Yes I did fly with Sefo and I agree, their strips are bit nicer. But I also landed at many of the other strips out there. Are there really still 600m meter strips? I only remember one when I was there, and I had thought it was extended. Are you flying vans into 600 m strips? And I certainly have not forgotten about the heat or the mud. I know how fun saturated calcrete can be, it is the rainy season here and I have to land caravans on the stuff regularly.
It's just going to come down to difference of opinion. I started in Maun as a relatively experienced pilot with a fair amount of C206 time, and I didn't find the transition particularly difficult. To me getting accustomed to rough or muddy runway surfaces is more about common sense and good aircraft control than any kind of special technique The hard part for me was learning to find my way around that featureless swamp with the GPS off, and understanding what the f$%# those controllers were saying. I think what makes difficult bush strips difficult is the environment around them. Obstacles, terrain and weather, usually all at the same time, and there just wasn't any of that in Bots.
As far as landing at bush strips in Bots being more difficult than on paved strips I'm sure thats true if you are talking about day VFR flying. But most van pilots where I'm from are flying freight which means plenty of single pilot, night IFR, frequently in bad weather and icing conditions. So touching down on the tarmac might be easy but the circling approach at night and at minimums in order to get to that tarmac to me seems a lot more challenging than dodging puddles on a dirt runway. Anyone who is good at that type of flying wouldn't struggle too much in Maun I don't think, but I'm not sure that the opposite is true.
Density Altitude...
What are you guys smoking when you come up with these crazy density altitude figures? You have never experienced 9,300 ft density altitude in botswana because until global warming gets a lot worse it is physically impossible. The 49C day you mentioned would have meant the density altitude was around 7,500 ft on the ground in Maun. In order to get a 9,300 DA at a 3,100 ft ele. runway and standard pressure the temperature needs to be almost 70C with and thats not going to happen. The rule of thumb is that DA increases around 120 ft for every degree C over standard so 10 degrees warmer than standard temp means an increase in DA of approximately 1200 ft. Probably a bit less in bots because as you mentioned there is usually high pressure which reduces DA.
Last edited by ragdragger; 5th Apr 2011 at 05:40.