Cool dudes
 

Can anyone recall the town, more or less on the Equator,
That had an Ice Skating rink?
It was always VERY popular. Jam packed as I recall.:ok:

:hmm:

Would that have been the Solar Ice Rink in Nairobi's Panari Hotel back in late 2005?
:suspect:

If that used to be the Hotel Panafrique about 25yrs ago,
then that's probably it.:cool:

There was the bloke at Eros who flew charters along with the rest of us on all sorts of Cessna twins and the 200, about 12 years ago. Now he'd putter around on one of those hilarious motorcycles-with-pedals. Would arrive at work prior to the crack of dawn on this contraption, in uniform, nav-bag strapped to the tail-feathers. A sight for sore eyes! :} Now some of the aircraft were quite a distance from the office, so he'd ride to the plane once flight plan, etc. had been done in the pilots' room. One dark and very early morning good ol' XXXX drones off to his aerie in a cloud of fumes, only to scare the living sh1t out of us 10 minutes later when, having preflighted, he proceeded to crank his 310 and, still very much in the pre-dawn-gloom, taxied his starboard prop straight into his scooter-thing. We were finding bits of funny-cycle scattered all around the airfield for the next few weeks. Christ, the racket that made!! :p

(Vergewe my as jy dit lees ou pel, maar jy moet saamstem, dit was fokken snaaks!!! :ok:)

Evaporation...
 

We had an old Cessna 402 that was doing sterling duty as a sunshade for stray dogs. Like attracts like? Anyway some mad Eyeties decided they really needed it so a deal was done and our very best and most dispensible pilot was chosen to ferry it from Lagos to Rome. Me, of course!

It hadn't even had a run-up in years, plus it was sat there kind of tipped to one side. Well, whatever.

They dragged the battery cart over and plugged it in, hopped in and started flipping switches. Hmm... no fuel in one tank. (This was the 402 with the so-called "tuna tanks" with the main fuel out in the tip tanks.) So they filled up the oddly empty tank and went off to do engine runs.

It wasn't running very well, and when they shut it down afterwards they found it was pissing Avgas all over the ramp from under one engine!

Ah yes, no sense wasting all that Avgas in those big tip tanks, was there, so that one of our own engineers decided to become a criminal mastermind back when we never expected that thing to move again. He had undone the main line at the firewall and used the boost pump to empty the tank. Hah! Of course, being a true son of Mother Africa he didn't bother to "tight-up de foo-el line" afterwards, creating a sort of flying bomb.

I was watching all this with a certain amount of interest, as were the poor old stray dogs. One day, after the engineers, now minus our inofficial fuel vendor, had managed to calm its explosive tendencies, they were off to the compass base. Progress! 30 minutes later here they came back, dragging my steed on the end of a rope! I could only think to myself, "It won't even make it from the ramp to the compass base and back under its own steam and I am going to Rome?"

I did set off for Rome. Well, why not?

About 30 minutes later I knew why not. The prop governers were shagged and would not stay synched. Bwaaaahh, vrooom, vroom, waaah-waah-wah-wah-wah... interlude of twiddling prop levers... bwaaaah, vrooom, vroom, etcetera, every TEN MINUTES! Aargh! Sat there watching the landscape crawl past with this racket beating my head in... madness was setting in when I was thinking, well, if I just shut one down then I don't have to synchronise them, do I?

We got as far as Tamanrasset and hit some paperwork problems. The Wops had done the permits but the number they gave me didn't exist according to my new Algerian friends. I spent a couple of nerve-wracking days drinking mint tea and trying not to think about movies about Turkish prisons.

When they finally got bored playing with me one engine didn't want to fire up, just sputtering, coughing and dying, repeatedly. Turned out that the throttle was off about 1.5 inches so that I was trying to start it with the throttle open too far. D'oh!

You know how sometimes you get to the end of a long flight and you just stand there gazing fondly at the trusty old bird that carried you all the way? I got out of that thing at Ciampino Airport, ripped off my sweaty life vest, tossed the keys to the new owners and said, "You wanted it, it's yours. Good luck!"

