A long but successful day. We decided to compress two days flying into one. All the permits came in during our second evening at Polokwane with the exception of the Tanzanian overflight permit which was promised for early next day. So we flight planned to Lilongwe for a tech stop with a view to moving on to Zanzibar in the afternoon.
We were picked up at the hotel at 7 am and at the airport by 7:20 pm. I had been called out the evening before to move the aircraft as a Saudi 747 captain was concerned that they may blow me away while taxiing out for their midnight flight home.
But first a ramp check before departure – a first for me. A polite and friendly policeman appeared with a check list for licence, medical certificate, aircraft documents including latest release to service and confirmation that we had a fire extinguisher on board. He asked for a load sheet which I interpreted as a weight and balance calculation but fortunately he forgot about this having perused the weighty POH for some time.
Eventually off 20 minutes late into a cloudy sky (but at least this kept the temperature down), breaking through at 8,000 ft on our way up to FL130. The undercast cleared as we approached the Zimbabwe border. No reply from Harare Information at that stage but we got into contact with a Swiss PC-6 flying in the opposite direction to us 1,000 ft below and eventually saw him first on TCAS and then visually. Harare Info then sprung into life and we were cleared through the Harare TMA and on to the border with Mozambique. By now, friendly CU below were beginning to turn into less friendly TCU and CB and Lilongwe was reporting a thunderstorm with rain as we approached the ITCZ again.
For Phil’s benefit, the weather was not nearly as turbulent as for our southbound flight and although there were numerous TCU and CB around, they were generally avoidable with minor deviations. CAT higher up were having a harder time.
Lilongwe was a good tech stop; avgas immediately available at Carlisle prices; our Tanzanian clearance text appeared on landing, a quick lunch was taken and we were away within an hour and a half. The Lilongwe controller in addition to all, quite busy, local airport traffic was also controlling all overflying CAT up to FL410, procedural of course!
Soon we were over Malawi Lake, a vast freshwater lake bounded by Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. Then mile after mile of what looked like dense forest over Tanzania only slowly thinning out as we tracked NE. The TCU and CB slowly died down as the sun set and we made the second night landing of our trip at Zanzibar. Everyone there was very friendly and on the strength of our GenDec, the immigration people gave us a visa free crew entry for a four day layover.
Over 1,250 nm covered in 8 1/2 hours flying time; the bonanza is very comfortable for these long trips, Miranda got lots of sewing done and we are back up to schedule. On the whole radio comms were good with the odd relay via CAT above.
Polokwane to Lilongwe 674 nm in 4 hr 40 min
Lilongwe to Zanzibar: 589 nm in 3 hr 45 min