LOL

The sun sets as we completed the second touch and go.

Admiring the beautiful sunset from 1,000 feet. Despite the cloudy weather, MasyaAllah…beautiful view!

Sunset flight is a common attraction in some countries especially during summer as romantic couples fly on light planes to enjoy the view from 1,000 feet. Obvously there were no romantic moments for us as JFK was busy with flying the plane and I was busy snapping photos.

From day to night.

One last Round, a low flypast over the runway.

As it gets dark we were relying more on the instruments. Sunday night traffic over Subang was quite busy with a mixture of Firefly, RMAF and light planes arriving.

The finale of the flight was a long ILS approach to the runway.

Great photo opportunity

Few seconds before touchdown. My favourite shot. What do you think?

Clearing runway

Safely parked at SkyPark. One for the album. Thanks JFK!

To experience flying with JFK, you can email him at jfk(at)hitz.fm or follow his tweets at @JFKjohan

What’s next for me? InsyaAllah a PPL once the ‘piggy’ bank is full 🙂

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