"Caravan" to Africa

Nairobi!

Our neighbor on the Khartoum airport parking ramp was a Red Cross airplane, which (like ours) will be used to bring relief to victims of conflict in Sudan's war zones.



The honest answer to why the Red Cross insignia is so large, is that it's an attempt to make sure that a soldier with a missile launcher or a gun at least knows what kind of airplane it is that he's aiming at. But the sad truth is that the fighting in southern Sudan is so angry and chaotic that the Red Cross, and its Islamic counterpart the Red Crescent, painted on an ambulance or an airplane, are no longer guarantees of immunity against getting shot at. Thinking about that, and noticing during our departure the many anti-aircraft gun installations around the airport perimeter, reminded me that this airplane on some of its missions will be in very dangerous circumstances. AIM-AIR planes are not eligible to display a Red Cross, and must rely on shields of faith and prayer. So I said a prayer for this one, to appeal for angels to fly with it in those moments when it will need protection. That will be more effective than a Red Cross emblem, but it's still no guarantee of safety.

Harold Bowman, my fellow AIM-AIR pilot, and dormitory-room neighbor when we were single guys living in Nairobi, was shot and killed in Juba in Feb. 1977 because he was in a battle zone of the civil war. The Cessna 402 he was flying was seriously damaged. He was at that time doing a flight that was supposed to have been mine. I have been observing and thinking carefully about events in Sudan ever since.

In 1983, AIM-AIR pilot Ron Pontier was held hostage, under threat of death, at Boma. The DC-3 received a bullet hole recently, but was not seriously harmed. Sudan operations remain risky. Many prayers are being offered that the negotiations under way in Kenya will this time bring lasting peace.

Traveling South

Khartoum is on the Nile river. (Actually it's on two Nile rivers, as it is located at the confluence of the Nile and a lesser tributary that flows west from Ethiopia, known as the Blue Nile). Heading south, we followed for a while the main, or "White" Nile river. Here's a photo that clearly shows the "flood-plain" method of agriculture that's used along the edges of the Nile in Egypt and northern Sudan. There's no rain, so the fields must be watered by the seasonal flooding of the river.



Further south, crossing the parts of Sudan where I used to fly, I spent some time remembering Harold, and my brother Virgil, who died in an accident while preparing to move to Kenya in order to fly in Sudan, and my best friend Mike Grennell, whose plane was brought down in the far south either by a missile or a thunderstorm, in the Didinga hills, shown here:



I thought about how much each of them would have loved to see and to fly this airplane.

But enough of sad thoughts. Arriving in Kenya is fun. North of Eldoret, we pass over the western escarpment of the great rift valley, where high ground to the west at 10 to 11 thousand feet elevation drops abruptly to about 5 thousand feet at the valley floor. This photo is taken from 13 thousand.



A little further along, we cross the equator and enter the southern hemisphere. Still further south we see the familiar "tilted crater" profile of Mount Longonot occupying the middle of the valley floor..



..and the Rift Valley Academy on its shelf at Kijabe, at the 8,000 ft. level of the eastern escarpment. I owe Michael Steeves a favor for his donation of this webspace on his kijabe.org server. Michael, here's a contribution to your collection of Kijabe photos: a shot of the airstrip taken during a low pass this afternoon.



To a Nairobi-based pilot, these images mean "almost home". At Wilson airport, all crew members except me had family reunions.





But that's OK, I'll be back in PA on Wed., and meanwhile the folks in the hangar did their part to make me feel "at home" here, which is pretty easy to do in my case.



Recognition and thanks was offered by AIM-AIR manager Matt Olson to Cyndi, Renee, and Jennilu for the loan of their husbands.

BTW, for those of you who know about it, that's floatplane N341EA back in the corner of the hangar.

Anyway, this job is done:



I'll be doing some visiting here in Nairobi tomorrow, and possibly in Masai-land on Tuesday, before catching the Tuesday night British Airways flight to Philadelphia via London. I'll add one or two more entries about that, and then consider this weblog complete. Posted by Barry at December 21, 2003 06:41 PM