When Things Don’t Go To Plan

Most people see pilots as two beings in the flight deck as they walk onto an airline heading to a destination. On smaller aircraft you might even sit right seat next to your pilot, but there is a level of trust in knowing your pilot knows what he is doing. What happens then when your pilot has a momentary lapse in thought before a flight how do you feel?

I always try and present myself in the most professional way I can, with everything I need neatly organized in a file, so when it comes to meeting passengers every form and document needed is presented as requested without an issue. The way it should be. Being new to the company I have a lot to learn but I try and pride myself on being organized.

Last week, the wheels came off the wagon so to speak. I arrived in Ndola late, about 25minutes behind schedule, I shrugged it off as just a delay. Luckily the other pilot was also delayed so I went across to the payment office and payed my landing fees. I returned to the aircraft placing all my documents inside, then as fate would predict the delayed pilot landed so I walked across the apron to meet him. We had a brief chat and proceeded with immigration duties with out passengers. Thinking all the legalities are out of the way, I usher the passengers to the Cessna 207.

Upon reaching the aircraft I realize I don’t have the keys in my pocket, having left the pilot door unlocked I start looking through the aircraft in all the usual places I put the keys. They aren’t on the fuel selector, they aren’t in my file, and they aren’t hanging on the DI. Having to apologize to the passengers I take a walk back to the terminal building and start asking staff who I have interacted with if I left my keys there. To no avail I leave the terminal building and give the pilot in the other plane a call asking if the keys weren’t possibly in between the documents I handed to him. He assures me he doesn’t have the keys.

I return to the aircraft in a spiral dive not knowing where the keys are imagining the phone call to the chief pilot telling him I’m stranded in Ndola not because of technical issues but because me as the pilot in command thew away the keys. I do another inspection of the plane and no luck. Now I’m getting desperate, I can’t keep looking through the same folders and same seat pockets, so I revert to my headset bag. lo and behold the keys are in my headset bag but in a compartment I never use so didn’t think to look in it. Now 20minutes have passed and we barely started loading the aircraft.

As the bags start being loaded airport security approach me requesting I return to the payment office, as apparently I did not pay for transit of the passengers in question. I run back to the payment office to plea my innocence to no affair and $50 later I return to the aircraft at this stage quite flustered and with passengers quite confused at this time.

We all board the aircraft, I talk them all through the briefing of having seatbelts tightend I’m in the process of starting the engine when I realize I never removed the chocks. I move my seat back and open my door, get out, remove the chocks, get back in and quite disheartened at this stage attempt to start the engine.

If any reader has tried to start a hot piston engine you know it goes one of two ways, either she slowly stutters to life or yours in for a fight. That day she wanted a fight. I boosted the fuel flow to 14Gallons per hour stable, retarded the throttle and attempted to start the engine. She semi ignited but then died and continued this until the second attempt. At this stage I went with a flooded start, with all the controls forward, I over-primed the engine and retarded the mixture. On start you slowly advance th mixture until the engine fires, at fire, you retard the throttle to over speed the engine and then adjust the mixture.

With me having lost keys, being called back to pay the correct landing fees, struggling to start the engine, I can only imagine the mental state of my passasngers before take-off. Luckily the flight went without glitches and we had a smooth landing.

Let me know if you had a similar experience and your thoughts.

Blue skies ahead and keep the wheels below.

Once the Excitement Wears Off and You Miss Home

As we near the middle of February I realize that its almost a month since I started my new job and flew over 800 nautical miles away from home. Home where I left my newlywed wife, our recently acquired pug puppy and all my luxuries and comfortable life in the city. The initial week was amazing, everything was so new, and at that stage I had traveled to two new countries in Africa, and the whole experience was fresh and exciting. The same thing occurred the first week in Zambia, everything was new, exciting, I had to find out how everything operates, exploring my new surroundings and what was expected of me daily.

However the daily challenges have become a standard routine, the flying has slowed down to a set route flown twice weekly and what is left now is my 500 step walk from my usual accommodation to the desk where I sit and study to keep my mind active until the next flight rolls around. Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining about my job, the flying is still exciting and it is my passion, but you have to wait every week for the time to fly, and in between conversation is limited to the one house mate who you see for breakfast, lunch and maybe 2 hours after dinner.

So it was a very sudden hard realization for myself to realize how much I miss my wife and home, how I feel a lack of connection to myself. Exercising was easy at home, my wife and I would get in the car and head to Crossfit together and it was something fun we enjoyed together, here I don’t have that. Three times a week when I wake up I take a 30 minute or longer run depending on what my schedule allows, the three days in between I visit the gym on site, which is no bigger than a five by five meter box with some weights.

So after my ramblings and taking stock of what I have and need, I have started meditating to try and find myself and gather my thoughts. I’m hoping that taking between 15 to 30 minutes a day to go through a quiet meditation to try take stock of my spiritual and emotional well being I can get to a point where I am happy and can clearly see where having chosen the path I am on will lead to my successfully achieving my goals.

