This post brings together a few random thoughts as well as providing some basic facts and figures for the trip.
My aim was to achieve a circumnavigation of Africa and because of fixed dates for house/dog sitting arrangements, Miranda and I were limited in the time we could both be away. Phil’s ewes’ lambing arrangements meant that he and I did the outbound trip together; the original plan was for Miranda to come outbound and Phil inbound. Phil flew home and Miranda flew out to Cape Town passing each other like ships in the night somewhere over Central Africa and then after a few days in the area, Miranda and I flew home from Cape Town with a four day R&R break in Zanzibar.
The quickest route down would have been through Algeria, Niger and then down to northern Nigeria. But that route is presently effectively closed because of IS related activities and we had no wish to get caught up in these! So we devised a rather longer outbound route via Dakar and down the western side of Africa to Cape Town, flying a nominal 7,612 nm in 53 hr 25 min at an average speed of 143 kt. Coming back, we routed up the eastern side of Africa from Cape Town covering 6,742 nm in 47 hr 36 minutes giving an average speed of 142 kt. Looking at a map, it is somewhat surprising that the eastern route is as much as 870 nm shorter. We were unlucky with headwinds both outbound and inbound and felt we had more than our fair share of these.
Except for the Cape Town to Stellenbosch repositioning, and the short flight to George for refuelling, all flights were filed IFR. I logged very little actual IF time in Africa; Phil will have logged a little more as he had a fair amount of IMC in the ITCZ between Principe and Luanda. However, leaving aside the problematic European winter weather, an instrument rating in my view is essential for this trip. For much of the route southward in Africa, we were flying over dense dust/sand haze with the ground invisible to all intents and purposes below and a very murky horizon. While the trip can be flown as a single pilot operation, two pilots certainly make life easier and turnarounds quicker and in many respects is more fun.
Apart from the very hazy conditions outbound, the weather was much as expected and indeed crossing the ITCZ in both directions was rather better than we had anticipated. Inevitably the weather in Europe was more variable but in the event, did not cause any delays.
The cheapest fuel, bought with my BP card was at George was 71p/litre and the most expensive was at Khartoum where a 200 litre barrel cost US$1,100 or around £3.92/litre. In procurement terms, there was generally no problem in obtaining avgas although prior arrangements needed to be made for some stops, including some prepayment for fuel. Luanda was the only place where our arrangements did not go entirely according to plan.
I had hoped to provide an accurate calculation of fuel uplift and consumption but this is not possible. On a couple of stops outbound, we did not completely use up our barrel fuel and difficulties with our pump inbound meant there was at least some element of wastage. For a trip of this sort, this is inevitable. On past performance, I would expect an overall consumption of marginally under 50 litres/hour.
While self handling in some places is possible, particularly in Namibia, South Africa. Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, generally the cost of handling is justified in other places by the ease of transit through the airport and dealing with immigration, customs and refuelling chores. Again, you need to make arrangements in advance. In Zanzibar, Nairobi and Loki the informal assistance arrangements made through Eddie Gould of GASE were particularly helpful and I hope the tips we gave reflected our appreciation of these. We did not obtain any visas in advance and at most places had no difficulty in entering the various countries as aircrew under a GenDec. Kenya and Egypt insist on visas even for a short transit stop.
Apart from the electrical problems on the Walvis Bay to Cape Town sector, Juliet Bravo performed faultlessly. She has now gone off to RGV for her annual and a good wash and polish.
The trip was planned to celebrate an approaching decadal birthday. Time and the need to complete the journey within a hundred flying hours (in fact, we were slightly over and needed a five extension for the journey out) meant there were places we would have liked to go to but could not be fitted in – Madagascar being a particular example. Who knows; we may fit in a more limited trip there at some stage in the future.
Irrespective of where we were, the people were always friendly and helpful, much more so it must be said than some destinations rather nearer home! We encourage other aviators who may be tempted to journey to Africa to do so; it is not particularly difficult in aviation terms but does need careful advance planning and certainly is not a cheap jolly. An aircraft with a good range is a necessary prerequisite. We left and arrived home on schedule and apart from two minor delays, though they seemed big at the time, kept to that schedule throughout.
Thank you for reading this blog and I hope you have found it of some interest. I have tried to give a snapshot of the atmosphere of the various places where we stopped. Doubtless there will be another adventurous trip sometime in the future, when the blog will resume. Below is a map of our route as recorded by the Delorme tracker unit.
