MC enjoys first night flight with Dad

Hey it's red in here

Yes Captain

Durban Harbour by night

Full  moon flight over Durban

Hey, it was full moon over the sea and city and perfect conditions for a night flight. Mark had fitness class on earlier so we only got into the sky after the Air Traffic Controller at Virginia had closed. The airport was quiet and we were the only ones around.

I did two practice circuits first and perfected  my landings in the dark, actually forgetting to put on my landing lights - as I had done in training... not too bad without lights, relying on the dim glow of the runway lights.

Then with Mark on board we ventured a little out of the circuit down to the old Durban International Airport so he could get the feel of the plane and take in the city lights at 1000 feet, before climbing to 1500 feet for the flight back in to Virginia... not another soul in the air and we had the space and the beautiful full moon over the sea to ourselves.

Getting an underbelly wash..

Quite a job but pretty rewarding climbing under the plane, using some elbow grease and washing every spot and oil or petrol mark off, then polishing up the underside of your plane. It is also a chance to take some unusual pics from different angles and a chance to see the name Dragon Warrior underneath.

You can see the start of "Dragon Warrior" under the fusilage

Nifty little trolley lets me lie on my back and clean the whole underside

 

Mkuze for the weekend

The best part about flying is being able to choose a destination which would be far to drive to and then get there in a zip! Also great to have good mates who fly and can share these amazing experiences. We are so privileged to be able to do this and explore some of the incredible parts of our country. Mkuze area to the north of our Province is home to several huge game reserves and dozens of safari lodges. We chose Zebra Hills Game Reserve which is a game lodge and reserve home to the big 5 and collectively the group saw 4 of the big 5 in 2 days... lion, buffalo, rhino, and leopard. We saw about 10 giraffe and loads of Nyala, Impala, Kudu, warthog, a croc, Zebra, and Wildebees and had a few days of chilling and drinking!!

 

Beautiful sunsets, hot days and freezing nights

The clouds had formed over the Ubombo Mountains to the left when we took off from Mkuze for home. Fortunately the sky was clear ahead.

Runway 35 Mkuze

In the skies over KwaZulu-Natal, our home Province

North coast coastline

The three planes bedded down for the nights LPL, ZDL and SAA

Richards Bay from the air

The view from Zulu Hills over the reserve

Sunset whilst on game drive

The waterhole at our lodge

Louis and Jeanette were Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in our Out of Africa adventure

Cheers on the game drive as we stop for a wine-stop!



On the game drive

Lee and Marc in the front seats



Wine stop

The baby croc at the waterhole will be moved when he gets a little bigger and wants to eat everything within reach

 

Commerical Pilot's Licence

I made an official start to my CPL licence today when I got my huge box of training notes from Ayre Aviation. It looks quite daunting but a good time to start while my PPL exams are still quite fresh. I'll tackle them slowly, then do the additional training. I already have 200 hours, so don't need to do hour-building and also have my night-rating, both of which are starters for the CPL. I will need to do 10 hours additional instrument training as well as 5 hours in a retractable undercarriage plane, but all-in-all not too hectic.

Durban's Stamford Hill Aerodrome

Just a bit of history here... the original Stamford Hill Aerodrome and Tower in Durban, next door to the Country Club and which is now the Natal Mounted Rifles (NMR) headquarters, is pictured in front of the airfield - in those days there were no runways, just a field or circle and you could land in any direction according to the wind blowing. This obviously took a lot more space and over the years runways and cross-runways were developed instead. This airfield no longer exists and the present M4 highway runs approximately mid-way through the old airfield.

When South African Airways started flying DC-4s the main airport was moved from Stamford Hill to the site of the Louis Botha Airport south of Durban and this remained as Durban's international airport until the opening of King Shaka Airport in 2010 in time for the 2010 World Cup Football event in South Africa. We were there at Louis Botha Airport on it's closing day and then visited King Shaka the next day for it's opening - 1st May 2010.

The present Virginia Airport for lighter aircraft lies a few kilometres to the north of the old Stamford Hill aerodrome and was opened in 1959 as a more suitable facility for these aircraft and the air traffic in Durban was effectively split between the two airports from then on.

Final Approach runway 05 Virginia



Our airplane ZDL parked at King Shaka International, Durban on our recent trip to Mozambique as we needed to clear passport control and customs

Mid-week jaunt

Durban on a sunny day this week

I did most of my initial NPL flight training over the winter months May - August when the weather in Durban is perfect and clear every day, apart from a little early morning mist up in Cato Ridge where my training school was based. Llewellyn is sharing the plane doing his training for his PPL now and every morning the skies are blue and clear... so I'm getting FOMO - Fear of Missing Out!!

So mid-week I had to escape for a little jaunt to Pietrmaritzburg for lunch. It also gave me the chance to fly over a farm near Pmb - see photo above, which has a level section suitable for a future runway and hangars we are looking into. Could be good if we can get the landowner on board.

