It has been a couple of weeks since my flying safari finished. As expected, I took a LOT of pictures (over 1300 when the dust settled in my iPhoto library).
Here is a short video recap that includes a few of my favorites from the trip:
Aside from the photos, the animals, and the wonders of Africa, it was also a great way to experience a totally different flying environment. Since I have been back, many people have asked me about the aviation differences. So I thought I would share a few of my observations:
1. The flying: This was the easy part for most of our group. In truth, “flying is flying”, no matter where you do it. However, for me it was a bit of an adjustment to fly a steam gauge 182 with no autopilot vs my usual Cirrus cockpit. But it was great practice and truly the most authentic way to fly on a safari adventure.
2. The airports: We experienced a huge variety of airports ranging from dirt strips in the middle of the Kalahari desert and Okavango Delta to normal big city type of airports in Johannesburg. But all of the airports were in remarkably good condition and properly managed.
3. The radios: While the ICAO phraseology was quite similar to the US, many in our group had difficulty understanding the controllers due to the accent. In addition, the occasional mix of Afrikaans on the radio only added to the challenge.
4. Radar/GPS: Radar coverage was rather limited throughout our entire journey. But thank goodness for GPS!! We all relied on a variety of yoke mounted portable GPS gadgets.
5. Altimeter: All settings are in millibars instead of inches, which was expected. But unlike the US, the process in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe is to switch to standard (1013Mb/29.92″) upon reaching cruise altitude which may only be a couple thousand feet AGL.
6. Legal/Customs formalities: As you might imagine, this is something that absolutely demands proper planning. Luckily, the Hanks had thoroughly prepped us. So we all managed to stay out of jail 😉 Between landing fees, airspace usage fees, tower fees, entry fees, departure taxes, etc you definitely get fatigued at paying fees. In addition, you truly appreciate the simple, relatively cheap flying environment in the US!
7. Fuel: Avgas was readily available. The cost was a little more expensive than the the US… But still way less than Europe!
8. Survival gear/ prep: Since we were often flying over very inhospitable terrain, the Hanks made sure each plane was well equipped with ~ 50 lbs of survival gear! Luckily, none us had to use it!!
Overall, this experience totally exceeded my expectations and I would encourage anyone who is thinking about doing something similar to give it a shot!
Cheers,
== T.J.==
During our stay there, we saw every type of animal that I had hoped to see, including lions, leopards, giraffes, elephants and a whole bunch more! I took over 300 pictures and couldn’t stop shooting… Here are a couple of my favorites:
This lodge really surprised me. Despite being in a very remote area, the lodge was “very comfortable”, as you can see below:
Most of our game drives where in a Land Cruiser and like any civilized game drive, we took breaks along the way:
Now it is time to jump into the planes and head further north to the Okavango Delta:
We had 4 planes in our convoy and we flew in a loose formation the whole way. The lead plane did the radios and planes 2 – 4 followed along visually with a 5 second delay on takeoff and transponders off during the flight. Paul and I were in the 4th plane. Since he was flying the first leg, I had plenty of time to take pictures, like this one of the Hartebeespoort Dam:
While we had a flight plan and plenty of GPS equipment, navigation was as simple as “follow the green plane in front of us”. As you can see below, we did that pretty well:
We remained in formation all the way to Gabarone, Botswana, where we got a group clearance to land. You can see in the picture below that the 2nd plane in our group was turning off the runway, while plane 3 was landing and we were just behind them on short final!
After a quick stop for fuel and customs, we were off on the next leg directly into the Kalahari Desert. I did the flying on this leg and it was the most remote environment I had ever seen! No roads, no lakes, no towns… Basically NOTHING as far as you could see in any direction. But I did get to do my first dirt strip landing! It was the private landing strip of the
We were entirely out of cell phone range and 120 km from the nearest town. But, we were not exactly roughing it 😉
Nick and Christine did an amazing job in preparing a 2 inch prep binder that itemized every detail of the journey including charts, photos, radio freqs, etc. Really, all we have to do is fly! In addition, they also prepared rather thorough survival kits for each of the four airplanes.
As you can see, Bruce was perhaps most impressed by how complete the survival kits were 😉
After he did a great landing, we took a coffee break before heading back. Here we are in front of our plane on the dirt strip:
