Time to move on after volunteering to do some relief work running refugees from a not to named wartorn country. Departing Oran, with mail still safely on board, for Casablanca.
Time to move on after volunteering to do some relief work running refugees from a not to named wartorn country. Departing Oran, with mail still safely on board, for Casablanca.
Had to descend through the soup but finally broke through about 1800 ft, turned out over the Med and back around for a straight in approach. Off to see a certain expat about a bar and something about a falcon.
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Ending our wonderful visit to Casablanca and moving on to GMMH in the Spanish Sahara.
Made it in in one piece although we almost missed the airfield. Was almost on top of it and had to make a spiralling descent from 10000 ft. Wind shifts here on the coast are crazy, makes it hard to line up good approach. A quick break and then it's on to Dakar.
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Arrived in Dakar, nice flight on the way down but not much to see, blue out one side and tan out the other. Decided to stay lower than normal and think I actually found tailwinds, it's about time. Going to offload the mail for the Poste people, find a cantina, then hit the rack. Tomorrow we figure out our plan from here, maybe see how long a leg we can stretch out before we get down to fumes in the tanks. Four hour bonus for running mail from Marseille to Dakar.
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Now that we've spent a week in Dakar enjoying the wine, women, and song; it's time to move on. Going to try a max range flight if I can find the tail winds to help me out. Planning on making it to DGTK but will bail out at DIAP if things turn south on me.
Made it to DIAP and decided I might be able to push it to DGTK, 15 minutes later changed my mind and turned around, probably a good thing. Had 15 gallons left when I shut down. Should be able to make the direct jump to Libreville but it's all over water with no navaids to take bearings from to try to get an idea of ground speed. Will try it anyway but the code for the field, FOOL, makes me wonder .
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Going to make the jump over the Gulf of Guinea, departing DIAP for Libreville. Have the raft patched and stowed in case we need it, hopefully it all turns out well.
Most turbulent leg I've had yet, pretty exciting flying in the ITCZ. Think I had a headwind most of the way across the gulf also, no surprise there. The island of Principe was my only nav reference point but it passed by my left wing right where it should have been so I was on course. As the island is about 150 nm out of Libreville I knew I would make it in with 60 ~ gal fuel I had left but I hit that point after ~ 4 hrs flying, slower than I had planned. Alot of thunderstorms in the area but the weather and vis at the field was good, taxied in with 24 gal remaining.
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Loading up some supplies and shortly be on the way to Kinshasa from Libreville.
Looks like a party in Kinshasa tonight with 3 of us there.
Let Being Helpful Be More Important Than Being Right.
That it is Willy, have to finish cleaning out and deodorizing the plane first though. Copilot lost his breakfast shortly after our hairy takeoff from Libreville. Thunder and lightning everywhere, wind gusting and swinging through a 30 degree range, plane bounced more on our way down the runway than it does when I bring it in to land. Pretty much same weather that hammered Paul on his run in, clear in the middle then back to the storms as we approached Kinshasa.Attachment 65718Attachment 65719
Parties over in Kinshasa, heading out to Lisala.
That is one big river, makes it really easy to follow. Finding the airfield, not quite so easy, but find it we did. On the ground at Lisala, planning the next jump.
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Heading upstream a little further, on the way to Kisangani, FZIA.
Arrived at KZIA. Quick flight following the river, clear weather all the way.
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Heading further east, on the way to Kisumu.
Arrived at Kisumu. Coursed slightly north of east for my first checkpoint, the south end of Lake Albert. That would keep me north of the Ruwenzori Mtns and out of trouble if the weather got bad. Turned southeast at Lake Albert toward Entebbe and once I hit Lake Victoria turned back to east and roughly followed the north shore of the lake to Kisumu. Great weather and vis the whole flight.
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Departing Kisumu for the quick jaunt over to Nairobi.
On the ground at Nairobi. Managed to skirt the high ground by going a little south of the direct route. Arrived to thunderstorms in the area but vis was still good and found the field no problem. Going to take a little time to fuel up and resupply then it's off to FLMP. I can almost smell the ocean, the end must be close. Or maybe that's just the funk building up in the plane, it's been a long trip and this humidity is killer.
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Arrived at FLMP. Dicey weather as we left Nairobi but it cleared up nicely. Going to roll whats left of the fuel drums over to the plane, tank up, and continue on to Jo'berg. Might cut out early at Nylstrom if the fuel looks dicey.
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Hit Nylstrom and decided we might just have enough fuel to make so on to Rand it was. Sticked the tanks at the ramp and had a whole 18 gals left, good thing I didn't have to hold for traffic. Weather has been great these last few legs, hope it holds for the final run into Cape Town.
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Departing for Cape Town, hope there's some beer and hot dogs left when I get in.
And we're finally in Cape Town, now let's see if we can find whats left of the party. Thank you to the planners for a great and challenging event as always.
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Congratulations on finishing the race. Well done!
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