Words: Annabel Cook
1 November 2024
Equal parts travel guide to remote Indonesia, instructional manual on how to land on jungle strips, and love letter to Papua and the Pilatus PC-6 Porter, Flying from Shangri-La is Matt Dearden’s bare-all story of the seven years he spent flying for Susi Air.
It takes you behind the scenes with no holds barred. Even if sometimes you would have liked them to be (caution – there is a lot of, shall we say, ‘empennage action’).
The book starts by throwing the reader in the deep end with a brutally honest and emotional description of a near-death experience at 15,000ft above a mountain range with zero visibility. You know Matt must have survived in order to write the remaining 250 pages of the memoir, but it will be more than 100 pages until you find out how…
We then go back in time to follow Matt’s journey from self-confessed computer geek to discovering that his real passion is for flying. He throws himself into his studies and, two years after completing his ATPLs, arrives in Indonesia to join Susi Air, which is where the main body of the book starts.
From the moment Matt first lands in the region, you know you’re going to be carried along on a roller coaster of a real-life adventure. He doesn’t hold back in his descriptions of negotiating the medical centre, learning to fly the Cessna Caravan, and his experiences of living and flying in the region. As his proficiency builds, it’s easy to see how flying the Porter and landing at remote challenging strips hold so much appeal and you wonder whether the PC-6 should take equal billing as the hero of the story.
Memorable moments along the way include being chased around the aircraft: “It was like something out of a Benny Hill sketch, only this guy was armed”… cockroaches in the cockpit: “I sometimes let out a little scream when this happened, much to the amusement of the passengers” – and the Russian roulette of eating fried chicken.
There are touching accounts of interactions with the villagers who rely heavily on their airstrips, usually built by hand over many years. In one case, Matt takes their photos on an iPhone, only to realise that many may never have seen themselves in a mirror, let alone understand what a camera is.
We also hear how, through sharing his adventures via his blog and videos, Matt’s work caught the eye of a TV producer in the UK, resulting in a four-part Channel 4 series aired in 2014: The Worst Place to be a Pilot.
Each section is accompanied by a beautiful hand-drawn map of the airfields and routes, which, as Indonesia comprises around 17,000 islands, are invaluable for tracking Matt’s progress. There are two sets of pages with colour photographs, and at the end of each chapter is a QR code taking you to Matt’s website, where you can see even more pictures.
The honesty of Matt’s writing is refreshing and moving. I bet many readers, like me, shed a tear as he describes the emotion of his last days with his beloved PC-6. The book is an easy read and not overly technical, but does explain in interesting detail some of the techniques used to deal with the terrain and conditions in Indonesia. Having read it, I’m confident I could now land a taildragger on a steep muddy mountainside while carrying a cargo hold full of live animals. I’d probably end up writing the aircraft off, but not for lack of trying.
If you have any interest in travel, bush flying and adventure, you will love this straight-talking, page-turning, nail-biting tour of Indonesia.
For sale through Amazon or through Matt’s website, where signed copies are also available.
🌴Treetop landing into Bidau, Papua 🎯 Bush #flying book, #FlyingFromShangriLa out now: https://t.co/iaLSHcSrqD pic.twitter.com/40kvPK1P3d
— Matt Dearden (@IndoPilot) October 25, 2024
