Where is best GA in Africa?

[Air_King]

I'd like to get everyone's opinion on where the places are to do fixed-wing general aviation in Africa, i.e. best flying experience, easiest to get planes, easiest to deal with CAA for license conversions, etc.

i'm looking to do some flying in African for a change but there are so many places to choose from and i'm not really familiar with many of them?

i'd like to hear everyone's suggestions on which are the best places to go..tks

[Contract Dog]

BB, you are right, to a point. UG is the place that God himself intended for pilots to fly, unfortunatelly, the UG caa has made it almost impossibele to train there, so this defeats the point of flying??? but RSA is the easiest for GA on the continent, yet its a bit of a hole so you end up being scammed by Nigerians at every turn and constantly looking to be hijacked in your car on the way to the airport. I would rather put up with UGCAA, at least the price is published

Dog

[Vortex Thing]

Southern Africa would be my call. Best bets are South Africa and Namibia. Stay well away from Somalia, Nigeria and DRC.

South Africa is one of the few countries with any decent standard of living. I have worked all over Africa from Tunis to Cape Town and it is pretty rare for anywhere to have anything close to a decent level of service, accommodation or professionalism outside or South Africa or Morocco, Tunisia and Eygpt.

The South African and Namibia CAAs are more helpful than most of the other ones I have encountered. Most of Africa especially West Africa you get the feeling that they are doing you a favour by letting you fly their in country.

To be honest it's unfair to say not to go to the rest of Africa but it depends on what you are trying to achieve. If it is a change of lifestyle, see some new scenery, have some fun but remain reasonably safe and professional then go with the above.


However if you have an appetite for shockingly bad hotels, poor service, poor ATC, scams and dodgy deals then head for West Africa.:ooh:

[avionimc]

Aero-Club in FCPP, great people, great airplanes (land & sea - all well maintained), very active, lots of fun flying!

[BarnacleBill]

UgCAA are somewhat slow off the mark, I agree. Training is going on ok though, despite some rather peculiar stabs at interpretation of the regs by certain members of the CAA in Ebb. They haven't yet had the bottle to argue that the instructor and PIC, whilst the same person, may be flying under two licences - Ugandan for PIC and FAA instructor for the instruction bit... the CAA were challenged to explain to the FAA that they were going to curb the rights of FAA certificate holders, but in the end just kept quiet.

So you can easily train in Uganda, if you want, but if it is a matter of validation of a UK licence then renting a plane for some flying then, yes, Uganda is quite amazing, and quite practical.

And in recent weeks we seemed to have effectively done away with the nonsensical military clearance palaver, so you can just jump in and launch off.

[Air_King]

so, it sounds uganda is the place to go for GA. i have to admit i'd be worried about those carjackings in south africa....heard way too many stories about that kind of thing...

but, from what everyone says...uganda sounds great...great scenery, lots of unrestricted airspace....just hop in and go....the way GA should be...

just hope the foreign license validation isnt a hassle...is it just paperwork or u gotta go through medicals and tons of flight checks up the wazoo?

[Chuck Notyeager]

Avionimc,

I sent you a PM need help to contact FCPP Aero Club to arrange avgas. Urgent :ok:

Can you help? See: "Stobbart Challenge previously Henshaw Challenge" in African Aviation.

Thanks, CN