Hi All,
First would just like to say Good luck with your job hunting in Namibia and Bots. I've had quite a few PMs recently about flying in Namibia and rather than keep on repeating myself I'll post some of my replies below for a general audience. There seems to be a lot of interest in Maun but not so much in Namibia... As you'll read, I was based in Namibia but I did several trips over to the Okavango Delta so I am in a position to comment and compare the flying side of things. However, I never actually lived in Maun (but had a couple of friends who had). A lot of this has been said before but here we go:
Q: Best time to go?
A: "I arrived in Windhoek in the beginning of December 2006 and it was bad timing.. took me 2 months to get an offer. Lots of hiring happened in Mar-Jun." You probably won't get many (if any) answers to emails - you need to be there in person to generate some interest.
Q: Pay & Accomodation?
A: The pay was quite low (after tax less than US$1000) when you convert it to foreign currencies but I was living very comfortably on my salary. This was probably over 4 times the average salary. All of the companies tended to pay the same with a few exceptions. In all the companies,Your pay will go up as your hours go up.
RE the accomodation: some of the companies supply it and some don't. Rent was expensive (relatively speaking) for my salary. I was renting a room from another pilot who owned a nice apartment and was spending about 25% of my disposable income.
I was away from home (at 4 & 5-star lodges mostly) anywhere from 10-15 days a month. It's all paid for of course and you generally get overnight allowances. I was actually able to save quite a lot of money over a year.
Q: Who's good to work for?
A: "The best companies to work for in Namibia are
Scenic Air (C210s mostly)
Wings Over Africa (C210s but chance to get twin-turbine and possibly jet)
Naturewings & Westair (mostly charter, C210s, C310s, C404s, C406s)
Sefofane (C210s & C208s)
I have got mates working in all of the above so can provide contacts. Scenic air and Wings do lots of fly-in-safaris and you get to stay at great lodges and do guest activities which I loved.
Westair pay the best and have a nice fleet but their culture is a bit uptight and they take themselves a bit too seriously (an oral questionnaire for the 210 is done by TWO instructors). I mean you will get some good twin time with them but not so many safaris and you certainly won't get to chase zebras and Oryx around at 10 feet off the deck!
Most of the flying in Namibia is on the C210 but twin-time is available. The company I was with it was hard to get onto the twins (they only had 2 and down to 1 now after a prang!) but a mate of mine was flying conquests (co-pilot) and C310 with about 800 hours total.
Another thing, don't even bother talking to Desert Air unless you speak perfect Afrikaans."
Q: Which pilots go to Maun and which end up in Namibia?
A: "I'm not sure why, but it seems that (in General) all the South African low time pilots end up in Namibia, and the other foreigners (Kiwis, Europeans & yourself for example) tend to go to Bots. Although 90% of the flying I did was in Namibia, I did a few trips into Maun and some flying around the Okavango Delta and I can tell you that they are both good fun, challenging and a good experience. The flying and the scenery in Namibia is a hell of a lot more contrasting though! In Namibia you will fly over rich red deserts, the Fish River canyon, the lush green Caprivi stip and the beautiful Hartmanns valley just to name a few. Do not overlook Namibia just because all those Kiwis (hahaha - just joking) can't be bothered (or don't need) to travel over there...."
Q: What licenses and experience will I need?
A: you definitely don't need an IR to get a job over there. Most ops are VFR anyways. It's not difficult to get a job with a bare CPL and not much more.
Q:How do I convert my licence and get a work visa?
"Go over there first - its a lengthy bureacratic process to convert the licence but not really difficult. Employers will help you out or do the visa for you."
Enjoy, BBN Radar