I imagine they were going to smuggle cigarettes with it and good luck to them. Well, maybe people who were behind on paying money to the Camorra or Mafia or whomever... they dragged them out to the airport and took them for a long flight in the Cessna, bwaaah-wah-wah-wah, after which the money got paid back right away even if that meant selling one or both kidneys.

On the way to Njili airport, crew car must stop due large ox and even larger crowd on road. After some minutes and much arguing, crowd polarizes into two distinct groups, out come machetes, live ox chopped down the middle (approximately), left half dragged off road to left, right half to right, both halves twitching, children scoop up stray organs, which they stuff into their shirts. Crew car squelches through two inches of fresh ox blood on road, mud guards do excellent job of minimizing splat. Another day in Africa. Wonder if steak is on the menu tonight...

Ah-ah!
 

Dat be "cow-meat". Not steak! A real work-out for the jaw muscles.

Then there is the famous Sokoto chicken. Not to say they are tough, just that I saw one get run over by a lorry and then get up and walk away. Allegedly.

We had this dingy cave of an airport cafe at the old Aero Contractors terminal, back when a naira bought something. There was "Hamburger with Egg" on the menu, when the waiter came over to tell me that today it was "Hamburger with Egg - no Egg".

I have this terrible need to fight boredom that is always getting me into trouble. I asked, "So how much is an egg worth? Can I get a discount here?" (We are arguing here over about 10 cents, of course.)

"It is 'Hamburger with Egg- no Egg'"!

"Yes, I hear you but I see here on the menu that an egg sells for 80 kobo. You are shorting me one egg so that I would expect a discount of 80 kobo, just going by the menu."

"It is 'Hamburger with Egg - no Egg'"!

"Well, perhaps a chit, then, that I could exchange for an egg at a later date?"

Same answer...

"I am not in a hurry. Could you send the 'boy' to the market to purchase an egg? They are very rich in Vitamin A, I am told."

Almost the same answer: same words, double volume. Time to stop yanking this guy's crank before he gets that surly-looking crowd of yoofs to pitch me out on my pointy Oyingbo head, I guess.

"I see. Well, your cogent arguments have won the day. Please bring me one 'Hamburger with Egg - no Egg' and a nice warm Fanta Orange... no, wait, I think I shall have the Schweppes Mineral Water instead. Thank you so much."

O how I miss Africa..............Excellent comments guys

In Abidjan cleared to Back Track in English....which we understood......Military C130 was told something in French, all we heard was " DIPRI " we knew that was the reporting point for the IAF and there is a holding pattern but what was after that we had no idea until we saw landing lights about 1.5 miles away on short final......We think he said......Dirpri and hold......but boy were we wrong......it was infact Cleared to Land.....cloud base of about 500ft....told to go around and big chief swivel head spear said "NO" landing.....WTF.....eventually he orbited straight back into the cloud, no go around just orbit....might have been the same guy with the patch on his eye.....IF training maybe.......

This must be one of the best and funniest threads in a long time. Having experienced some not all of the above at some stage in Africa makes it funnier still. Keep it going guys. I feel sorry for someone reading this who has not flown in Africa and wants to find a job on our lovely continent.

Keep them coming :D:D

:ouch::ouch:

:hmm:

One can remember driving, four of us plus company driver, broad daylight, from Gaberone airport to the Holiday Inn during the time that the SADF thought it had Carte Blanche to exterminate its enemies in Botswana.
There was a Botsana DF road block between airport and town. To our surprise our driver accelerated towards the blockade, thereby attracting the attention of the soldiers, some of whom began to unsling their rifles from their shoulders. Only when the Captain and I had realised that Bonzo had no ntention of stopping, did we start yelling at him, hitting him and smacking his head, which didn't do a lot of good really, as it doesn't from time to time. He went through a gap in the blockade and finally stopped a few yards past it. By this time, some of the troopies were down on one knee, weapons levelled. No whizz bangery yet, thank goodness!
Quite how Bonzo extricated himself and us from his errors of judgement with his explanations to the troopies, I never found out, but eventually we were waved on our shaken way. We managed to establish that the driver thought that since the company car was brand new, it would be able to outrun the bullets and that he was of the opinion that such would be a very funny thing to do.
The cabin crew throughout the debacle retained a stony silence because, as we later established, the driver, being only a driver, was of a lesser social order than were they.:eek:

A real prince...
 

