Flight 19 European Vacation

We left Cairo, swung out over the pyramids and then headed up the Nile to Luxor. Great flight with good company.

There was a telegram waiting for me at Luxor. Seems BOAC wants me to fly for them again. Thinking about it. Sure did like that Speedbird Connie.
 
:salute:Howdy!


Just a few snaps of the flight from HECA down to HELX. We flew over the Pyramids at Gisa and then on south over the Step, Slope Pyramids, and over two others that I have forgot their names. In my case it's more than a Senior Moment! Hehe!
 
:wavey:Howdy again,

We took a side trip over the Temple ruins at Luxor before landing at the airport.. Now on up the Nile into the darkest of Africa, I think. Darn, another Senior Moment.
 
Got a better deal. Found out about a DC-6 freighter at Abu Simbel and then found some people who had a B-29 that they needed ferried there. So, I flew that ol' Superfortress up the Nile and collected up my DC-6. She's a little rough looking, but mechanically solid.
 
:wavey:Hi again,

Just a few photos from last nights flight. Again, we went ape with taking photos. We landed at HEBL (Abu Simbel), and at the east end of the runways is the temple of Ramses with the large figures of him, and a tribute to his wife. This gigantic temple was raised up from it's original position to a higher level in order to save it from the rising water created by the Aswan Dam.
 
:wiggle: Hi, hehe,

More pictures, I told you we went crazy with the picture taking on this flight. So far, most of our flights in the Near East and North Africa have been uneventfull, by this I mean we haven't had any problems with Achmed and his camel herding crew who smell like &%$#%....! Again, on both post the pictures are out of order
 
Didn't have time before takeoff to straighten out that DC-6, so I did a quick trade for a DC-7B freighter. A bit more expensive to operate, but hauls more cargo.

We ended up flying to Merowe Sudan (HSMR).
 
Ran into a little problem with the Customs authorities about some of the cargo I was carrying in the DC-7 and they decided that they'd seize the aircraft and want $1 million to let it go. I think for that kind of money, they can keep it.

Hmm... Trek Lugdienst is looking for a pilot to ferry a Constellation down to Cape Town. I'm seeing more "bidness" opportunities here. Customs usually don't look as hard at an airliner as they do independent cargo haulers. Just hope that my Dutch can pass off as Afrikaans.
 
:wavey:Rgr. on the flight over the desert! This is one great big sand box! After landing at Port Sudan I noticed that the three planes almost took up the whole ramp area. The station people were a little unhappy having these big birds in their yard.
 
We made the Port Sudan airport people happy by leaving to go to Khartoum. We got chased a bit by Herr Achmed in a Bf 109E soon after take off. Fred was hanging out the door with his shotgun, but the miscreant never got into range of that 10 gauge.

Anyways, it was a great flight full of literary discussion...
 
:running:Hey there, were moving!

Hey, check out these pictures, one show a pretty young thing becking a fond fairwell to us. Another picture show a car, a 35 or 36 ford, shucks, one like that was my first set of wheels! Yep, we were cruising along drinking our coffee when this here ME109E slipped between us and Willy, from our point of view it looked like Olde Herr Achmed was trying to fly right up Willy's six. Old Dudley was cursing up a storm, kept saying we should have brought a fighter bomber instead of this setting duck! I really think he misses firing those twin 50s. Not a bad flight, we did have some throttle problem on approach and landing, but between the three of us we made a landing without tearing the airplane apart, came in a little hot, heated up the brakes to a bright pretty red. Ditto what Willy posted about the conversations. Interesting! So long until tomorrow.
 
We left Khartoum for Malakal. Nice flight and the farther we flew, the greener the ground became. Sure beats flying over that sand box...
 
The Sudd

Here is a proposal for a slightly modified flight plan from Malakal to Juba in the South Sudan.

It first goes west along a bend in the White Nile to Lake No, the center of the Nuer people. Then it heads south-southeast along the Sudd (in Arabic, "the barrier"). This is a huge swamp covering one of the largest wetlands in the world. The waterways are covered with solid vegetation mats that made it almost impossible to navigate the Nile south from Lake No and Malakal. Historically, this barrier prevented the powers of the lower Nile from penetrating further southward. In particular, the British found it difficult to connect Egypt and Central Africa.

Between Mongalla (near Juba) and Malakal, the flow of Nile drops in half. Wikipedia: the "Sudd area, consisting of various meandering channels, lagoons, reed and papyrus fields, loses half of the inflowing water through evapotranspiration in the permanent and seasonal floodplains." The water, and the nearby grasslands, provide a useful ecology for the pastoral Dinka and Nuer populations who migrate to herd cattle in the dry and raise grain in the wet seasons. Here lie the roots of the South Sudan's culture.
 
MM, Taco and I furthered the cause, following MM's posted flightplan. Interesting side trip. No place to put down a propliner of size though other than a designated airport!
 
Interesting deviation to see the Sudd. We turned west at the bend in the Nile and then followed the Sudd southward to Juba. (Thanks to Jim Keir for the wonderfully improved African landclass.) Plane spotters at the terminal got to see some unusual traffic, including a stunning Convair of Ethiopian Airlines (Moses) and a beautiful "racing" Constellation of South African Airways (Taco)...not to mention an oddly out-of-place Viscount of BWIA.
 
Here are a few photos of Flight 19 contintuing saga into the Darkest of Africa. Darn, I knew we should have stayed in the States Dudley! Very nice flight with MM and Moses, and of course, as always, interesting conversations.
 
The Entebbe Triangle

Caught up with MM, Taco and Rob at HSSJ. The plan was to fly down to Entebbe Uganda in a zig zag pattern.

We made it to our last turn at HUJI having had a fun flight. I started my descent for Entebbe during the turn with the idea to be about 1500 - 2000 AGL when I turned to final at runway 30 over the lake. A couple of minutes later Rob is saying something about not trusting the altimeter due to air pressure fluctuations. I'm thinking that it's probably just his install so I keep motoring on down.

All of a sudden my nose yanks up, airspeed shoots up to overspeed and the engines go to full throttle. Boy did that wake me up. I quickly got control back but the Connie isn't wanting to descend very well. Then my altimeter starts spinning back forth a few thousand feet at a time real fast. The autopilot aint having none of this so I turn it off. About this point I'm ready to turn to final and I can only use the radar altimeter to gauge how high I am. I get down below 160kias and drop wheels and flaps to one notch.

Now I'm bouncing up and down and my airspeed is going from back and forth between stall to overspeed faster than I can keep up with the throttles. So, I go to about 15" of MAP and begin to fight it down. Finally when I get to about 600 AGL, my hydraulics aren't working any more. I'm showing a bit over one notch of flaps and only the nose wheel in the locked position. And I can't get them to move so I'm figuring one of the overspeeds has crippled the hydraulics and decide to just try to ease it in and take what I can get.

I manage to get the speed somewhat stabilized between 100 and 120 kias and touch down on the end of Rwy 30. The gear fold up from under me and I go into a belly landing and skid to a stop on the runway. Eventually I get the Connie hauled to the tarmac and propped up on the gear where MM and Rob are waiting. They've experienced the same things I just have, but somehow managed to keep their hydraulics whole. And somewhere over the lake, we lost Taco. Hope he's just took a detour and is not swimming out there somewhere.

One heck of a flight and I'm not sure I'd want to repeat it. Anything that can throw a Connie around like that......
 
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