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Above: Captain Patricia Yapp Syau Yin, the world’s first female MiG-29 pilot, checking an aircraft before take-off.

Colonel Lim Thain Hu.

Pioneer RMAF pilots.

Major Sebastian William recalling his close brush with death while on a routine flight. — AZMAN GHANI/The Star & RMAF

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/5/2/lifefocus/3781524&sec=lifefocus

The crème de la crème
By ROSE YASMIN KARIM

These aviators have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world — and they serve with pride.

Out on the tarmac, I watch as Captain Patricia Yapp Syau Yin RMAF, 33, climbs the rung of the ladder and into the cockpit of the MiG-29 Fulcrum for a combat air tactics drill.

Today, it’s to be a face-off with the American F/A-18D Hornet, the Russian Sukhoi SU-30MKM and the British Hawk.

Beneath the belly of the Fulcrum, the ground crew swarms, checking for anything out of place.

Dangerously sexy with a sharp nose and a menacing look, the fighter jet is a stunner. Painted a grey camouflage, with the black-and-green checked logo of the Royal Malaysian Air Force’s (RMAF) 17th Squadron, the jet makes sounds that are louder than anything the starting line-up of Formula 1 can muster.

Like a beast on a leash, the Russian aircraft, which can climb up to 6,096m above ground, only wants to do one thing — fly and very, very fast.

At the control tower’s go-ahead, Yapp, who reigns as the first ever woman to become a qualified MiG-29 fighter pilot (source: RMAF) and a member of the RMAF’s Tedung Selar fraternity, salutes and rips away from the tyre-scorched runway. The sudden quiet as it rockets into the sky becomes quite deafening.

Not for nothing is MiG-29 the favourite of air forces in countries like Ukraine, India, Germany, North Korea, Poland and Serbia.

“It can hit a speed of Mach 2.3 or 2,440 kph and is able to speedily intercept intruders in our airspace and destroy targets,” says the commanding officer, Colonel Lim Thain Hu RMAF, 50.

What it isn’t meant to do is to be flown like an Airbus.

“The aircraft is capable of doing rolls, loops, verticals and flying at low levels,” he says.

Low flying is crucial in air combat but there’s one particularly hazardous factor when flying low that even experienced pilots can’t control — bird strikes.

“One bird ingestion, and the engine may flame out, putting the pilot in a spot,” Lim points out.

Yapp’s plane rolls and climbs and accelerates to a speed few will ever experience. Controlling the fighter jet is not as easy as it looks. Yapp, whose elder brother is a commercial airline pilot, has to run through a checklist strapped to her knee while handling an array of buttons, knobs and switches that steer the plane and command an arsenal of weapons.

Later, as the drill ends, her plane kisses the tarmac in a gentle landing, and the drag parachute deploys.

“A pilot spends a lot of time on the ground before becoming airborne doing pre-flight inspections to ensure there are no foreign objects or conditions that could cause a malfunction. Even if there is a small particle on the tarmac, we must pick it up,” Yapp later says in her office.

“If the inspection goes well, we board the aircraft and prepare for flight. Once we are cleared by the tower, the pilot takes off. At the end of the mission, we would report any problems to the ground crew so they can repair the aircraft,” says the long-haired lass from Sandakan, Sabah, who looks up to her instructor, Lieutenant Colonel Emilia Kamaruddin RMAF, who is the country’s first female fighter pilot.

While birds belong in the sky, objects that are several tonnes of aluminium don’t, and despite thorough inspections, mishaps can happen.

“The biggest risk is losing the engine,” says Yapp, who first piloted an Aerotiga MD-3 aircraft. After that, she clocked her flying hours in the Swiss turboprop aircraft PC-7 and the Italian Aermacchi MB339A.

“The engine died on me once when I was flying the Aermacchi and I was on the verge of ejecting. At the third thrust, however, the engine thankfully recovered,” says Yapp, whose handle is Foxy.

“My call-sign before this was Mulan, but one time I was airborne and I blurted, ‘F***ing Oxygen!’ and this was caught on radio. That’s how F-oxy stuck with me.”