I had one for a co-pilot on a Cessna 441, flown for a German construction company.

We had a trip for the German Ambassador to Nigeria one afternoon, taking him from Abuja to Lagos.

My Prince had come, back from some mysterious errand and was hovering in the background. Being of royal blood he did not do baggage. He would hover looking helpful but he never actually managed to heave any bags into the nose baggage compartment. Far be it from me to upset the social order, so that I did the bags.

Here comes His Excellency, so I greet him, take his fold-over bag, pop the left-hand nose baggage door and "Fark!" There is a large, filthy burlap sack full of yams that has shaken a load of top-quality Nigerian dirt all over the baggage compartment! So that was what my Prince had been up to, going shopping at one of the roadside yam stands that dotted the long road from town to the airport. Way to go, Prince!

Oh well, this Ambassador bod must know Africa by now, so that I just made a few feeble attempts to get the worst of the dirt off a spot big enough to park his bag and carried on.

Later I introduced the Prince to two new concepts, telling his Captain about what he wanted to stow where in our Cessna, plus shaking the dirt off his goddam yams before stowing them in our nice, clean baggage compartment.

He was not a stupid man. It was just that he was very much a product of his environment.

I read this story written by a journalist, so it must be true.

In Uganda, during the time of Amin, the journalist commuted into town each day by car. Each day, he was stopped at the same roadblock, asked to get out of the car and remove his shoes. Each day, the soldiers looked inside his shoes, then sent him on his way.

Being reasonably au-fait with Africa, he contained his curiosity, and did not ask what they expected to find in his shoes.

Until, eventually, his curiosity could be contained no longer, so he asked what it was they were looking for.

"Guns," he was told.

"How do you think I can hide guns in my shoes?" he asked.

"Dunno, but them's the orders. We have them written down."

"Can I see them?"

"Sure." The orders decreed that all vehicles must be stopped, and the boots searched for weapons.




For those who only speak Americanese, a boot on a car is what you would call a trunk, but there would be something lost in the translation.

You know you are in Africa when you monitor the Tower frequency and hear the initial call of an Airliner:

"Tower good afternoon, ABC, self established ILS 21"

No response from tower. Later on:

"Tower, again this is ABC, we are on short final runway 21."

Of course, no response from the tower.

"Tower, äh, ABC, runway 21, we're gonna land..."

Tower replies: "ABC, roger, thereafter taxi to your stand as usual."

Answer by the aircraft was just a doubleclick on the mic... that was all, nothing else to be said :D

Guys,

you know what is so astonishing, you all bitch and moan, but how many people that may and maybe not, be on this thread, have built up their time doing all the crap jobs that we have to do in order to be served our orange juice and paper while the auto pilot flies us to the destination
Flying is something we do because its something you can never describe to people that havent, its a gift that many havent, we are lucky.
Yes the crap hits the fan now and then but it goes with the terroitry, Deal with it or go and stand behind a bank desk all day and see how that feels,
chaps and ladies we all have had to do what we have to do to further our jobs, dont gripe, if Africa was not in the the state it is most of us would not have jobs and without i am sure a bunch of you guys will agree.

You know youre in Africa when :

- All the expats working for the UN drive around in 4x4's or armoured tanks wearing flak jackets and helmets and all have some kind of weapons, while the aircrew have a wanked out hyundai van, no armour and have to drive into town daily for supplies!

