A long day today.
Phil arrived as scheduled late on Monday evening and Juliet Bravo’s 50 hour check was completed yesterday morning. Miranda left directly to London on the BA overnight flight yesterday evening leaving Phil and I to start the return flight. The first leg of today was delayed by our handler apparently having a car accident on our way to collect us. We managed to negotiate our way through customs and out to the aircraft but until we had our GenDec which the handler was collecting, we could not depart and this cost us an hour. Then off to Lokichoggio in far NW Kenya to refuel which with a 20kt headwind made it a 2hr 55 minute flight covering 372nm. Somewhat to our surprise, there was a strong wind gusting to 33 knots from 20º off the runway which made for a testing approach for Phil’s maiden landing in a bonanza! It was also very hot doing the refuelling from a barrel and we were pleased to get away again in just under a couple of hours.
Loki to Khartoum was 750nm and we covered this in 4hr 45 min routing through South Sudan, then west Ethiopia before crossing again into South Sudan and finally Sudan. A Monarch charter flight was in our area and it was nice to talk to a Brit and ask him to relay our routine position reports to Addis as we were too low at FL120 to talk to them ourselves. Afternoon cu at our flight level made for a somewhat bumpy first half of the flight but these gradually disappeared as we went north and the weather was CAVOK for the landing at Khartoum in a temperature of 35ºC.
Again refuelling from a barrel for the last time this trip and off to our overnight hotel for much needed dinner and sleep. I heard that Miranda had a good flight home and is now safely back at Holmhead.