A New Day in Guangzhou China

It has been 9 hours since I closed out my last Blog....so I am rested and ready to pick up where I left off..............water buffalo near my parked jet in Penang Malaysia......

As I did my preflight inspection at 3pm on Sat afternoon, there were two Malaysian police officers sitting on folding chairs underneath the airplane. They had been there since the Airbus had landed by another Fedex crew at 10am. Swapping airplanes and never seeing the other crew is commonplace......however....seeing local police protecting your Airbus was another first. Of course, they had no weapons and no communication ...but I'm sure their presence was the real deterrent....unless someone really wanted to damage or destroy the aircraft then I doubt there is little they could do to prevent it.

Taking off at 4pm from Malaysia en route to Manila was another beautiful picture that has been ingrained into my mind. The mountains surrounding the little island of Penang and the blue water was an awesome sight. The 3 plus hour flight to Manila was uneventful (best kind) and we arrived in their airspace after sunset. However, as we flew towards the North East I got to experience another first for me as I made radio contact with Ho Chi Minh Control and heard names that took me back over 40 years ago. Places like Cam Ranh, Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Nha Trang and Da Nang all came alive for me after so many years. The interesting part was the controllers for Ho Chi Minh control spoke better English than anyone I have communicated with on the entire trip. Who would have thought??

As I mentioned earlier, the approach and landing into Manila at 7:30 pm was uneventful. Although, there was a tremendous fireworks show taking place just off to our left side which you could see from at least 10 miles away. It seems one of the local malls on the coast line of Manila do this show every weekend night. Of course my first thoughts were how can a country which has so much poverty justify burning up so many dollars with a fireworks show on a Saturday night. It was just the first thing that entered my mind as we flew down final approach. Upon landing we were once again greeted with smiling faces and lots of "welcome sirs" as our load crew began the cargo swapout. We landed 30 minutes early (American time ;) but our Philippine guests made sure that our schedule would be adjusted as it took them nearly two hours to get us ready to leave again (previously mentioned Philippino time). Eventhough fatigue was starting to set in...you just have to smile don't get too excited as time seems to go in slow motion. I used that time to practice my Krav Maga skills and used the canvas cargo barrier as a punching bag. It really worked surprisingly well and actually got the blood flowing and woke me up. Naturally, the Philippine loaders came running up ..curiously wondering where the pop pop noise was coming from as I was shadow boxing the canvas. I got lots of smiles and head nods when they saw this old man bobbing and weaving. It was fun....and I felt alive!

Leaving Manila and flying north towards China at 10pm at night brought back another "deja vous", as I flew east of Clark Airbase on a dark but clear night. When I saw the lights of Clark from 15 miles away, my thoughts went back to 26 years earlier when I use to fly night missions in the F-4 going up to Camp O'Donnell to drop practice bombs at night. I'll never forget those missions where you rolled into a 45deg dive angle bombing run, hurling your self at the rocks below hoping that you wouldn't get disoriented when you pulled out of the dive at 500 knots. Funny what you remember and what "sticks" in your mind.??!??

Anyway, getting the radio handoff to Hong Kong control was simple and we made the transition from feet to meters without any problems. I was ready for it this time! The final controllers into Ghangzhou spoke pretty decent english and we got an easy approach into this huge runway complex with very few airplanes around to interfere with our arrival. Once we landed I immediately noticed how everything was under strict and positive control from the time we cleared the runway til we parked on our Fedex ramp. This complex is brand new and massive. I am sure Fedex has put millions of dollars into China...as this is our future. Once we shut down the engines we were immediately swarmed by literally dozens of maintenance, customs and cargo loaders. It brings the meaning of "Chinese fire drill" to life! By the time I walked out of the cockpit, I could barely move much less think. People wanting to see my Crew Declaration forms, paperwork, etc. I couldn't even get to our little latrine on board or grab a bottle of water from our cooler....the intensity level raised ten-fold over what I had just seen in Manila.! Of course, the van and driver were at the bottom of the steps with a very serious looking military fellow riding shotgun. I think he is the "political officer". This is the part that I describe on FaceBook as being the "drill". It is distinct and complete control.....which is the signature of Communism! Remember, this area is the FedEx ramp. Built and operated ONLY by Fedex crews and employees. As we approach our building (which is massive and probably 2000' long) it is surrounded by a dark and ominous fence which I described earlier as the "gulag". A uniformed ChiCom met us at the door and we went immediately to Customs which in the FedEx building. There were at least 5 Customs agents (no smiles) ready to examine our paperwork and to make sure we were following instructions. My Captain got them all stirred up because he was not going to take the scheduled taxi back to Hong Kong (3 hour drive) which all based Hong Kong pilots would normally do. In Rod's case, he still lives in the Philippines and was going to stay in the same hotel as me instead. He had cancelled this Hong Kong limo several days earlier, but he had showed up anyway. Holy cow....this was NOT what they had expected and it really threw them a curve ball. I thought Rod was going to get forced into that other van.....he just smiled and said I'm not going and we proceeded on together to our hotel (one hour drive) which was a brand new Holiday Inn in the city of Ghangzhou. The nicest one I have ever stayed in. I have caught up on my sleep and had a great breakfast several hours ago. It is now 1pm and time to explore, workout in their fitness room and then take another nap before my 2 am flight back to Manila tonight. This will be my last operational flight on this trip as I will take a commercial flight from Manila to Hong Kong at 0630 tomorrow morning. I will write more from Hong Kong.......