- you buy whisky in 2 litre bottles so it will last longer than an evening

- you look forward to eating goat and/or camel meat

- you program the GPS with self made waypoints while in VMC so you can get in when its IMC. All the waypoint names have to be swear words

- you can have a party with a bunch of russians for 8 hours and not understand one word they say

- you can tell the sound of an Mi - 8 about 20 nm away

- it is not considered weird when there is a stack of hardcore pornography in the crew house toilet

- a ladder is leaning against an old 727-100 on a short dirt strip for the pax and crew to board and disembark

-you have to pay more for a coke if it is cold, than if it is warm

- when you sign on at 5am the engineer is passed out cold on the kitchen floor, Led zeppelin still on high volume

- flying low level down rivers trying to get the people in the canoes to jump out is part of the descent briefing

Fun times!

And during the rainy season in Congo having taken off from a dirt strip to fly 35 min to another dirt strip with 2hrs 45 min of fuel aboard; get cut off by a storm system, landing eventually with just 12 min of fuel showing on one wing guage and nothing showing on the other... then waiting a day for fuel to be floated over the Ubenge River so that we could fly out again.

Capster - you've been/are there! :D:ok::}
Swamp - relax. Nobodies bitching. Funniest thread in ages. Africa's great.

Got several tshirts aswell!! Thankfully moved on to greener pastures, but what a cool way to learn how to fly. A couple of years on the dark continent should be compulsory!:ok:

Capster, Curried goat is my personal favourite.
Best thing to do with the damn things is to
EAT them.:E Never tried Camel, couldn't get
a big enough pot!!!!!!

Roasted goat is hilarious! Mbuzi choma - niiiiiiiice! :ok:

Swamp Rat get off your high horse nobody is bitching just relating stories. How long have you been flying in Africa. The Swamps are nothing like the rest of Africa.

CHILLOUT and let us have fun:E

Been flying in Africa since the age of eighteen, had the good fortune that my Dad was a pilot, so yes the usual story of it being in the blood.
No horse my bro, just reality and by the way I am an African whom has lived and flown in Africa for the duration of my career, which now spans 17 years .

Chop

:hmm:
One really must be very careful how one goes about this business of anything being in the blood.
On the vain glorious assumption that one can trace one's ancestry back a few hundred years or so, certainly far further back than the first colonisers of the Hottentot lands; any familial characteristics which might have flowed from the first generation to the last, might reasonably be said to be in the blood.
Anything much less than this is simply pure nepotism.
Toodle Pip.:ooh:

You know you are in Africa when the best doctor in town is something like this:


http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n...Bestdoctor.jpg

runways
 

When you use a 4 wheel drive to get to the runway and almost get stuck on it and you still have to take-off from the same muddy place on a Twotter!

The memories keep coming back.. Class 1 renewal...
Dr .......... in ........ ( I can't say because ..hey ... I may someday be old enough to need this guy again ! )
I walk into the 'surgery' ... antique surgical implements displayed along the walls like a museum of Scutari Hospital .... He asks me to fill in a form and while I'm doing that he's scribbling away.. just as I finish filling in the form, he finishes scribbling and then asks the only question of the interview... "Can you please give me $150 ?" ... I hand him the filled in form and the money... he passes to me the paper he's been scribbling on... a receipt... end of medical and I have my Class 1 renewal.

Since we’re on the subject, Swamp Rat, who exactly is bitching here. Most awe-inspiring place I ever flew. I’ll say it again, at least until you guys get it; God Herself lives in the magnificent skies over Africa, of that I have no doubt whatsoever. Anyone have a reasonably intelligent argument with that?

So, there we were, in a B-720, parked on the Kananga ramp, 9Q-CTD if any plane spotters are interested. The flight from Kinshasa was the usual ICTZ T-storm duck, dodge and weave operation. And there, on the ramp for our arrival, in all his golden uniformed and Swiss bank-accounted glory, was the Marshall Mobutu himself. Holy Sh@t my brothers and sisters, an appointment with destiny, that little voice inside that whispers, one might want to tread delicately in such close proximity to celebrity A-List thugs.

