Crazy copilot...

There once was a pilot from somewhere in Europe...

He was friendly and sociable.  Those of you who've been around long enough will easily guess who I'm talking about.

My first encounter with him was in December 1994.  He met me on the apron at JKIA and kindly offered to take a photo of me with my captain in front of our US registered Lear 35A which was on UN contract.  Later when he saw me again, he gave me the photo.  Nice guy, because thats the only photo I have to remember that amazing experience of flying a small jet.  (now where did that photo go?...)

Fast forward to circa 1998... while I was working for Boskovic, we had a UN contract to fly a C208 to Dadaab and Kakuma five days a week.  Then some clever folk in the UN decided that they wanted to have two pilots flying them, even though that meant giving up one passenger seat.  So the management hired freelance pilots in order to fulfill the requirement economically.  I flew with a small variety of young pilots, and then I was assigned to fly with my old friend.

This particular day had fairly good weather for the 7.30am departure.  It had rained the night before and the apron was covered with the remains of flying termites.  This attracted a large number of birds and they were feasting in small groups all over the taxiways and runways.  We started up and taxied the aircraft to customs.  While crossing runway 14 my copilot suggested that we turn on the landing lights.  I thought this was a strange request and queried him.  He said it would help scare the birds.  Ahhh... yes, now I saw where the logic came from.  Its a commonly held belief that flying with landing lights on will help bird avoidance, but I fail to see its usefulness while taxiing around slowly.  I therefore politely refused his request.

We got airborne and joined the north east access lane.  There was some broken clouds at about 7 or 8 thousand feet but you could see nice blue skies above.  Shortly after takeoff I noticed that the weather radar was switched on.  I know that these can be rather fragile devices so I never switch them on until I have a suspicion of bad weather ahead.  Today there was absolutely no suspicions.  I asked him if he had switched it on (in case I hadn't noticed it was on when we started up).  He said he did.  I asked him why and he replied that it was in case there was any rain ahead.  I told him that in my opinion there was no chance of any weather.  I switched it off.  While climbing over Masinga Dam I noticed that the radar was on again!  I switched it off again and angrily told him 'Just don't touch anything!'.

In the cruise he asked to see the pilots operating handbook.  I let him amuse himself with that.  After a while he started to interrogate me about something utterly pointless regarding an anti icing system which wasn't even installed.  The rest of the day followed this pattern of reading something in the manual followed by useless discussions.  This was going to be a long day.  Now I know why my chief pilot insisted that todays copilot wasn't to be allowed to touch anything except to talk on the radio.

While discussing these matters with another pilot friend, he told me story about flying with this character in the King Air.  While enjoying the cruise at FL250, the airplane suddenly jolted and pitched.  His copilot had just extended the flaps to the approach position.  When asked why he did it, he replied that he wanted to see if they would work at high altitude but still within the indicated speed limit.  Can't blame a guy for being curious!

Those of you who have enjoyed his company in flight (or on the ground) will probably have some other very interesting stories to tell!

Position reports

This is a favourite topic of mine.  Every day that I fly to the Mara, I might hear as many as fifty position reports on the common frequency for Kenya.  In addition to that I might hear 100 small transmissions for any number of reasons.  Condense these into less than two hours of flying and throw in all the other pilot duties in the cockpit such as SOPs, standard calls, checklists, take off and landing briefings, watching out for animals on the runways and birds in the air then you'll start to get the idea of the kind of stress we experience.

Almost all the traffic in the Mara is commercial.  So most of the position reports are from professional pilots.  Therefore its quite amazing to hear the variety of the language and terminology used to make a position report, when you might expect them to be almost uniform and standard.

Phrases or expressions such as 'for lower' or 'for higher' were never taught in flying schools as standard ICAO phraseology.

Flight level 'zero nine five' is also non standard.

A squak code for the transponder is not 'coming down' or 'coming up' or 'on the box'.

There is no 'fish finder' in the cockpit (unless its a flying boat which is also used for fishing...)

Why do people say 'showing xx DME'.  Who are they showing it to?

Why do they say 'Out of eight three for eight five' when they'll be at eight five in just a few moments anyway.

Why do they say 'From [somewhere in the Mara] to Wilson via the monastery'?  Is there another way to Wilson when inbound from the Mara?

Or why do they include the word 'Mara' with 'Ol Kiombo' or some other airstrip in the Mara when there are no other airstrips in the world with those names.  'Ol Kiombo' on its own is enough, there are no other places with the same name to confuse it with.  One time I heard someone call abeam 'Naivasha Civil', no such thing of course, and there is no Naivasha military to confuse it with.

I remember one pilot who was consistently making position reports every 2 minutes and 30s.  I know because I timed it.  On his usual scheduled service flight between Wilson and Eldoret he probably made 15 position reports, in each direction!  Oh, the monotony...

And then there's the animal noises; the impromptu chats with friends; constant requests for wind checks, and the lies.

Its amazing how people stretch the definition of 'right base' out to about 5 miles from the airfield.  Monastery is sometimes around the Karen country club or the race course.  Thank goodness that the Garmin G1000 has amazingly accurate traffic position display, makes my job of finding traffic much easier!

Enough rambling for today... thanks for your patience, if you've read this far!

First posting

Welcome to my Aviation in East Africa blog.  It was created with the intention of providing an outlet for my views and opinions on this subject, of which I'm fairly conversant.  Hopefully you will find it interesting, informative and thought provoking.  Your comments will be helpful in improving every ones outlook on this subject.

It will cover many different aspects of Aviation in this region.  Safety is of primary importance and it will be a major subject of this blog.  Some of the other subjects will be air crew, ground crew, engineering, air traffic navigation and control services, air regulations and aviation training in East Africa.  There will also be a few funny stories thrown in for good measure.  Don't worry though, names and places will be changed to protect the innocent!