Over the rainbow

We had quite a busy Sunday, but the end of the day was not complete without a quick jaunt down the coast and luckily we did. Justin Wright and brother-in-law Brad, my previous NPL Instuctor were also in the sky with an impressive camera and managed to take these awesome action shots of the Dragon Warrior over the sea just south of Amanzimtoti. Thanks Justin.

 

 

 

Happy snap

Just a happy snap from our recent trip to Mozambique :-)

Make sure of your paperwork

Re: Several SA Pilots just arrested in Ondangwa, Namibia

by henk-indabush » Mon May 06, 2013 2:02 pm

SA CAA Part 24 CAR

International operations

24.02.7 (1) An authority to fly is only valid for flight in South African airspace.

 

(2) Notwithstanding the provision of sub-regulation (1), a non-type certificated aircraft, issued with a South African Authority to fly, may be flown outside the Republic’s borders if the appropriate authority with jurisdiction over the relevant airspace has given prior permission for the aircraft to be flown in such airspace, in the full knowledge that the authority to fly is not equivalent to a certificate of airworthiness issued in terms of ICAO Annex 8 to the Convention.

Namibia requires all foreign aircraft to obtain "Overflight and Landing Permission" prior to entering their airspace. I have always received such permission, with a number attached to it. When requested for said number once in Namibia , I found that once I could provide the number, there were no hassles. Never.

 

-----------------------------------

 

Having just returned from our trip over the border to Mozambique this story above of a group of 22 pilots on a round trip to Botswana, and Namibia proves that it is critical that your airplane paperwork and flight permits are in order before you fly. It seems there was some bureaucratic bungling but these poor guys were put in jail and have been harassed by the authorities to try and get their planes out of the country again.

 

Download my Checklists 

 

Check my checklist for Mozambique in the blog article below (links to my SkyDrive) and make sure your permits are in order and all of the documents required to be carried in your plane are also in order.

Also on my SkyDrive is the Index of documents that I created for our international flight and was careful to ensure that the originals or certified copies of these documents were on hand for inspection should it be requested.

The documents are:

International Flight Documents
Mozambique Procedures
Mozambique Flight Costs
Flying Dates Expiry Checklist

 

Missed your BA flight? Catch ours..

Thanks Lee for this great photo.. just to show we were there with the big guys !!

Mozam movie - made a 3 min YouTube movie of our trip

I made a short movie of our flight to Mozambique, here's the link to the movie clip - with my GoPro camera views from the sky, the beach and underwater.

 

Flight into Mozambique

What an incredible experience - we set off on Friday last week in ZDL for our first international flight on an adventure to Mozambique flying with our mates in their Sling 2 - SAA. 

 

Our plan was to fly the 2 1/2 hours to Maputo, clearing out first through passport control and customs at King Shaka International (a five minute flight from our home base at Virginia). This was an experience all by itself.  After handling immigration and customs, we then stayed in Maputo for the night and on Saturday we flew the next 2 hour leg to Inhambane up the coast north of Maputo where we parked the plane for the next 5 nights. Homeward bound this Thursday we flew directly back to Maputo to again clear customs and passport control and continued on to Durban - doing the full 4 1/2 hours flying in one day. With 2 international airports and the 3 legs to get us home to Virginia it was a long day departing at 8am and only getting home at 5pm with our brave little plane all washed and packed away in our hangar for the night.

We laughed at Inhambane Airport when the trolleys came out to fetch our bags

Casa Algodoal was an excellent choice for a beach cottage at Tofo, 24kms by road to the coast from Inhambane Airport

This photo I took near the end but was so proud of our little plane standing at King Shaka on our return with the big guys I had to shift it up out of sequence. In fact to land we had to be slotted in between heavy traffic and I followed an airbus in from long final approach.

A rare experience to arrive at an international airport in your own plane!

Again out of sequence but we were also proud to wear our uniforms for the international flight - seen here on day one as we prepared to leave Virginia Airport for King Shaka

In the air and on our way

Maputo Bay with Maputo on the other side coming into view. I was last in Maputo when it was Lourenço Marques before independence and about 35 years ago. My step-dad was a Springbok yachtsman and he used to compete in the LM to Durban race, so we sailed with him to LM from Durban in his yacht "Golden Fleece" and then flew back while he raced. My has the place gone down and resembles a slum African dump, when once it was a proud Portuguese city, although we did see signs of construction and renewal. Is there hope for the future? 

Maputo Airport is brand new and actually pretty modern and nice and organised. I was pleasantly surprised. We also used a ground handling agent here and we were whisked through passport control, customs and the apron office as fast as the system would permit and also refuelled our plane, paying some exhorbitant prices for fuel, landing fees and immigration.

From Maputo up north-east the coastline is known as the Lakes District with brackish fresh/sea water lakes hugging the coast as far as you could see.

After 2 hours of flying out of Maputo we reached Tofo, flew over the beach where we would be staying then turned inland 25 kms to the Inhambane Provincial capital "city" where we landed. Inhambane Province is also the coconut capital of Mozambique with some 2 million coconut palms and contributing a major portion of the income of the country with some 14% of the total population in some way involved in the industry.