Casual murder being what it is in Africa, a cheerful no-offence-intended blood sport mostly I gather, and our well-honed aversion to same, we dutifully assemble under the chipped and dented radome of our ancient Boeing Seven, applauding raucously as the Big M himself strides the ramp. All the while bestowing blessings on the lesser folk of this impossibly miserable planet. How could it exist without the Marshall, God forfend!

He even nodded my way, brushes with greatness have never been my thing. I’m still trying to fathom the ultimate meaning of that one. Rumor had it that the Marshall’s Great Mahogany Throne was installed somewhere in the mid section of his 707. I don’t know, personally, I never saw it first hand, but it rings true, in an intuitive sort of way. Sometimes it helps to finish off the bottle of Johnny or Jack, as you will, provides a measure of temporary closure that comforts and protects. Against the insects at the very least. That’s how those things go in Africa.

But I digress. The Marshall, installed in his over-wing greatness, dutifully orders his pilots to light the fires. Four spit-shined Pratt JT3-7’s are now spooling up, the incline of the ramp dictating considerable break-away thrust, that gorgeous smell of jet kerosene, the inexorable and dizzying intoxication of willful and final escape, mounting its grand and forceful presence over the African landscape. Billowing, pregnant cumulus towering to impossible breadths, heights, continental by any other description, all around the field.

A more magical place, you’ve never been, I think…duty calls, to be continued…

But seriously, chaps, there's nowhere else in the world where you have such fantastic views.



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y27...47/giraffe.jpg

I have been touched as well...
 

Had the First Lady hurl down the back of my Cessna 402C. Had a big, fat argument with two of the First Sons when I didn't want to land at Minna Airstrip in the dark, just because there were no runway lights. Had fifteen souls in a Cessna 404 just because the Military Governor wanted it so.

In the dark days of Sani Abacha you used to see the Argentine Peugeot 504s, black with blacked-out windows, chasing the Presidential 727 down the runway as it departed, providing some weird kind of security. 727 in the middle, 504s off each wingtip, and "AWAY THEY GO!" Peugeots keeping up well-well until, ooh, 35 knots or so and finishing up at about mid-field doing 110 mph as the 727 is turning on course.

I had to explain to a newbie why I had 3 hours fuel just to do a flip around the pattern at Lagos, a couple of touch-and-goes. He had never been to a place where they could close the airport on no notice for 30-45 minutes for VIP movements with no estimate for when it might reopen, either.

DAUH tower this is ZS-XXX request 3500ft QNH to XXX.

Reply, "sir that is the incorrect flight level"

DAUH tower i say again request 3500ft on QNH to XXX.

Reply "sir that is the incorrect flight level you may have FL025 or 045.

This despite the fact that we have done the flight everyday that week at 3500ft!

OR

Report final number two behind the 737, which is at 18 miles, after a lot of french english translation (we are at 3) turns out to be a 767-300????

OR

"Say Altitude"

Reply "Altitude"

Radio silence.... ;)

Chuks,

A 200 once carried 27 pax out of Kuito, Angola, when the latter was being attacked by Unita. Refugees stormed all available aircraft on the ramp, it was completely impossible to get the people off again. (I don't blame the poor bastards, everybody was taking it in turns trying to wipe them out!)
Aircraft taxied out with the door dragging and a pilot on the steps fending off more refugees. Top right corner of the door was ground away through contact with the tarmac. Aircraft got out ok and made it back to Luanda, albeit at a low altitude and unpressurised.

Civil Aviation (in country of registration) notified, airframe inspected, door fixed, carry on chaps...

Amazing aircraft.

...when the controller keeps a 737 at 5000´ because of a Caravan that is flying at 6000´ in the same route and opposite direction... 50 nautical miles away,,,

...when you're attempting to do something perfectly normal (fill in paperwork, complete GENDEC's etc) and an 'official' stops you with some utterly bizarre reason why you can't do it, despite it having been done for the last 50 flights or so, AND they are the ones requiring it. His explanation of why you can't do it is either a) physically impossible b) has the logic used by five year olds, or c) he simply repeats the original statement that 'No, you can't do it', as many times as it take no matter what sane and rational arguments you put forward.

