Happy Birthday African Bush Pilot

Well it is not my birthday....it is my blogs birthday it has just turned 1 year old! I missed the official date which was the 20th of March because I was based in a gold mine in North West Tanzania for 8 days and did not have my laptop with me. The first real post was posted last year on the 21st of March 'Doing circles in the Serengeti'. It was a bit basic as I was a new comer to the world of blogging...but that post does feature a photograph of Seth Green and I posing at Lake Manyara in front of the Cessna Caravan I was flying that day.

Sunset over the southern shores of Lake Victoria

Also in a post last year I touched base on a prison where the pilots from the company I fly for get sent to occasionally to do a stint behind razor wire. It is not really a prison but a Gold mine in a remote region near lake Victoria. The locals and even members of the local police force are not exactly law abiding citizens....So the mine and housing compounds for expatriate employees can be compared to minimum security prisons except the food is really good and there is a golf course.
Whilst we are in Prison/Geita gold mine our role is to fly mine staff in and out of the mine...Everyday we fly out to Mwanza then twice a week we fly mine staff to Nairobi in Kenya so they can connect with flights around the globe. Even though we fly Cessna Caravans which is a single crew aircraft, they are preddy much idiot proof or as some say like a large Cessna 172(a 172 usually has 4 seats) with 14 seats we must fly two pilot operations whenever doing contracts for the mine....it is just one of their requirements.This picture is the right hand side of the Caravan cockpit. In this particular gold mine their is one pilot permanently based there. He is an eccentric old Afrikaner who has very particular ways of operating. For example notice how the cord for his headset is wrapped so intricately around the instrument lights.

Whilst enroute Jomo Kenyatta airport in Nairobi, Kenya back to Mwanza, Tanzania I photographed these large dust clouds being blown up from the floor of the Rift valley near Lake Magadi in Kenya.

Refueling at Jomo kenyatta airport in Nairobi.

Also check out:

www.africanbushpilot.com