Thank you for reading my ramblings, and I’ll leave you with my mantra for today;

May I be happy,
 May I be safe,
 May I be Healthy,
 May I be at Peace.

The African Experience

Its been a while since my last entry, but it has been an interesting time. Getting used to how different it can be in Zambia compared to South Africa. Yes S.A is an African country with a highly dualistic economy, and living in Johannesburg it won’t be much different from staying in a large European city.

Zambia I’ve learnt is not the same, after being here for a week or so I needed to go wash the plane, arriving at the airport thinking it will be easy only to be informed there is not water at the airport. The kind security lady then directs me to the nearest village where there is a well that I can use for clean water. So off I go to find the well, it turns out the well is just a hole in the ground with some stones packed around it. Then what looks like old seat-belt straps tied together to hold a cut open plastic oil container to lower down into the water. With my bucket filled the plane was washed ready for the flight the next day.

Early the next morning I fire up the IO520 engine in the C207 and off I go to Ndola for a passenger pick up and drop-off at the mine. The flights go smoothly with no significant weather or snags to report and we arrive at the mine. This would be my first visit to the mine and having packed a overnight bag to spend the night and fly more passengers out the next morning we jump in the Land Cruiser and off we go.

Arriving at the accommodation it is permanent bush tents that look like something you’ll find on a luxury safari.

The accommodation from the outside.

Thinking this isn’t too bad I head inside. There is a nice single bed set up in the middle of the room and that when I walk through to the bathroom area in the tent.

No I guess its not the worst ever but not ever having been here and use to a more luxurious life (not going to sugar coat it) I was a little horrified. I was also informed that the hot water runs off a Boiler Donkey. A donkey is basically a meat container with water that you burn a fire below to heat it up.

After dinner I headed back to my tent and decided I’ll skip my evening shower and went to bed. The next morning I found out my donkey was never lit so I wouldn’t have had any warm water and speaking to one of my passengers it took his shower 30 minutes of running the hot water before it was actually warm.

The next week I did have a shower, but due to my lack of patience it was a cold one.

So far I’m still enjoying it, and I’m sure I’ll still have many more interesting experiences before I leave.

Smoke Smell in the Cockpit

One thing most pilots will tell you when it comes to an emergency situation nothing is worse than the smell of smoke in the cockpit.

There are two types of fires that I am concerned with in the Cessna 207 I am flying, engine fire and electrical fire. Both have significant implications if they occur and require a different approach to extinguish the fire. In the case of a engine fire, you want to remove the fuel from the engine and then pitch the nose down increasing airspeed to extinguish the flames. If it is an electrical fire you need to remove the current from the electrical system thus preventing further sparking or heat buildup in the wiring.

Why am I telling you this? Well on a recent flight to Ndola everything was going well, I was in the cruise, no clouds and smooth air with a ground speed of 130 knots when I suddenly got a distinct smell of plastic burning. I turned to my friend and asked if he smells the same, hoping it was in my imagination. Sadly he confirmed he also smelt it.

Right, so 1500ft above the ground we might have an electrical fire onboard. One thing I’ve learnt is not to rush into a hasty decision that can make things worse and try to stay calm. Since my GPS unit was plugged into the 12V lighter port that seemed like a logical place to start, I unplugged it, it was cool to the touch signaling the problem wasn’t there. Next I check all the circuit breakers on the panel in front of me, none have popped and I don’t feel any heat. I take my hand and slowl feel underneath the instrument panel, no heat. I lower my head to make sure I don’t see any smoke, nothing.

After not finding any signs that the fire is originating inside the 207, and all indicatione on the instrument panel are normal, we decide it must be smoke from outside that made its way in through the vent due to us maintinaing a relatively low altitude. For the next 5minutes I still monitor all the instruments closely until the smell eventually dissipates.

I am very relieved that it was not an actual fire in the aircraft, but it serves as a good reminder to be ready for anything while flying, and know your aircraft and systems Incase an emergency does arise.

En route to Ndola, 5500ft with mist on the ground

Keep flying and stay safe. 🇿🇲

Flying to Zambia! 🇿🇲

Another early morning as my alarm rings at 0445, after a quick shower and breakfast the taxi arrives to take us to Charles Prince international airport where the Cessna 207 had some maintenance completed the day before.

We refuel the plane and after a pre-flight inspection and immigration clearance we are ready for departure. Harare is still covered in a solid layer of cloud, climbing through 7000ft we are in cloud and break through the tops at 9000 to find ourselves in between two layers. It was an amazing feeling as this would be my first flight above cloud.

In between cloud layers

Let me clarify a point quickly, during my commercial pilot training in South Africa all your instrument training is done on a simulator or in the plane under a “hood” which looks like sunglasses that prevent you from seeing outside.

After an hour of instrument flying above the clouds the layer suddenly ends and I couldn’t help but be amazed as the landscape of Zambia greeted us.

At the start of the Zambezi National Park

The rest of the flight to Ndola was spent with me in awe of the landscape in Zambia. In Ndola we cleared customs and immigration, refueled and took off for Solwezi.

