Or (Hurry Up & Wait)
Over the last year or so, I’ve been assisting a friend of mine make a purchase decision for an aircraft to suit his needs. He finally settled on what he wanted and with a bit of technical input from me were able to find one that matched his budget. After weeks of perusing specifications, inspection reports and work packs, an offer was submitted and accepted.
Now the fun started. How do we get this Austrian based aircraft back to S.A? First prize would be to get me type rated and just fly the aircraft back after reregistration. Problem was that there are only 2 of these in the country now and neither of them on a training licence. The alternatives of converting on an American or EASA Register were just too time and dollar consuming. We decided to ask the seller if he’d be willing to fly her out for us. The idea appealed to him but he was a little reticent as he had never been to Africa before. It was decided that I would accompany my friend to take delivery of the plane and then the 3 of us to fly out together.
After a 3 week run around to get me a Schengen Visa we finally flew out to Vienna via Dubai on Easter Sunday afternoon and arrived lunchtime Monday, inspected, admired and accepted the plane and spent the evening toasting the purchase with a few beers and a hearty Austrian meal.
We departed Vienna Neustadt (LOAN) airport (Where Diamond Aircraft are manufactured) at 07:12 Tuesday and after a 20 minute climb to FL310 had already crossed into Hungarian airspace on our way south along the Adriatic, over Serbia, Macedonia and Greece to Iraklion on Crete in the Med. Landing there in light rain at 09:57. After refuelling and Customs clearance out of the E U. 10:59 saw us climbing and dodging some CB’s on our way south over the remainder of the Med. Into Egyptian airspace landing Luxor 13:44 where we refuelled for our intended morning departure for Entebbe Uganda via a Khartoum fuel stop.
In order to expedite our turnaround times, we decided to employ the services of a well-known aviation company to handle all our overflight & landing clearances and fuel releases for the entire trip. At this point they informed us that landing clearance for Khartoum was still outstanding but that we would get it by morning. With enough time remaining of the afternoon, we enjoyed some very fine Egyptian beer on the terrace watching the mighty Nile glide by on its way to the Med. More than 1000km north. That evening we dined in style at the Green Lantern Restaurant that I located down a dingy side street a short distance from the hotel. Luxor is a far more relaxed and comparatively tidier place than the Cairo I had experienced a few years before on a prior visit.
An early taxi ride got us to the airport nice and early, only to have to sit around and wait for the landing clearance that was not forthcoming and by lunchtime made our way back to the hotel as we’d run out of time to get all the way down to Uganda. So our intended 1-night stay became 2 and then 3. We spent most of our time threatening, cajoling and suggesting alternative routings out of there while the company declined every idea we came up with. Mid-afternoon on the 2nd day our seller remembered that he knew the lady who did all the delivery clearances for Diamond Aircraft from his home base at LOAN so we encouraged him to call her to ask if she could arrange a routing via Jedda, Asmara, Addis Ababa (fuel) to Entebbe. She got back to us 2hrs later with all the required clearances!!!
Early Friday we departed the Steinberger Nile Palace Hotel and were on our way at 06:12 for the long haul down the Red Sea and landed Addis 08:43 (At 7680’ ASL the highest I’ve ever landed at) off again at 12:35 we dodged a few scattered storms on the way southwest and landed Entebbe 15:13 the immigration guys here were jacked up, only wanting to see our licences as crew on a layover. The hotel was only 10 minutes from the airport so after an early breakfast we launched off RWY 17 at 04:35 straight out over Lake Victoria dodging a few CB’s heading south, crossing the equator then over Tanzania, southwest overhead Lusaka and on to Livingstone at 08:45. A quick splash and dash and we were flying again by 09:29 off RWY 08 to show the seller the awesome Vic Falls then low level west following the Zambezi to avoid Zimbabwean airspace and then turning south over the confluence with the Chobe and Kasane to cross Botswana and land Lanseria at 11:49. After immigration and a customs inspection of the aircraft we repositioned OE-OCP to Wonderboom for reregistration formalities before this fastest single engine turboprop comes home to roost.
Would we do it again? Absolutely!!!
Rod Crichton (AFC +30 year Club Member)
Note :- All legs were flown at FL’s 300 & 310 for max Range.
Distance 5100 nm (9445 km) Flight time :- 19.5 hrs (3 days) Average GS :- 261 kts
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