Bush flying in the African wet seasons

This picture was taken by a colleage of mine Aaron Cawsey last week of a Cessna Caravan departing Msembe airstrip in the Ruaha national park. Apart from being a great angled shot, I guess it is almost free advertising for Coastal Aviation.

At this time of the year in large parts of Southern Africa suicide season is almost at its peak. This is the extreme temperatures and humidity that smother the atmosphere as the Rains prepare to break. Once the heavens open up it is a huge relief because it takes the edge of the unbearable temperatures. But for the fair weather aviators in their clapped out Cessna 206's & 210's it means weather to contend with.

Here in East Africa we fair weather aviators are blessed with two menacing wet seasons. Anyway one who witnesses a large African thunderstorm can't help but be in awe by its size and power let alone the instant floods they rain down upon thirsty Savannah's.

When I was in Botswana the best way to deal with these large weather build ups whilst flying VFR ( visual flight rules...looking out the window for navigation) was to fly low (500 feet above ground). Botswana is incredibly flat the entire country only has a few small pimples rising up out of the great flat expanse. Possibly divert maybe up to 10 miles off track to get around or find a hole through underneath. Only occasionally did one encounter severe updrafts and the turbulence was not usually an issue. If a large Charlie bravo/Cumulonimbus/thunderstorm is ever sitting over your destination airstrip the options are to land at a near by strip or orbit a safe distance away for it move on, these weather systems generally move quickly. A pilot always carries extra fuel at this time of the year. I have even had to apply the same methods in the Serengeti national park and the Selous game reserve here in Tanzania. Close fork lightning are common place during these times of the year, but a aircraft getting struck is quite rare.A Cessna 206 crashed at an airstrip in the Okavango Delta this time last year. Allegedly the pilot was trying to land at an airstrip which had a large thunderstorm in very close proximity to the air strip. The pilot realized it was not safe to land and aborted the landing only to have a rather strong down draught slam the 206 into the ground. Though the aircraft was a wreck everyone survived. The picture above is of the radar dome on the Cessna Caravan.

The shots of lightening and the heavy shower were my amateur weather photographs when i was flying in the Okavango Delta.

Here in East Africa the go underneath find a way around the weather isn't always an option. For example Tanzania has Mount Kilimanjaro which stands at 20000 feet. I personally think that most other mountains average between 8000-10000 feet.

Only three days ago I flew from Dar es Salaam to the Ruaha national park as I was approaching the Udzungwa Mountains my stomach began to tighten with nerves. The cloud build up at 0930 in the morning was already peaking at well over 20000 feet, for me approaching in a little single engine Cessna Caravan at 12000 feet it was rather daunting.

However the Caravan had just had a new weather radar installed the previous day, so it was about to be tested for its accuracy. After the instrument had warmed up and tested itself, it began to show me what was hiding in the wall of weather ahead of me. It actually was not that bad. Though I went into IMC (one of aviations many abbreviations, this one basically means 'flying in cloud') for the best part of an hour I zig zagged around all the small hot spots with the aid of the weather radar.

On the way back it was a different story the Charlie bravos had almost matured and were firing their bolts of lightening all over the place. Now with a load of passengers I flew 140 degrees instead of required 090 degrees (compass heading). I was about to make good use of some advice older pilots had given me. Their advice is to fly South of track to get off the mountains where a large escarpment drops off onto a river plain near a place called Ifakara. Once clear of the highlands the weather usually drops away. This day it worked true after only 30 minutes of keeping clear of the magenta on the radar screen (this colour almost means death if you were to fly into it) I broke out into bright sunshine with the cloud tops a 1000 feet below me. I turned back onto track and flew parallel to the Mountains. Flying beside the mountains I got to watch these angry thunder storms that reached for the heavens put on a spectacular lightning show...I didn't even think to get my camera out of my flight bag, I was just relieved to be flying in sunshine.

Again these two off context pictures were taken by Aaron Cawsey. Top, is a sunrise at Jullius Nyerere International airport Dar es Salaam. Second from top, is a wild elephant which has been nicknamed Rafiki (Swahili for the word friend) trying to sneak away from the camp kitchen at Lake Manze in the Selous game reserve.

Also check out:

www.africanbushpilot.com