This leg was shorter, just over an hours flight and a lot of it was spent flying around cumulous buildups and a squall line that we weaved our way through.

The flight to Zambia was probably one of my best flights yet and one that I will always remember.

Keep flying and stay safe.

Short flight today

Today we did a short flight from Harare main airport to the adjacent airport in Harare Charles Prince. We noticed some charging issues on the battery on the flight from Lanseria so wanted to know that everything was ok. Turns out that there was a loose connection and the wires shorted out on the alternator and we fried the wires.

Generally while flying if something doesn’t feel right or you are getting strange readings, like we did, it is always better to have it looked at sooner than later. As on the second leg of the flight to Harare we noticed the battery was sitting at 11.6V constantly so actually discharging a bit, and where all the lights were turned on it would drop drastically. On landing in Harare the wire made contact during touch down and we go full charge on the meter indication around 16V!

The next leg of the journey takes me to Solwezi in Zambia and there are no maintenance companies there that I’m aware of so I am really glad the plane got looked at before we continued. Being stranded at an Airfield with no battery, or worse in the air with no radios is not something you want.

The flight from Robert Mugabe to Charles Prince was uneventful as it was 15nm and took around 11 minutes to complete, we had some low cloud covering the whole of Harare, and due to the location of Charles Prince it was quite hard to spot from the air.

Harare from the air

Tomorrow things get interesting again with the flight from Harare to Ndola in Zambia and from Ndola to Solwezi. The forcast isn’t looking the greatest so we will see a GO or NO GO call tomorrow when we have more information.

First Day!

0500 and my alarm goes off. I’ve had a comfortable 8 hours of sleep, not stressed surprisingly even though I am slightly anxious about the day ahead.

It’s been almost 3 years since I first started my training as a pilot with 0 hours, today I get to fly all the way from South Africa to Zimbabwe. The craziest part of it all is I don’t have to pay anymore but someone is paying me! Yes this is my first job and I still can’t quite fathom the idea.

Today’s flight will take me from Lanseria where I did almost all of my training through the northern part of South Africa into Botswana where a fuel stop is planned and from there we fly to Harare in Zimbabwe. This will be the first time I fly out of South Africa myself and it is a bit daunting. I’m not sure what to expect at customs or immigration when flying myself and having to do all the paperwork.

Customs I quickly learn at Lanseria is pretty simple, they require 2 forms and even if you made a mistake or two were willing to help. With that hurdle out of the way I step onto the apron to meet our cargo handling agent, all his paperwork is in order so time to load the plane.

There seem to be fewer boxes than what I expected when I looked through the cargo manifest but I soon realize it’s not as much the size of the boxes but the weight. One of the bearings weighed 101kgs by itself and so the jigsaw puzzle of loading the aircraft was attempted.

After some more shuffling around of cargo and moving the seats around a bit we are ready for departure. 30minutes before our official planned departure but we decided to give it a try. Luckily ATC allowed us to start and we taxied down for takeoff. Run-ups completed, briefings done and ATC clearance received and read back we lined up on runway 07 and took off. From the last time I flew The aircraft to now, she is around 400kgs heavier so we rotate and attempt to climb, we barely manage to get 300ft a minute climb and the airspeed is around 90knots. At this stage I’m wondering if we will make it to 9000ft as planned and if this flight was a good idea. Luckily 20minutes later we made it to 9000ft and managed to cruise along nicely at 110knots to our first stop Francistown, Botswana.

Enroute to Botswana

With 15minutes to go to Francistown we start our decent with the field in sight, luckily it was a beautiful morning for flying because I honestly was not keen to fly a DME arc arrival into Francistown.the landing goes smoothly, probably the best landing I’ve done thus far in the C207. I soon realize that a few of Africa’s airports have been upgraded to expect big aero planes to land there and cater for high volume traffic that just never happened. We had the entire Francistown airport to ourselves, so after refueling and paying the ramp agent we set off to Harare.

Here’s is where the lessons start coming thick and fast, obtaining a clearance at one of these airports isn’t your frantic scribbling of notes, but rather a very relaxed and uncomplicated instruction that tower will just read to you when he seems fit. After takeoff I then realize no squawk code was issued, this is soon realize doesn’t matter as there is no radar, so transponder on or off it doesn’t make a difference.

A few minutes later the controlled starts asking me for an ETA to the TMA boundary, this is where the fun starts, so because there is no radar, controllers will ask you for estimates when you cross every TMA boundary, entering or leaving, and abeam, overhead or on what radial to specific stations. Having done the planning and expecting similar flying as in South Africa, this caught me off-guard and a few “uhm standby” moments were encountered while I quickly scrambled to workout the relevant information. Luckily apart from some cloud starting to form at around 9500ft, the weather was gorgeous and we had Harare airport insight from 50nm out.

It was an incredible days flying, one that I’ll never forget with lessons learnt and experience gained! I cannot wait for my next flight to see what it has in store for me on this beautiful vastly diverse continent!