Strange freight
Fascinating and often highly amusing tales from you guys who all seem to have the same - drier than a nun's dry bits - sense of humour too. Presumably from many years of second-guessing your commercial departments/weight claims/loadies in a hurry etc etc.
Whilst I can't claim to be even an apprentice freight-dog I did have an amazing experience whilst in Sudan, December 1979. I was (unqualified, rhs) in a Cessna402B Utiliner operating off an earth strip (yes, the original salesman must have laughed all the way to the bank) Sobat Camp (Jonglei Canal Project). We had arranged to fly to Juba (southern Sudan) to load some fresh pork (strictly hush hush) for the Christmas celebrations at the camp. En route we get commandeered by the Sudanese government (to transport the 'coffin' of a government minister killed in a car crash the day earlier). Attempts to refuse met with threats of the a/c being grounded for keeps so we had to say yes.
Land Juba. Hurry up and wait for at least 2 hours and then suddenly this vast throng of wailing, chanting mourners arrive in several Landcruisers with a packing case customised as a coffin. They, despite attempts at dissuading them, surround the a/c and the immediate relatives try and board. I remember stopping one guy pulling at the static wicks!
After a huge struggle to get the box on board we had room/weight for the guy's wife and 2 others. We then flew to a strip (run by a Dutch agri-research outfit but I can't remember the name of the place) near his local village and were met by a huge mob of fully painted/dressed to the nine's/assegai'd up tribesmen who virtually dragged the box off the a/c and carried it off on their shoulders, chanting at the top of their voice.
Suffice to say that by the time we got back to Juba, the pork was off !
Apologies for this being somewhat longer than most of the tales on here but the episode has lived me with me very vividly!
Eagle402
Last edited by Eagle402; 18th Feb 2008 at 15:08.
Reason: Correction of comedy punctuation