The favourite drink in Tofo, apart from the good local beer, is Tipo Tinto, a cheap local rum which you conventionally mix with Sparletta strawberry juice. I think between the four of us we consumed 3 bottles in 5 days along with copious numbers of beer. My favourite is 2-M, whilst Laurentina is the other favoured brand which came in a good clear, Premium and dark variety. All very good. We found it cheaper to buy the rum in 500ml plastic bottles for 50 Meticais which brought the price down to about R30 a litre (approx Euro 2,50) which was ridiculously cheap, tasty and strong.

Casa Algodoal - our rustic but excellent beach cottage for our stay. Excellent open plan design, lovely bedrooms and spectacular view over the Tofo Bay and beach with Mozam's typical reed thatch style roof, and our own walkway down to the beach.



Poverty abounds and we marvelled at the fishermen who rowed these 2-man boats out kilometres into the sea and reefs each morning to bring in their catch of fresh linefish, squid and crayfish by lunchtime.

Yummy crayfish tails in the outdoor pizza oven at our cottage which our mates Marc and Lee experty prepared for a nightly feast.

A feast fit for a king!
 

A typical roadside view of the Inhambane area with coconut palms and groups of family thatch huts



Those entering Tofo beach by road will be familiar with the oddment of signs announcing the dive centres, abundance of accommodation and restaurants in this quaint little village alongside the bay. We joined Tofo Scuba on one of the mornings for some snorkelling and managed to find a whale shark swimming about 3 metres away from us which was an incredible experience. I took my underwater camera with and tried to get it out of my pocket without dropping it to the ocean floor and I think managed to get some pics of my goggles as I peered at the camera trying to turn it on, by which time the whale shark had long disappeared. Am going to see what footage I did get and will do another post.

Local market in Tofo where you need to bargain enthusiastically for the array of local crafts. 100 Meticais local currency was about R30,45 so it was easiest to divide the Meticais by 3 to get a rough Rand equivalent. Beers generall cost 40M in the market to 60M at a restaurant, so between R13-R20 for a beer which is about double what would pay in South Africa at a liquor store but about the same as you would pay in a restaurant... you win some, you lose some.

Liquor bargaining also took priority and there was a good range of local but mostly South African spirits as well as beers with at least 15 liquor "shops"/stands all selling the same things. If you bought a 6-pack you could get the beer price down to R10 a beer.

A visit to Inhambane would not be complete without a dhow ride across the bay to Maxixe, the larger "city" in this province and the only point in Mozambique where the national EN1 road touches the coast. This makes it a first stop for backpackers and travellers by bus to get out, then catch the cheaper and faster ferry across to Inhambane town and Provincial capital and then a short hop to the beach where we were staying.

The dhows used to be a major feature in the Inhambane bay as it was the southernmost trading port for the arabs from Zanzibar and further up the coast where they had influence. Inhambane was also in its day a major slave-trading post and thousands of slaves were shipped out from here in the past. Now we only saw a few and they were definitely relics of the past leaking and patched together.

Maxixe as we were about to land. The town was pretty derelict and most of the town's folk seemed to be queueing at the ATM machines everywhere we went. Cash is king here and small notes are in short supply, so I don't know why the ATMs chuck out 1000 and 500 meticais notes. In many places you need to buy up to the cash in your hand as there is limited change available. It seems like ATMs are in short supply and are one of the main growth centres for the economy. Some of them would not take our visa cards and we had to find a BIM bank to get our cash.

Samora Machel, the first President of Mozambique after it gained independence from Portugal on 25th June 1975 (my matric school year and shortly after my last visit there). Machel was killed in an airplane crash over South Africa in 1986 in mysterious circumstances and his wife Graca Machel is now married to our former President Nelson Mandela. The statue stands proudly along Independence Avenida in Maxixe.

The view coming into Maputo from Inhambane on our way home with the bay of Maputo and city ahead and the airport out of the picture to the right.

 


After parking at Maputo, we are joined by our mates in their Sling ZU-SAA. When asking where to park, we were told "Park at your discretion", so I was debating whether we should pull up and expect the walkway to come down and connect up with our cockpit, but I chose a quieter spot to the right of the the big planes (I think there was only one there from the Mozambique Airline), but we also saw an SAA Airbus come in later... looked like there were only about 5 scheduled flights per day compared to about 10 per hour at home.



My favourite pic of our Dragon Warrior ZU-ZDL having delivered us safely back to the apron at King Shaka airport. Again we used a ground handling agent - BidAir (best and inexpensive thank you guys). So now that we have the international procedures waxed, I am looking forward to planning something else, like a trip to Victoria Falls, or Namibian desert, or Okavango Delta in Botswana or even Lake Malawi... yee haa!!! I will be publishing a comprehensive checklist on the route, the frequencies for the radio-work and the procedures for anyone who wants to make a similar trip to Mozambique. Watch this space.