FLYING IN WEST AFRICA

The factors that have controlled our flying on this tour have been:

1. finding suitable locations
2. getting local permission where possible
3. surveying for possible landing places
4. getting gas.

The prevailing upper wind has been a north easterly and most of the flights we have made have been parallel to a “major” road. Some of these “major” roads have been dirt tracks that have occasionally stopped us if we have not locked up all the differentials as well as 4WD, not so bad yet to require the winch but close on a couple of occasions. We are now surprised if there are any tracks leading off the “main” roads that a vehicle can use, so normally we plan to land close to a road but not close to villages or any habitation. The reason is if you have to carry water half a mile to your home then the toilets tend to be a field 20 – 200 metres from where you live.

In the UK, if you see a house there is normally a way of getting a vehicle to it. It’s probably the reverse in Africa as some large villages only have footpaths or motorbike tracks to them. We have mainly used dirt airstrips as launch points as it’s easier to get ad hoc permission and if we were met by police on landing it would be easier to explain. We see a lot of police and gendarme check-points on the roads and occasionally are stopped at them but fortunately they appear not to have any transport so we, as yet, have not had any problems on landing.

For every flight we have spent at least several hours looking at and GPS waypointing suitable landing areas and if all else fails we now fly with a machete, or cutlass as they are called in Ghana, to make a clearing in the bush. We have not so far encountered dense vegetation or jungle.

Up to now we have purchased butane in 13kg cylinders with a variety of connectors. A few cylinders have built in hose failure valves which slows the rate of transfer. The butane at typical morning take-off temperatures gives 35PSI or just over 2Kg/cm2 which is low with a single burner even in a lightweight small balloon. I managed to keep one cylinder of propane up until the last flight where 2 kettles of boiling water poured over one cylinder just before take-off gave 50 PSI or 3 bar. I tend to fly on the low pressure tank as much as possible and use it as the “master” to save the high pressure until the end of flight. We are going to a lot of trouble to keep all the gas connectors clean by wrapping in plastic bags and sealing them with insulation tape. We are using Chinese paper balloons to check wind direction before flying.

The new “Klein” inflation fan works well but I am very glad that Sue suggested we bring a spare propeller as the original sucked in the cord on our keyring and wrecked it in Togo. The Ultramagic collapsible basket is excellent and we are getting quicker at assembling it from its flat pack.