This type-A personality, who aspires to become the country’s first woman display pilot and still finds riding the Space Shot in the Genting Highlands Theme Park thrilling, admits her jetsetting career does make it tricky finding a suitable spouse.

“But I intend to marry eventually when the stars align. Thankfully, my parents aren’t the type to rush me to settle down,” says Yapp who plays badminton after hours on the airforce grounds with her squadron mates.

Having served in the traditionally boys-only club for 13 years, she knows how to be one of the guys.

“I don’t mind good-natured ribbing,” she says, her amiable attitude helping to balance out the not-so-amusing side of the job.

The punishing effects of G-force on the body, for example, is one of the less pleasant aspects of piloting a fighter aircraft.

“In a dogfight (aerial combat), we are exposed to high G-force that can be crushing,” says Major Sebastian William RMAF, 38, who explains that pilots experience forces of up to 9G. This would mean that gravity increases nine-fold, making the body nine times heavier. Even lifting your hand is a lot of hard work in these circumstances.

“The G-force draws the blood away from the brain and pools it in the legs and feet. You lose vision and may only be able to see in black and white, and this may lead to a blackout. When the pilot loses consciousness, it is called g-Loc or (g-induced loss of consciousness),” he explains.

“To avoid blackout during high Gs, you flex your arms, legs, abdomen and torso to keep blood from draining out of the head,” he says, curling his body to demonstrate.

The G-suit, William points out, only provides about one extra G of protection.

“The force messes up the body, which is why we are screened in a centrifuge, a machine that trains the body to adapt and build up a tolerance for high G-force.”

Major “Arrow” William has toyed with G-force in four Lima Air Shows, leaving spectators dazzled. His signature move is the Knife Edge: flying low over the runway at 61m-76m, so close to the ground that Rafael Nadal could bounce a tennis ball off the aircraft with his backhand.

But despite getting away with such daredevilry, this high flier who is married with two young daughters has had a close call, where he and his squadron mate, Major Saiful, were forced to eject during a routine mission in a two seater MiG.

“The plane spiralled out of control at 607m, rapidly losing altitude. Successful recovery of the plane was out of the question so William made the decision to bale out and gave the command: “Eject, eject, eject!!”

“I yanked the ejection handle between my knees and almost instantly, the ejection seat punctured the canopy, shattering the glass. I felt the rush of the wind and accelerated upwards out of the aircraft at 22Gs. My body felt like I was being thrashed from every angle,” he recounts.

“The harness pulled the parachute out but it didn’t open all the way. I plummeted rapidly, hitting the water hard,” he adds.

The whole sequence of events, says William, from pulling the handles to being in a parachute and splashing down in the South China Sea, took merely four to five seconds.

“I don’t even know which fell into the water first, me or the plane,” he said.

William ended up in a dingy which deployed upon contact with the water — yes, a dingy, parachute and survival kit all weighing 4kg was strapped to him.

The survival kit contained a glucose bar, machete, fish hook, flare, hat, medication tablets and shark repellents.

“I was near an island called Pulau Yu (shark island). I am sure it is so called for a reason. An hour later, I was picked up by three fishermen and we went over to rescue Major Saiful who landed on the other side of the island. Half an hour later, a Nuri chopper winched us up from the fishing boat which was heading towards Kuala Sedili.”

Limbs have been ripped off, and many have died following an ejection, says William.

“There are many reasons why: the chute could have got tangled up, the pilot may have hit his head on the instrument panel, not being strapped in properly or incorrect posture.

“I walked away from the incident with only a cut lip from biting myself and a compressed vertebrae in my neck as a result of the chute not fully deploying. But other than that, there were no major injuries.

“As per procedure, I kept my back straight and my head up. A week later, I was back to flying after the board of enquiries ruled that the aircraft had a malfunction.”

The incident gave William the confidence to believe that should history repeat itself, he would make it through again.

“I tell my wife to expect only 50% of me when I return. If I come home 100% intact, than it’s a bonus,” says William.

