Sennapods
Captain Chambo - how the devil are you ? The Great White Chambo if my addled Blantyre memory serves me well ? Sent North to cut the large white teeth in the Kenya charter scene ?
Great recall on the Seneca 11 which was a great servant of the coast charter boys but not very popular at Wilson as I recall. The altitude difference of the operators bases was always a bit of a red herring as we all flew into Wilson , Ngorongoro , Safari Club etc , but the coast charter scene had much lower yields than the 'upmarket' Wilson mob.
We all must all try to remember that the origin of the Seneca 1 was that it was a straight conversion of the Cherokee ( Njerogi ) 6 to 2 engines with retractable dunlops . Those of us who were early 'victims' of the 6 operation in hot and high East Africa were ecstatic at the arrival of the Seneca 1 , but as most of us already flew Aztecs/Navajos, Barons or Cessna 310/402 , we soon realised from the climb rate on 2 that an EFATO would definitely involve a straight-ahead or early landing rather than any heroics on the single-engine front.The loadsheets of the day did not bear much close scrutiny !That said , it was a great servant of coast charter , flying countless large tourists around the Parks with little or no drama and with good relaibility. The engineers found them easy ( and cheap ) to maintain , and some even got painted like punda milias ( zebras to the rest of you ).
The Seneca 11 was even better , quieter , better performance etc.
Apropos of nothing ,my favourites were the Baron ( the Merc of its day ) and the original 8 seat Navajo , although for all-out bush flying , the Aztec and C206 took a lot of beating.
Kwaheri.