I
am actually British but moved to South Africa in
1994 to pursue a flying career. I'm
now a pilot with a South African company that is contracted to the United
Nations. We fly the Beechcraft King Air
200,and Beechcraft 1900C carrying passengers (mainly UN and NGO personnel)
and cargo around various places. Our main contract
is in Angola (where we have been operating for 10 years).
We fly mostly in parts of the world where we have to make
spiral descents to landing from +- 20,000 ft. to
avoid any potential ground fire such as man-portable
surface-to-air missiles and small arms fire.
Last year we went in to Afghanistan
while the fighting was still going on. I spent
most of 2002 flying in Afghanistan and it was a fantastic experience. On
each flight we would be controlled by a USAF or RAF A.W.A.C.S aircraft.
Regularly we saw jets such as F-16’s, B1B, B-52,
and A-10 going on attack missions as well as the hundreds
of Chinooks, Blackhawks, and Apaches that were criss-crossing the skies. I
managed to get some excellent shots with my video camera. We were based in
Kabul where there was a curfew between 5 PM and 6 AM.
I
could go on and on, there were so many amazing sights, so many amazing
experiences. My best memory? Well,
I walked around the recently bombed air-base at Mazar-I-Sharif
and saw ,lying on the ground a complete ejection seat
from a Mig-21.To cut a long story short, I spoke
to some American troops and for the paltry price of two cases of beer (you
can imagine how much beer is worth in post-Taliban Afghanistan!) I had the
seat! A Russian helicopter pilot who had done his national
service as an ejection-seat technician declared it safe and it was duly
loaded on our aircraft. As we flew back to base
the captain mused that if we flew into a mountain the
crash investigators would have a very difficult time working out how the
hell a Beechcraft was fitted with an
ejection-seat. The seat was given a set of leather cushions to make it
comfortable to sit in and now rests at the hangar in South Africa where our
HQ is. One day, when I build myself a house,
it will be the pride of
the place.
The
submarine thing…..well, I am just totally
fascinated by subs, old and new. My main interest is in the German U-boats,
so Silent Hunter 2 is just awesome! If I hadn’t been a pilot I would loved
to have been a submariner. I am building two radio controlled submarines at
the moment. They are both commercially available kits. The first is a 1/96th
scale Skipjack class from the 1960’s era. The second is nearly 7 feet of
1/32nd scale Type 7 C U-boat. It will take me ages to complete as
I intend it to be a scale model of U-616 (fascinating story about that
boat).
I
am actually British but moved to South Africa in
1994 to pursue a flying career. I'm
now a pilot with a South African company that is contracted to the United
Nations. We fly the Beechcraft King Air
200,and Beechcraft 1900C carrying passengers (mainly UN and NGO personnel)
and cargo around various places. Our main contract
is in Angola (where we have been operating for 10 years).
We fly mostly in parts of the world where we have to make
spiral descents to landing from +- 20,000 ft. to
avoid any potential ground fire such as man-portable
surface-to-air missiles and small arms fire.
