For those new in town and a reminder to all; this next week will see the highest crime rate of the year. Laptops, smart phones and cameras are the favorites. Stash away your cash.

If you have a gun lock it up. The police will charge you if you report it stolen.

We have already had our joint cased twice in the last few days.

It is recent policy that there must be no less than 1 ATM per 1000 donkeys in Maun.

Also new minimums on electronic payment facilities for goods and services, at many outlets shall be 1 for every 200 pre paid phone outlet sales points.

Hello! I'm in Maun, so if any of you are around please let me know! I will stay all day around Beer Garden next to the airport as I will also been doing some runs to different companies. And I'm staying in Old Backpackers Bridge, hope to see you guys.

The Old Bridge Backpackers. 10 km out of town on the old road to Moremi. Highly recommended.

The 'Beer Garden' referred to is actually called 'Pizza Plus'. Also very pleasant.

Spaflyer, may see you around. Usually at Pizza Plus 10.00 on Thursdays. One is the geriatric ATPL leaning on the bar drinking Savanna Dry! Cheers.

Lol, that's where we are! in Old Bridge in a camping tent, and now writing from Garden Beer, making time to couple of visit to different CFI!

Wish Dave and Helana my best.

Dave sorta helped me get a job in Maun when he had Jungle Junction in Zambia.

Simply ask them if they know anything about a water wheel over a social chat, Patrick at the bar can be helpful for accom needs if you get a group together and need a house.

I left Maun about 15 years back and Bots about 10, but have been back a few times to visit. I knew where to stay and Dave and H looked after me well - best tent at camping price. The tent is luxury ask to see them.

Hi Band, not sure who are Dave and Helana... but if you give me some tips I will! anyway looks like I'm the only one in town? where's everbody looking for jobs?

Dave and Helena would be the owners of The Old Bridge Backpackers - certainly the ones that started it and don't think they sold it.

Dave is a Sandenberg (or how ever you spell it) same as his brother that owned Delta Air. They are 2 different folk but are family.

There are many good folk in Maun outside of aviation, get to know them too.

My first wife is from Maun, I believe her nephew is now a LAME and think both fixed wing and rotary. NF does not give that easy - also will go on record that the best ever LAME's I worked with were in Bots, would have most them work for/with any day in any place.

All the best to everyone for 2017 and may all your impacts with mother earth be smooth ones

Spa, I was at Pizza Plus on Thursday at 10.00 as always every week you were not. Got to network old boy. PM sent.

David still does own The Bridge. Bit confused about the brother though. Only know one and he is in the safari industry.

Damm he is dead.

South African Tourism Update

I was here in Thursday all morning, only few minutes away looking for flights on companies, but all day long here (now wraiting from Beer Garden), where you yesterday on the camp fire on Samedupi?

Hi, I have my doubts, hopefully Pink Pilot will be able to give you a more precise info, but I believe that if you apply for a fixed wing position you must have minimum 500hrs on planes

Email (or call) Helicopter Horizons in Maun. They should be able to sort you out, or at least point you in the correct direction. PM me if you need an email address. Good luck and cheers.

Every now and then we do see a new question here!

I don't have any solid information, but here are my thoughts:

There is one pilot that I know of who flew fixed wing in the Delta and then got a helicopter licence. I imagine that he can't have had too many helicopter hours under his belt when he started flying them here. But this was many years ago so is not necessarily a good measure of the current situation.

As far as I know, the helicopter guys haven't had the same issues as the fixed wing pilots have had with immigration and permits. They are still employing recent graduates from overseas. However, you want to go the other way which is more restrictive and therefore more difficult.

A CV with that many hours will look very good to the department of labour and home affairs. They won't fully understand the difference between fixed/ rotary wing. Many pilots here have boosted their hours with simulator time, gliding, gyrocopter... for the purposes of showing more experience for the work permit application. So that should not be a problem.

CAAB have had issues with people holding both pilot and engineer licences. I have no idea what they will say about two categories of pilot licence. As I said before, it has been done in the past, but many years ago and before the new and improved(?!) CAAB. There is a chance that you could run into a problem when applying for a licence validation whereby CAAB tell you that you need 200 hours for a CPL therefore you cannot hold a licence. While it's not specifically written in the rules, the authority has been know to read between the rules and stick with one person's interpretation many times before.

The problem that I definitely see is with insurance. I checked a couple of policies in the office just now and they make specific mention of "fixed wing time". The policies I checked are fairly lenient, but do require far more fixed wing time than you currently have. If you came to Maun with a great attitude and a personality that one of the companies really loved, then maybe they would try to speak to their insurance company, but that is a risk and there's no guarantee that insurance will budge. I am afraid that most people would simply put you into the 'too hard basket'.

Good luck!

Mack Air hired a hell of a good bloke who flew both fixed and fling wing back in 2010/11.

Torque, good post from Pinky and Lilfly is correct.

As far as the Department of Irritation are concerned, as Pinky says, it is total hours as a driver. They will not know what 'rotary' means.

Just interested to know why you want to switch to fixed wing here. Rotary is much more fun.

Savanna Dry

Pretty demeaning sorts of comments from you; let's hope you will not need any help from either authority, as with that attitude you won't get far.

How much experience (hours) do you have?

Torque, thank you. See your point. Rotary down here is great fun though. You quite often get based in the bush at a luxury lodge for some time. Lots of skimming the tree tops in Jet Rangers for scenic flights. Yes long term probably best fixed wing. The very best of luck.


gehenna:

About 10,000 hrs. ATPL, heavy four jet, wide bodied, twin piston, twin turbine, single piston, military fast jets, bit of rotary but not rated. Will that do you? Oh, and personal pilot to HMQ for some years. Now you know who I am! ;-) Yea, as you say I probably won't get very far.

We were in the Department of Irritation the other day. Extremely helpful folk actually if you adopt the right attitude. Calls for a bit of acting ability. They have a new target to turn applications around in two weeks we will see. Our papers go in next week - will report back.

Experience dictates that you are best going in there yourself, collar and tie and chatting to a senior officer not going through an agency. I appreciate that most charter companies use agencies and you have no choice but it still pays to pitch up in person for a seperate meeting without the agency girlie who has probably lost most of your papers anyway - keep copies for this eventuality. .

Zambia
 

Hi
Does any of you guys have any information on the job situation in Zambia?

appreciate thanks

Interested in Zambia's situation as well, no thread in African Aviation. If anyone has infos to share, it would be greatly appreciated!!!