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Old 28th Jun 2008, 13:35
  #55 (permalink)  
chuks
 
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
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Justice...

We used to operate a late flight from Warri Air Strip to Lagos which departed at the same time as another operator's, both of us using Twin Otters. It was a matter of whoever got going first, when Number One would go at FL80 and Number Two would take FL100 so that we could fit in with the non-radar Lagos environment. This was just a gentleman's agreement to avoid being tied in knots on arrival and it usually worked just fine.

I had flown with the other outfit too, and now one particularly bumptious former co-pilot was sat there across the field as my rival captain.

While we were starting we had our aircraft faced out towards the perimeter so that we only saw each other once we had turned around but of course we knew each other's voices. I was pretty quick on the draw but this time there was the opposition also ready to go, both engines running and all. Sometimes you could catch them calling for taxi with just one engine running and the pax still boarding, just trying to jump the queue in the true Nigerian manner but this time he was ready fair and square.

Not a lot of people know this but the safest place to be when sharing your air space with someone young and thrusting is above and behind him, so that I said we would let them go first if they wished. No, we could go first, came the answer. "What in the world?" was all I could think to myself. I never knew young Captain X to take second place to an Oyingbo before; what was he up to?

So off we went, climbing to FL80. Next thing, our following traffic says they need to stop climb at FL60 because "my co-pilot has an ear problem." Well, with an "ear problem" they would have gone right down on the deck, so this seemed to be an "ego problem." He was going to show that he could get there first using superior airmanship, the little toad. Plus he probably was going to screw me by hanging there below and behind me as long as possible before descending, putting me close in and high to have to do descending orbits over the approach fix.

I could not believe it when Lagos Approach had their radar working for the first time in years, that afternoon. They gave us both squawks, identified his aircraft as being something like eight miles in trail and sent him off on a loooong delaying vector to follow Number One, us! Bwhahahah! What are the odds on that happening twice?

Later he parked his Twin Otter in a banana grove, to general and unrestrained merriment among some of the local pilot population (me, at least). (The Twin Otter has a way of sometimes slewing the nose wheel to full travel left or right if you don't first check that it is centered after take-off and then check it again before landing. If you are careless enough to miss those checks then you may get a very, very close look at the scenery off to one or the other side of the runway as you lower the nose during landing. A definite case of "hero to zero" as your perfect landing, two squeaks from the mains, turns into a big squawk from the nosewheel and a windscreen filling with greenery.)

I would feel a lot better if I didn't think there was something like this, perhaps, in my future too!
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