Or when using say, a US$100 bill to pay landing fees whatever, they refuse to accept it on the grounds that it has a tiny 'nick' somewhere on it... their own paper currency of course looks as though the entire population have wiped their ars*s on it....
if it happens to you, do what I do.. throw it on the floor and say.. "Well.. if no one wants it.." and then watch their faces. :}

...when airport officials threaten to take you into custody because you just took a picture of an old DC-3 parked on the ramp. Maybe it could reveal some of their technological advances to the enemy.

Entering the airport, the security-guy, who has to inspect the vehicle for hidden bombs, asks you to turn off the engine, get out and open the trunk. You tell him you're in a hurry, so he smiles and asks for some "chai". And off you go...

Security...
 

I was sat in the cockpit of my Twin Otter filling out some paperwork or else trying to think up some brilliant scheme that would get me out of Nigeria when I felt the airplane shift a bit as someone came up the stairs to the cabin. Then I heard, "Peeeep, peeep, peeep..." What in the world?

When I looked around, there was one of our security Shell Mopols using his metal detector to verify that each seat frame was, indeed, made of, umm, metal! Well spotted! He gave me a sheepish grin when I looked at him and fecked off to waste oxygen in a different way after that.

They used to check the pax, get a peep, the guy would pull some keys out of a pocket, show it and, "Okay, these are not the droids we are looking for." Not to give anything away but might there be a way to smuggle one thing by showing something else when both are made of metal?

Anyway they never checked the pax on Sundays but that was okay because we had never had a hijacking on a Sunday except for once or twice but that was helicopters and I was flying fixed-wing. See?

Post 9/11 I told my cabin crew that I would be keeping the cockpit door locked on the Dornier, when I took the key with me and slid the door closed. Halfway to Abuja we got the usual cup of tea and some biccies... Two minutes later I had the sudden thought, "Hey! How did he do that?"

On the ground again I got a very self-satisfied smirk from my steward as he showed me the extra key he carefully kept hidden away in the first baggage locker on the right, the one the pax weren't supposed to access.

You know, I could lock the door if I wanted to but it was his privilege to unlock it if he wanted to!

After having three guys shot and wounded, two shot and killed 50 meters from me on a money run I started on insiting on a vest and straping on my nine milimeter on all money flights.

One day the head of airport security tells me I cannot do this as I am scaring the passengers. Even though I'm licenced to have it. So we come to a comprimise I can put it on once I get to the plane.

After having checked my firearm through the security (50% of the time it's not noticed) security still gives me grief about my leatherman or lighter.

Whatching the security waving his metal detector wand over a hunter who was about to go on a charter. All sounds correct till you consider the hunter had his rifle in one hand, a bowie knife strapped to his side and a belt of bullets round his waist. Wish I'd had a chance to take a picture.

Where fighter jets, which have not moved or flown for over seven years, and will never fly again are considered top secret. And not really there. Even though everybody can see them.

The army has transport aircraft which are referd to by their own pilots as "flying coffins" because they were donate with no life history.

Where the airforce repaints SAM sites even though they have not worked and will never work again. It's not like the public can see them.

Where ramp guys decide, why push the plane when we can taxi it like the pilots do. Start aircraft (amazing in itself) loose control end up crossing active runway, missing landing 737. Apparently stopped the aircraft by feathering the prop (piston mind you) and as quickly as possible pushing said aircraft back to the ramp.

Finding the chickens you were supposed to fly out o a hunting camp in the bush have been thrown into the pod without their cages. Cages did not fit.

Baggage door comes unlocked, some poor guys back are somewhere in the sea, hopefully not through someone's roof.

Search and rescue helicopter not available because pilots have already clocked off.

Tower let's VFR traffic arrive, even though when one mile from the field without the field visual everything is still deemed ok.

National airlines take priority over everyone else.

Amazing how they always manage to get it right..:zzz: