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Going Places - African Tour Part 2 By Rodolfo Astrada In the last feature we started the African tour with the Frankfurt - Nairobi leg, leaving at the time of making landfall over Egypt, Sidi Barrani to be precise. The terrain below and up to the Qattara Depression was where the second battle of El Alamein was fought, 1942, when Rommel had to give up overwhelmed by Montgomery and Alexander. That defeat led later to the complete retreat of Axis forces from Africa. Then Churchill - always in the lookout for famous quotations - could proclaim before the House of Commons "This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning". Our route takes us west far from Cairo and the Nile, so we have no chance to watch Giza slip below, while the historic river looks only a darker ribbon far on the horizon. Save for the Nile valley, Egypt is mostly barren desert, a sea of sand south and west for hundreds of miles, perhaps some wadi marking where a river briefly flows during the rainy season December to February. But don't count on many more than ten wet days any given year. Take a note about potential for photovoltaic energy production, more on this later. In 1937 Shorts introduced the Empire series of flying boats we mentioned in the last story. The big four engine ships were a familiar sight on these whereabouts we are flying, plying the routes from Southampton with stopovers at Marseille, Athens, Alexandria and onwards. Each Empire flying boat had its unique name, the Canopus (first prototype), Centaurus, Calpurnia, Cavalier, Calypso, Coriolanus and on for a total of 42 built and flown during the fleeting golden age of the flying boat. Imperial Airways gambled high by placing an order for 28 units of an aircraft that was not even designed by 1935, only a specification for 24 passengers and 170 MPH, maybe with a range up to 2000 miles in a special extended configuration if possible. Shorts had no experience in building such a big ship yet produced several innovations in terms of structural design and aerodynamics including novel Gouge flaps after team leader Arthur Gouge which reduced landing (splashing?) speed as much as 12% for the 18 ton ship. By 1937 the latest models could fly nonstop from England to Egypt, 2300 miles. A spinoff from the Empire product line, the Shorts Sunderland was a militarized version which earned quite a reputation in the later stages of WWII. Designed under specifications for a long range patrol plane, it specialized in chasing U-boats and rescuing survivors from sunken ships. Savvy U-boat captains knew all too well to dive hastily as soon as a "flying porcupine" was spotted loitering above. Though ponderous a plane, submarine speed was no match for a swooping Sunderland bristling with depth charges and the advantage of perspective; dozens of German submarines fell prey this way. Then again in what was the most improbable outcome for an air battle, a single Sunderland on patrol over the Bay of Biscay, June 1943, was chased by a flight of eight JU 88 fighter bombers. Twisting and turning viciously it managed to shoot down two attackers, a probable third, and mangled the remaining ones so bad they ended up disengaging. With dead and wounded crewmembers and a disabled engine, it nonetheless limped home. After the war, surplus Sunderlands readily found place in passenger carrying duty. We had for decades a flying boat service making the Montevideo - Buenos Aires run under Argentina or Uruguay flag, the deep grumble of the four Bristol Pegasus radials a familiar sound in the general area of Montevideo bay. In the previous issue early drafts I had the outline and some material for a section devoted to Pan Am's pioneering intercontinental flying boat services to Asia and Europe. Finding it should make the feature unduly heavy I pushed it to this issue, only to find again it takes much space. Leaning it is out of the question, should not properly honor the trailblazing feats conceived by Juan Trippe and its far reaching consequences for the airline industry. Hope next time this issue will be properly settled. We now meet the fringes of what gradually will turn into the African forest, past Khartoum, Sudan, where the Blue Nile joins forces with the White Nile. Now that I mention, back in 1858 without the benefit of satellite imagery, it took walking the forest to find the sources of the Nile, a matter then still not settled. That year an expedition financed by the Royal Geographic Society commissioned Capt. Richard Burton and Officer John Speke to find out. After various mishaps and health troubles, it was Speke who discovered and named Lake Victoria correctly identifying it as the source of the White Nile, and is the officially accepted discoverer despite subsequent heated debates out of our scope. One John Goddard set himself the goal to live an adventurous life, broken down in 127 particular goals to be more precise. Among them to climb the Popocatepetl, the Kilimanjaro, look for Noah's Ark atop Mount Ararat, kayak the Nile and write a book among others. Ah, he drove 46 different types of aircraft including the F111. Did I say kayak the Nile? Right, in 1951 he gathered a couple of French pals Jan La Porte and Andre Davy, hauled their frugal equipment to the sources of the Kagera River which is the largest affluent of Lake Victoria, to make sure, and started the adventure. Eight and 1/2 months and over 6000 km later they were paddling the salty waters of the Mediterranean after sorting all kind of near misses from the very start, be it dangerous hippos, dangerous waters or dangerous people along the banks. Once and again they got lost of each other, reunited again and pushed on to Rosetta, the town with the same name of the river branch which is part of the delta and where the famous stone enabled Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyph scripture. Later Goddard wrote a book which I highly recommend "Kayaks Down the Nile", telling it as it was. Went on to study anthropology, film underwater, became member of various explorer societies and in general spend a pretty adventurous life. Some good example of bad arse as they say, with due respect. And as time and sand goes by, we enter Kenya airspace abeam Lake Turkana. That it is elongated more or less North - South is no coincidence, the lake fills the trough formed by the eastward drift of a chunk of eastern Africa, the East African Rift. Apart from geology, Lake Turkana got notoriety after the finding in 1972 of a very ancient skull attributed originally to Homo habilis. Further findings followed, with Maeve Leakey discovering in 1994 the Australopithecus anamensis fossil. Dated at roughly 4 million years, it ranks as one of the oldest known human ancestors and put on firm basis the thesis of Africa as birthplace for our species. Closing in on our destination by now. For a change here comes a more under the hood view as to how this arrival comes about. Disclaimer, I am not a professional pilot much less a jet airliner qualified pilot, what I do while simming is to play as close as I know. Lots of regular stuff is out of necessity left aside, like load and detailed performance calculations, weather, paperwork, whatever else it takes for a regular operation. That said, let's go for the fun. Nairobi sits at 5330' and has a single southwest - northeast (06/24) runaway. The vast majority of landings are by ILS 06 approach. Landing brief is: follow vectors to GV VOR, then turn (left in our case) on a heading of 105 until localizer intercept, crosscheck bearing of NV VOR on extended centerline past the airport. In case of missed approach, climb on runaway heading to 6000' or NV VOR whichever comes first, then right climbing turn to 9000', expect further instructions. MDA is 9600' in this northwest sector, target altitude at GV is 9100'. In the real world I should be directed to some of the northwest arrivals like TILUK or LADAN for our route, anyway all end up at the GV VOR (GG NDB) fix. As is usually the case FSX has other ideas about final approach vectoring and sends us to 8300', no problem if keeping a healthy situational awareness, Mt. Longonot at 9100' lays safely to the right, while the Ngong Hills ridge at 8070' will be outside the localizer intercept left turn. We are already at 250 kts and have the localizer alive 25 nm out. On turn to final we engage approach mode and select final approach speed. The MD11 does not like to go slow and a runway altitude of 5300' does not help either. 155 kts is a normal Vref (flaps 50) for average load and normal arrival fuel, I like to add at least 5 kts for margin. Double check gear: four green, flaps: 50, autobrake: set (min) as per landing checklist. Switch off A/P and A/T passing 1000' AGL, gently nudge throttle while making short but decisive stick inputs in order to keep GS/LOC in check yet not to overcontrol. Heavy aircraft like the MD11 are slow to get moving in any direction and slower yet to stop moving! DH is 5530' (200' AGL), continue. Some lines above I made a mention regarding photovoltaic energy in connection with the Egyptian dessert. Turns out I am tinkering with the idea of dipping into dangerous waters, more precisely in what can be speculated about future developments in aviation. What has to do photovoltaic energy with this? Next time we'll try to explore this and other topics as usual while we fly towards Johannesburg. See you! Rodolfo Astrada Read other articles in this series -
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Going Places - African Tour Part 1 By Rodolfo Astrada Turns out I noticed a trend - which seems somewhat universal - of weight gain as time goes by. Worried features may be turning ever longer to detriment of reader patience I will start breaking down in shorter segments, see what happens. As promised in the last chapter, we are taking faithful D-ALCM down south, this time final destination will be near the tip of Africa, Johannesburg. This is also a regular Lufthansa Cargo schedule with a stopover for refueling and perhaps some freight shuffling in Nairobi. Usually technology or relatively high value manufactured products from Europe and the Far East go all the way down while some special manufactures from South Africa, or flowers, hides and other products fill the hold on the way back. Again a small hours departure, the dazzling patchwork of glittering towns dotting federal states of Hessen, and Baden-Wurttemberg, speak lots about Europe population density. Down in Schwabisch Hall we fly abeam of the Adolf Wurth - Hessental airfield which was home to the 53 Combat Squadron by 1939, later to fighter squadron 51, and from where ME 262 - first operational jetfighters - flew combat missions after being assembled in a nearby disguised factory. More than 30 airfields may be found within a 50 km radius or so, like Niederstetten - night fighters, Hohentengen where its large concrete runway allowed training and prototype test for Dornier Do 217 and Do 335. Many were Luftwaffe airbases in wartime, home to Me 109 and FW 190 squadrons. For those caught in the maelstrom no matter side, there was no choice, do their best to survive and fight with the means at hand. German pilots used to tell how they climbed warily into their cockpits, the canopy closing like the lid of a coffin. Thrown up to try stemming the relentless tide of allied mass bombing formations. Bombers crewed by young boys with no practical chance to survive a full campaign, such were the odds. For quite some time I spent hours flying combat simulation, can remember several different games in a wide spectrum of sophistication and realism. There were the arcade type, a passing curious look and move on. The serious early ones were crude by today's standards, yet had the magic quality of being immersive. In the sense you had to work hard, juggle several fronts as flying the aircraft, maneuver strategically, manage weapons, keep situation awareness and so on, you really felt like being there. The first I met and mentioned in a previous feature was an F15 simulator running on a Sinclair Spectrum. AI (artificial intelligence) was decent in the sense you should be shot down every day if playing carelessly, but could outmaneuver the foe and get on its 6 after some serious training. It was only armed with gun that fired straight forward no matter flight dynamics, fair try for such a basic fixture. Then one named "Top Gun" comes to mind, not surprisingly released after the movie. You had to fly F16's, qualify for carrier operations on F14's and then fight a hypothetical scenario of USSR invasion of the West Coast where you had to scramble on F18's to meet a variety of threats and perform deep bombing missions in occupied California. This was a late 80's game running on EGA graphics so it was technically fair at best. In one of the first missions I remember scrambling to fight off MiGs going for a military transport with VIP passengers. Got a lock and released a Sidewinder, and to my astonishment saw the fighter pop three flares! Just three red pixels trailing but it was as close to the real thing as it could be. The last combat simulator I used to some length was IL2 Sturmovik, highly praised in its debut thanks to astonishing care for details, realism and performance. Gracefully swooping over that Betty bomber formation in the Pacific, adrenalin pumps high while spraying bullets, watching debris fly from your hits, some smoke with any luck, then dive jinking crazy, see tracers fly by, the frightening bang of ordnance hitting your plane, scan anxiously the instruments, level out, relief, reposition for the next strike. More frequently than I care to admit, when not outrightly shot out of the sky I could end up with a crippled fighter, be it damaged ailerons or elevators or a dying engine. Then if played judiciously could sometimes pull an emergency landing even at home base perhaps steering only with rudder or controlling altitude with power for lack of pitch authority. We are hunter warriors by nature, more or less hidden somewhere deep within our minds. Warfare lures in some intoxicating way, easily rationalized and on we go. By the way, I do not know of anybody having played combat flight simulation that never got killed. Food for thought if you are considering a combat pilot career and wish to do it for real. So much for cheap philosophy for the day. Corfu - or Kerkyra - ahead, this is a rather elongated island close to the Albanian coast, full of history as elsewhere in the Greece sphere of influence, cradle of occidental legacies like democracy. Again as elsewhere in Europe, Corfu history bears witness to recurring struggle for power and domination. First inhabitants came from Corinth, yet non-Corinthian settlers populated the fertile southern lands ending in direct confrontation with the former. Conquered and set free once and again by Persians, Athenians, Spartans, Romans, the Byzantine Empire, the Republic of Venice, repeatedly attempted to be taken by the Ottomans (without success), France, the British Empire, finally joining Greece in 1864 for good. We could go on with the tale of events associated with the wars and twentieth century struggles but should rather vote against. Why, there are other aspects worth digging out perhaps more cheerful, like for example famous Greek mythology, a matter on which Corfu relates strongly. My mother introduced Greek mythology when I was a child, something I took on and reissued with my own children albeit with varied success. A fascinating thing about Greek mythology is how humane Greek gods were depicted; truly behaved like mere mortals as to what passion and character relates. Tales recount Poseidon the sea god, fell in love with Korkyra, daughter of the river Asopos - major landmarks had their associated deity in Greek cosmology as in many others. As it was standard practice, Poseidon abducted Korkyra and brought her to this island which he named in her honor, bearing a child named Phaiakes purportedly giving origin to the nation of the Phaeacians. Greek mythology is full of these tales of cavorting gods and mortals intertwined in passionate sagas. The Iliad tells repeatedly how gods - divided among those patronizing Trojans and those favoring Greeks - resorted to wicked tricks among themselves to benefit their protegees. And then when some mortal hero in dire combat situation called for help, may be the whole divine gang was nowhere to be found, happened to be merrily partying elsewhere. Greek mythology does not stop with the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is a rather large collection of short stories; take for example the tale of Europe. Depending of the source, Europe was a beautiful woman of Phoenician origin, so beautiful that Zeus, the king of gods, set an eye on her and should not take no for an answer, cast himself into a bull and - yes you guessed - abducted her. From that union Minos was born (and two other sons) who gave origin to the Minoan civilization of Crete. Whatever, Corfu is nowadays as most of the Dalmatian Coast - the Adriatic Coast for that matter - a mecca for tourism thanks to a myriad of paradisiacal islands and coves where sun, blue water, glorious Greek cuisine heavy on olive, cheese, bread and wine leaves but anything to be desired. Our route now takes us skirting mainland Greece, stepping onto the large island of the Peloponnese with its three southward pointing fingers and straight into the Mediterranean, looking for the island of Crete and Africa on the far shore. In what seems just a few moments, we crossed the cradle of Occidental civilization, where democracy was invented and where philosophy, geometry and physics were if not born, given a big boost, not to mention theatre and literature. To be sure, it only took few more minutes over water to be handed over from Athens Center to Cairo Center, signaling the end of European airspace and the beginning of African airspace. As if any doubt could have been left about where western civilization began, the African shore is no less than home to Egypt and with it the forerunners, the land of the legends, of pharaohs and otherworldly megastructures not surprisingly making fertile grounds for tales of extraterrestrial ancestors. Muon echography has recently revealed tantalizing clues for yet undiscovered chambers within the great pyramids. Imperial Airways started services to the near and far East in 1927 with DH 66 Hercules aircraft, Cairo to Basra in what is now Iraq. Interestingly subsequent service to Karachi started in London by air to Basel in Switzerland from where a train leg to Genoa was required before boarding a Shorts S8 to Alexandria, another train to Cairo where another DH 66 was waiting to pick the hardy souls for the long and final leg to Pakistan. Later that same year the route was extended to Delhi. First flown in 1926 and with a wingspan of over 24 m the three engine DH 66 was a big airplane for its time, capable of carrying seven passengers. Just five years later Imperial had extended the eastern route as far as Brisbane while opening the southern route by successive steps all the way to Cape Town also with DH 66 equipment. But this story, we will pick up next time, talk about the fledging air routes to the near and far East and the intercontinental routes Pan Am opened across the Pacific and the Atlantic, just in the eve of WWII. While we sail across the Egyptian sea of sand following the west margin of the Nile to Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya to our first stop at Nairobi. See you soon! Rodolfo Astrada Read other articles in this series -
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