I was not going to have much free time. I was taking the IREX, the difficult one first and the second, the ATPL Air Law was the day before my return flight to Hong Kong so I wanted to make sure I passed. I only took one day free and that was to drive around Freemantle.
The IREX was the bogeyman of all the exams. Apparently the pass mark had been lowered to 70% because so many kept failing it. It was a mixture of everything; technical, meteorological, procedures and aviation law. I was fairly confident owing to my personal training and it was rewarded with an above average pass mark.
Australian air law is full of whys, wherefores and not withstandings. The flight and duty limitations I never understood. One of my questions was on how long three captains could fly a 757 with the availability of a ‘resting chair’. However with a bit of luck and intelligent guessing, I passed. Off to the licensing office and put in my application.
I should have laid one on that night having achieved a fairly difficult operation but I didn’t, I was too relieved.
The next day I was back in China and the day after that I was doing my Australian Proficiency and Instrument Test.
We used B-7958. I don’t think the Chinese company knew what it was actually being used for. They were told it was just a base check. I was just an ordinary private citizen and we were using, for my benefit, a helicopter which would have cost about US3,000/hr. One could ague that I was probably going to work for them so I would have to do it anyway. There was one slight hiccup. When the forms went through CASA queried the fact that we had used a Chinese registered aircraft. They thought, quite reasonably, that it should have been done in an Australian registered example. However, that was glossed over on the basis that there wasn’t one handy at the time.
Then came the wait for the actual licence; anywhere between a fortnight and a month. I was living in company accommodation so it wasn’t too expensive. After three weeks I had been away from home for two months so I flew back to the UK. The day after I arrived I had a phone to say it had arrived in Shekou. It took a week for CAAC to process the endorsement and then I was airborne again in China.
I was back on contract with the British company. My CAA licence was invalid owing to my age so the G registered aircraft were out of bounds. I was now in a position where I was paid as a pilot by a major British aviation company but I was not allowed to fly their aeroplanes.
Even stranger things were going to happen………………….