How we began

I've shown you various pictures during the course of our trip, but wanted to give you a little bit more of a timeline on my big African adventure.  There were three of us:  Catherine (the pilot), Zabeta, and me. The trip was a two week flying safari around South Africa, including through Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

Zabeta

We started from the Benoni-Brakpan Airfield (FABB) near Johannesburg, South Africa on the morning of May 19th.  While the logistical planning for a trip like this might sound overwhelming, we had a lot of expert help.  The folks at Sky Africa made virtually all of the arrangements.  Janna  handled the on-ground activities and lodging.  She was a stickler for details and designed a trip that included everything we wanted to see.  Glenn was the flight ops person, who worked with Catherine on flight plans, and plane nuances.   Our plane, Dixie to us, but officially ZS DYX:  Zulu Sierra - the country designation - Delta Yankee Xray - the plane number,  is in her middle years and has some quirks.   Catherine spent most of Saturday, before I arrived, reviewing flight plans and maps and then a couple of hours on Sunday morning, after I arrived, clearing the flight checks with Glenn, which are insurance requirements.

Janna, organizer extraordinaire!

Glenn runs Catherine through her insurance flight checks.

Glenn and Carl

Carl is the owner and a font of information about flying and sites in South Africa.

We departed around 13:00 on the 19th, headed for Pilanesburg, a 45 minute flight.  This destination was selected by our fearless Janna so that we could clear customs out of South Africa the next morning. Brakpan doesn't have customs service and we needed that as we were bound for Botswana on Monday.  So, Pilanesburg was purely a stopover.  The flight was uneventful, if a little turbulent, due to the afternoon thermals.  For future flights we did everything that we could to get our travel completed before lunch, to take advantage of the calmer morning air.

Departing Brakpan

We stayed at the Sun City Cabanas, which was a casino resort.  If asked to imagine what accommodations in Africa might look like, this was the first thing leaping to mind.  It did give us a good bed, and decent meals, so we weren't complaining.

Arriving Pilanesburg

I started to make it a habit to take pictures of the various runways we encountered.  They ran the gauntlet from large international strips to smooth places in the dusty desert.  Our first two were pretty typical for small regional airports.  That was about to change.




On the morning of the 20th we were ready to head to the bush.  We were ready, having done our flight planning over sun downers the night before.  Catherine explained our route and noted that she'd need some help with navigation, particularly since we were going to be landing at Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.  There are a couple of restricted area that we would have to avoid.  The penalty for entering is pretty steep, and might entail a flight escort and/or a loss of Catherine's license.  So, we quickly learned how to identify those areas on the map.

Flight Planning

Clearing South African Customs

Before departure, we had to clear South Africa customs and immigration at the Pilanesburg International airport.  This is a small regional airport, servicing very few commercial flights.  That morning we were the only ones in the airport, aside from the airport security and customs/immigration staff.  So there were three of us and about 10 staff.  It was mildly overwhelming.  We went through the usual drill of scanning all of our luggage, which included pocket knives, 5 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of gin, amongst other things.  The machinery went off and the staff told us to just carry on.  We followed that instruction.   There was a little bit of paperwork to properly document the plane and us (the passengers and crew) but all went smoothly and the people were exceptionally kind and helpful while we learned the ropes.  The customs folks inspected our luggage and the plane, and after determining that we had no contraband, they told us that we were officially not in South Africa any more and wished us a safe journey.

Sun City from the air

So, we headed north, over the resort and toward the African Bush.  Our adventure was about to start in earnest!.  We had a good feeling.  The day started well, with a stunning sunrise and we were flying in cloudless skies!

Sun City Sunrise