KUCHING: The daily monotony of shuffling papers at the Miri-based helicopter company where she was employed as a technical clerk was not quite what Christine Long Lalo (pic) imagined a “fun” job would be.
The Kenyah technical records officer, then 24, looked out her office window at the helicopters on the flight line and imagined herself flying those whirlybirds instead of updating, filing, and keeping track of their service and maintenance records.
“I was like, ‘Okay, this is fun! I can do this’,” she said of the adrenaline rush at the thought of becoming a pilot and taking a helicopter for a joy ride.
“It was never about the money.
“I’m not from a rich family, but what I’ve discovered is that being a helicopter pilot allows me to visit holiday places I otherwise couldn’t,” she said.
To achieve her dream, Christine turned to her guaranteed source of funding – her father, who dipped into his savings to send her to Australia to obtain a commercial helicopter pilot licence (CPL).
She breezed through her training within the one-year stipulated timeframe and got her Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa)-issued licence.
Casa is Australia’s national aviation safety regulator and is responsible for issuing both fixed-wing and helicopter pilot licences.
On her return to Malaysia, Christine did the conversion for a Malaysian CPL.
She then got herself into the record books as the first Malaysian woman and the first person from her ethnic tribe to hold a helicopter pilot licence.
To her amazement, she managed to secure a job in the blink of an eye.
“I was so lucky to get a job straight away,” she said, explaining that openings for helicopter pilots in Sarawak were rare.
It is also a sector of the aviation industry dominated by experienced former military pilots with many flying hours.
“A lot of my friends who have a (fixed-wing) licence are unable to find work as there are more pilots than jobs. But luckily for us helicopter pilots, there are not many of us.”
Now at 45, her longest flying stint was as a flying doctor service and medical evacuation pilot.
Christine described those 10 years as the best flying days, which took her to Sarawak’s most remote areas.
She said she now flies VIPs around Sarawak in a twin-engined helicopter.
After 20 years, Christine still finds great joy in manning the helicopter’s flight controls.
“I continue because it’s fun.”
