Just another manic Monday

Dropping off the Self-Loading Freight at Dadaab

Alarm clock at 6am. 6.10 coffee, thanks to the timer I've rigged up to the coffee machine. 6.25 my colleague Ben knocked quietly on our door and we drove up to the MAF hangar at Wilson Airport, arriving at around 6.45.

My flight today was to Dadaab and back, and our three passengers (otherwise known as Self-Loading Freight) had already checked-in.

I did my preflight check on the aircraft and noted the weather and NOTAMS. Happily today the cloud was high overcast and although hazy, good enough visibility for a VFR departure without delay. So I taxied down to customs at around 8am and the aforementioned SLF loaded themselves. Two hours later we were in Dadaab where they unloaded themselves and were met by the ubiquitous white Toyota Landcruisers with HF whip antennae (pictured above). All three passengers work for organisations continuing to address the huge humanitarian crisis still present in the refugee camps at Dadaab.

We then picked up one returning passenger and headed back to Nairobi and were back in the hangar by just after 1pm. After signing off the flight paperwork ("the flight ain't over till the paperwork's done"), I grabbing a chapati & samosa for lunch and then took care of some further admin in the hangar. At 3.30, the end of our duty periods, Ben and I drove home.

On the way we noticed an interesting sign on the back of one of the matatus (right). You may know that a matatu is a pseudo-public transport minibus. They are privately owned but operate on various routes throughout the city. Given the way they drive, it is the other road-users who really need our prayers.


And then finally, Katie and the boys decided that for supper we should all go out for a bit of Chinese food as we didn't have much in the house. The 'For You' Chinese restaurant is just around the corner and they have good, inexpensive Chinese food and more importantly a bouncy castle, trampoline, table football and swings.

Top tip No.1: let the kids play before the food arrives.

Top tip No.2: maybe avoid menu item number 16 (left).

Cumulous Granet

Since returning from South Africa I've been busy learning various flight routes from Nairobi, mainly out to the East and Northeast of Kenya. So busy in fact that this blog has been quiet for a few weeks. Hopefully that is about to change.

I've now completed LOFT (Line Oriented Flight Training) and am now undergoing a couple of weeks of supervised flying where I am the aircraft Captain (P1, Pilot-in-command, guy with the 4 bars on his shoulder) but another MAF pilot comes along for the ride.

My chariot, 5Y-PTL i.e. 'Praise the Lord!'

The two main routes I am flying are MAF's twice-weekly regular shuttle flights to Dadaab (the Dadaab refugee camp in Eastern Kenya) and to Marsabit and the Northeast Frontier district. Basically any mission, Church or aid worker can hop on these shuttle services, or give us freight to take up.

I've done both routes several times now, but the Marsabit flight on Tuesday this week was somewhat memorable on account of the weather. At this time of year Nairobi and the high ground around Mount Kenya and the Aberdare hills sometimes find themselves covered in low cloud and mist. For the larger Caravan aircraft in the MAF fleet this is not a problem as they fly 'IFR' through and on top of the clouds. However single-engine piston aircraft such as the our Cessna 206 pictured above cannot legally fly IFR here, and so yours truly plays around under, over, and through gaps in the weather. So it was on Tuesday.

The key thing is to be able to see well enough ahead and around to know where the high ground is. Unfortunately here in this part of Kenya there is a LOT of it, and some of it is VERY high indeed (17,000ft!) Pilots sometimes refer to this sort of terrain as 'Cumulous Granet'.

Below is the first part of Tuesday's route, via the Northeast departure lane from Nairobi and around the East side of Mount Kenya via Embu and Meru. The purple line is the planned track. However due to the low clouds and high terrain forming the foothills of Mount Kenya, the actual route we took (in orange) was rather more exciting. At times we were a few hundred feet above the terrain, looking for bright spots and glimpses of the horizon. Twice we tried to regain our planned track closer to the mountain but were forced to turn around and retreat to the lower ground and better visibility.

Planned (Purple) and Actual (Orange) Routes

Eventually as we headed further North the clouds lifted and the terrain dropped for us to have a comfortable cruise at around 6500ft. However as we approached Marsabit, which is at 4300ft, the clouds once again descended. We descended to around 4800ft (500ft above the airstrip but maybe 100ft above the surrounding hills) and managed a 'bad weather' circuit to land in Marsabit.

All in all quite a lot of hard work, but I'm very glad for the low-level training we had in the US (see last year's blog entries) and the extra reserve fuel we carry for making these meandering weather detours.