Preston – there were/are no scheduled flights. Only other option was to fly scheduled down to Lusaka and take it from there.

One of the charities flew to Mfuwe twice weekly from Lusaka in a Cessna Caravan I. They informally offered to take us, but it wasn’t flexible and meant flying down to Lusaka to make the connection. Plus, I generally dislike happy clappy lets write off all the debt man, charity types!

The charter slightly more all in ($4,000 for an Aztec+pilot+fuel for 10 days), but it gave a lot more flexibility and besides which it was fun! And between 5 people, that isn’t too much more per head. About 100 minutes each way, and I could watch the ETA tick closer on the pilot’s GPS unit. Beats economy class on BA from London the previous week 🙂

My old man hired the same plane the following month to fly with some colleagues to a board meeting in Sun City, Joburg. That must have been a horrendous flight in a piston twin – about 1,500km so I presume they must have tanked up en-route, probably in Harare, Kariba or Bulawayo if my geography serves.

Would any of the pilots here know what sort of routing would be taken, flying from Northern Zambia to the Johannesburg area? This was in the days when Zimbabwe was considered safe, alhough whites were still beaten up regularly- so I think they would have risked a refueling there.

Odd how Airbus is “now” majority owned by EADS and no mention of BAE Systems. They still have their 20% but obviously EADS are annoyed with them because of the Lockheed/Boeing merger talk.

3

Me too!

My other fave is a charter flight with a difference. I actually chartered the plane.

It was only a 7 seater twin Piper (Aztec?) but I sat in the front, right hand seat. I vividly remember taxiing to the runway, and my door was still open. I kept nudging the pilot, and he just said don’t worry 😮

In the end he leant over me and latched it closed as we were rolling down the runway.

Flight was from a small airstrip in Northern Zambia (Chingola) to the grandly titled “Mfuwe International Airport”.

CGJ-MFU

Chingola has I think the largest open cast mine in Africa, which we flew over. Interesting experience to say the least, as I had been on a tour of the site the previous week,

Pic 1 is the aircraft exterior, 2 is the interior (my mother and grandmother) and 3 is the destination

LCY has a big problem stored up for itself.

The largest aircraft types are what – Dash 8-400 and ATR-72, presuming the 146/RJ fleets are retired over the next decade.

Big runways are back in fashion with the RJ’s, just like the the 1960s with VC-10s and 707s.

PS – would the A318 be possible for LCY?

Originally posted by KabirT
I never saw Beckham as a great……he was just an example of mass hysteria.

No, as a footabller he was/is great. By all accounts a thoroughly nice chap as well. But yes, I agree that he didn’t really merit all the hype.

Come on, that isn’t the case at all now is it.