The wreckage of the aircraft now sits at the bottom of the sea.

“A fisherman found a piece of the aircraft floating with a picture of a footprint (a cautionary “Do not step” sign).

The RMAF instructed him to toss it back into the sea,” says William who is a lifetime member now (number 4,915) of the Martin-Baker Tie Club, a club for people who have ejected from an aircraft in an emergency using a Martin-Baker designed ejection seat, and lived to tell the tale.

“I received a certificate and a lapel pin,” says William, who likes reading World War 2 novels, memoirs and biographies and has a neat collection of model airplanes.

He also enjoys action flicks like Battle of Britain, The Battle of Midway and Tora! Tora! Tora!, which he says are historically accurate, and unlike other films, don’t make his eyes roll.

“Fighter pilots are the crème de la crème of military pilots. They have voluntarily signed up for the most dangerous job in the world. So naturally, a little cockiness is going to ooze out of them once in a while,” admits Lim.

From the thousands of military personnel who come on board, only a handful of graduates become pilots. The filtering continues during training, and only 20% to 30% are hand-picked to be fighter pilots. It takes many years of hard work and a big investment to turn a raw recruit into a jet pilot ready for the front lines.

“The RMAF approach flying from a completely different perspective than the commercial pilot,” says Lim, who is known to the squadron as Pappi, a Spanish term for father.

“There is only one seat in the cockpit of the fighter airplane. There is no co-pilot to assist in making calls to the air traffic control centres or to help with the emergency procedures,” he explains.

“Situational awareness (code name: SA) is crucial in aerial combat. You must know where your position is to be ready for the kill. Your eyes have to dart between the outside of the canopy bubble to the dials in the cockpit. You have to navigate the target and manage weapons,” says Lim.

“Fleet pilots take on one-on-one, one-on-two, two-on-four, four-on-four, and other simulated combat scenarios,” says Captain Nasruddin Khalid RMAF, 29.

Tapes of these training missions are played for review.

“We study the conditions of the mock dogfights afterwards, that’s how we learn and track the score kills (or what would be a kill if you engaged in real combat),”

For all their training, fighter pilots must also trust in their instincts.

“On days I’m due to fly and I encounter three aircraft failures, I take it as a sign that somebody up there doesn’t want me to fly,” says Lim, a widower with three children who golfs for fun.

“And no, I don’t hire a caddie or ride in a buggy — I walk to keep fit,” he adds.

While the movie Top Gun glorifies Tom Cruise’s character’s penchant for rule breaking and recklessness, Nasruddin, whom once represented Penang in the under 17 Rugby and the RMAF in hockey, says he would never consider jeopardising his career by pulling silly stunts on or off ground.

Looking down from thousands of feet up in the sky, the world and its problems may seem tiny, but getting there is far from easy — Nasruddin is ironically afraid of heights.

“Looking down from a tall building scares me, but I’m not the least affected when I’m in a plane.

“Medically qualified, mentally competent and physically capable fighter pilots undergo specialised training in aerial warfare and close-range aerial combat. The job calls for people who love to be challenged,” says the former cadet trainee of the Alor Star RMAF College in Kedah.

“Barely a month after I enrolled in the college in 2001, my senior, Lieutenant Mohamad Faizal Ismail RMAF, was killed when his aircraft crashed into a padi field. My parents became very worried, but tragedies can happen anywhere,” says the second of nine siblings who has served in the force for 11 years.

Being a fighter pilot takes guts, but if that is all that is required for this job, any hot-headed or foolhardy person can qualify.

Nope, a man or woman should have the skills and temperament to clamber aboard the killing machine. You must have the reflexes, aptitude and coolness of head to go up today, the next day, the day after and so on.

Open for viewing
Want to see the MiG-29 aviators strut their stuff in the skies? If you’re driving in Kuantan, Pahang you may just spot them flying low in your rear view mirror. Word is, aviation enthusiast gather at Restoran Kemira, across the road from the airfield, for a clear view. If you’re super-lucky, you might even share a table with the men and women in green at the restaurant.