It is so cool to fly low through the Sahara. One is a picture just east of Atar. Great area to fly through. The other is the landing strip of Chinguetti, which is a historical city in the Sahara.
And about the position reports: that doesn’t go that formal.
Once you are airborne and in the cruise, they will just ask you for the estimates to intermediate waypoints and to your final destination. You do this while still in contact with the controller/tower of the departing airport. Then, some time later, you are in no radio contact most likely, so there are no position reports to pass. However, if you tune to the right frequency, you might somewhere pick up an airliner going high above you e.g. from Amsterdam to Johannesburg. Then you could ask them to pass on your next estimates.
In the end, flying in Africa is quite relaxed. That is, if you prepare well and just then enjoy the flying.
First of all – don’t put all your eggs in one basket, or water into one bottle, as it were! Carry many small water bottles and ideally get those that are made from non-brittle plastic that won’t rupture in a hard landing / controlled crash. Carry as much water as you can fit into the airplane. You can go for days without food, but you will die PDQ without water. As for food, energy bars will do the trick. The desert can get very cold at night, so emergency foil blankets are a must. They also make great mirrors if need be and can serve to collect moisture or dew overnight. One thing to consider is to get the schedules of CAT transiting the area. Not that you’ll hitch a ride, but if you know when to make emergency transmissions on your handheld, then you can stretch the battery much, much further. No use crying for help if nobody can hear you! Flying in Africa is great and, in my experience, pretty relaxed, so go and have a great time!
Thanks. All good stuff.
We will enjoy!
The only SAR team for Mauritania and Sénégal is in Dakar. This is managed by the french army. They have a ATL2 for SAR a few helicopters and sometimes a E-3 (radar plane).
I’m flying has high as possible, stay with Canarias control (Western Sahara) and then switch with Nouakchott… As soon as possible with Dakar…
Romain
Canaries Control work right down to the Mauritanian border – certainly at FL100 and above then Nouakchott TWR. It was the only sector on my trip to Cape Town and back that we were asked for our overflight clearance numbers.
I would take lots of water (see link below), emergency blanket and my DeLorme inReach. A good SAR insurance/agreement with SAR organization is also reassuring.
The tip with many smaller water bottles is very good.
http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/publications/2011/tn9_how_much_water_en.pdf
And if you do get a DeLorme InReach, here is how you can get the weather (METAR/TAF, etc.) for free and – as is – on these 2-way SAT communication devices: http://www.aeroplusaviation.com/delormes-inreach-sat-device-delivers-aviation-weather-to-the-cockpit
P.S. No rain radar data supported for the InReach.
The press is full of crap (G-ARNZ ditching)
I knew that the mainstream media does not understand half of what they are writing about, and most of the time their main preoccupation is spinning it so it sells, but this one, to me, really stands out.
Any human being with 2 braincells would hopefully spot the obvious contradictions in this article. I would have thought that a journalist would have a little more intelligence than that, but sorry to say I was mistaken.
THIS is the dramatic moment a plane was forced to ditch into the sea at the Herne Bay Airshow in Kent after the pilot lost control in mid air.
Does anyone else have similar little pearls from the press for our amusement? We could start the “EuroGA awards”!
