48
GA
/ Vol. 5 / No. 2 / FEBRUARY 2013
FLYING TRAINING SCHOOLS - Southern Africa
Vanessa Grieve
Registrar
info@flightacademy.co.za
PROGRESS AERODROME - PORT ELIZABETH
Progress Flight Academy
Tel: +27 41 394 1000
Fax: +27 41 394 1001
www.flightacademy.co.za
Specialising in full time
residential Integrated
Professional Pilot
Courses for CPL/
IR (ME)
to international
standards
MIDRAND - JOHANNESBURG
Welcome to the New Year readers.
I expect you've all had a wonderful
Christmas time and hope everyone is
suitably rested, if not partied out and
ready to take on new challenges.
I love the end of the year, it's my
favourite time of the calendar and
having just been through the festive
season, most of my time was spent in
the snow of Europe de-icing aircraft,
it seemed apt to relate a small tale of
a Christmas I spent in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
I think I had volunteered for a stint
over the Christmas period to allow
the crew with kids to head home and
have their time together, either that
or the company I was working for at
the time told me to stay. Either way I
was lavishing by Lake Kivu on a fully
paid holiday in one of the most violent
and lawless areas of Africa t'was the
season to be jolly!
We were overseen by a particular
capricious ICRC air-ops co-
ordinator, a lady who had been in
the game for many years. This was
double-edged as she was extremely
knowledgable about the aircraft and
terrain we were operating in, so
one wasn't able to stretch figures or
margins much. The flip-side though
was that she defended us from many
of the NGO's departments that tried
to bully the crews into carrying
by Richard Browne
Flying in Africa
Christmas
with refugees
things illegal or overweight.
My memory fails me now but
for some reason this lady wasn't very
happy with the pilot group around the
season to be jolly and as such she set
about arranging a refugee exchange
in the east of the DRC. What made
this somewhat worse was that it was
planned on Christmas and Boxing day
with 0500 starts!
Of course none of this blunted
the usual yule festivities and after
some intrepid crew member had
sourced a gammon, we enjoyed a great
Christmas dinner and a lot of laughs.
Having said this though there was a
general disgruntlement amongst the
staff about the ICRC's decision to
work us on Christmas.
Now we had two aircraft in the
DRC at that time, one a Kingair 200
and the other was the turbine engined
DC3. The Dak did most the heavy
lifting whilst we, in the Kingair, flew
delegates and generally did the more
"corporate" side of things.
This time however, the Dak had
been equipped with a few bucket type
seats and mostly cheap airline style
sitting arrangements.
The most senior of us mooted
that the Dak take off first and loiter a
mile or two off the airport where they
would wait for the Kingair to join up
and formate. All preflight preparations
complete, we all took off and joined
up over the lake to setup for the
perfect run-in.
The target was the air-ops lady
who had tasked us with this dawn
patrol. We also knew that she'd had a
heavy night of partying and as such,
was probably levelled off at three feet
in a deep sleep. In my experience
around the World in aviation, when
management affects the flight crew in
some adverse way, it's always the crew
who enjoy the last laugh.
The Dak pilots set a direct track
for the house and we followed line
astern, they roared overhead at a
"not-very-high" tally of feet and so did
we, it was beautiful. From the air it
looked great, l can only imagine how
good it would have seemed from the
ground if anyone was actually up
and watching.
The Dak turned slowly, as Daks
do, and brought us around for another
run. This time they told us to hold
back about twenty seconds, which we
did. They thundered over once again,
being chased eagerly by a Kingair
one sheets-toss back. Poems would be
written about this at some stage, it was
such fine retribution.
Job done, we made for Bukavu, a
small town across the lake for our first
stop of many to fill up with refugees.
The idea was to load up with these
people and move them back to where
they had come from. That happened
to be in Kisangani which is a bigger
town north of where we were. Not a
long flight at all and it was planned
that we'd make four of these runs as a
minimum to get as many as we could
relocated home.
The apron area in Bukavu was a
mass of people, being kept in line by
the local authorities and the ICRC. The
Kingair can only take ten people if
you have two additional seats in place
behind the door, we didn't so it was
eight and some light baggage if any.
The Dak was considerably more and I
wondered how many they could take at
a push, seems it was a lot!
Loaded up, we set off first and
deposited our load without much
fuss, returning to Bukavu for another.
The Dak was doing it's thing too and
soon we were making a dent in the
days allocation.
What I wasn't ready for was the
mental effect this was taking on these
people. Reports had come in that
some of them had collapsed under the
stress of the relocation simply due to
the fact that they had spent the best
part of seven months in the jungle
getting away from the strife and we
were depositing them back inside
of fourty minutes! I simply hadn't
thought of this but realised that I had
a lot to be thankful for. I was in an
air-conditioned aircraft, sleeping in
a bed at night and enjoying hearty
meals. These people were not and had
not for ages.
It kind of cheapened the retribution
tactic earlier that morning and I felt
like a spoilt kid, promising however to
be more appreciative.
As it happened we made some
super gains on Christmas day and
the turnout the following morning
was light which made us finish by
lunchtime and head back to Goma and
the lake. All things considered, it had
been a fulfilling Christmas time.
I wish you all the best during 2013!
Between the 27th-30th December
2012, 43 Air School in Port Alfred
hosted the Annual 43 Air Festival. This
year's festival was a roaring success.
The weather was absolutely perfect for
the full duration of the festival, making
this annual event the best to date.
Many visitors and holiday makers
were surprised to find the immaculate
and varied collection of aircraft at the
event, what's more they were able to
have a flip in these amazing aircraft.
It is not often that you get the
opportunity to choose between a
L39 jet, a collection of classic war
2012 43 AIR
FESTIVAL
All aerial photography was taken
with a stock standard mounted
" go pro " set at 10 sec interval
shots. Harvard and old war bird
pics taken by Local photographer
Charl Pretorius .