Friday 26 July 2013

South Africa

So, earlier this year I did mention that I would be travelling to South Africa to build 50 hours flying time as part of my pre-CPL hour building and that is what I did.

I received a message from Jake Price of Get Into Flying, www.getintoflying.co.uk asking whether I would write a post regarding the venture to Africa for the site, so I won't cover much here and I'll put more in to the GiF post, but all I can say is that it was..

EPIC!

Fore mostly I learnt a lot from flying in South Africa that I wouldn't have done in the UK otherwise and it's changed me as a pilot for the better. Flying an underpowered aircraft in high density altitude conditions really gets the brain working and unlike in the UK where you can fill a Cessna 152 up with fuel and know pretty much you're going to takeoff here it was different. You had to think for every flight about how much fuel you'd need, endurance, the takeoff distances, climb and approach speeds, ground effect to build up climb speed, conditions on the origin airfield and destination airfield, will there be people or dogs, or in one case, cattle on the runway?

It was also a chance to learn about the management of the business's operation and the running of the aircraft that they (SkyAfrica) operate from opening the hangar doors to closing them at the end of the day.

Anyway, I'll cover more in detail on the GiF post and I'll put a link here: when it's ready.

Also, today I passed my Class 1 medical which will enable me to complete commercial flight training and hopefully eventually work in commercial air transport operations.

In the meantime, I'll leave you this video that I made from the venture.