Yep, having some armed protection on occasion was comforting....Undried Plum wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 6:15 am.......I had a pair of SLR-equipped BSAP guys, one by each rear door, in case the losing side of the expected vote became prematurely ungruntled.
By the time gruntlement was stirred, we'd all facked orf back to Blighty with our toys.....
No forgiveness needed. It is all very interesting and, as you say, these flights will be forgotten if they are not noted.CharlieOneSix wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:16 pmYes, low skids were restrictive. I had the north-east sector out to the Mozambique border. Flying into the armed guerilla camps was interesting - for example the small contingent of 30 British troops at Camp Charlie negotiated that I would arrive overhead at 2000ft at 1100 precisely and gently let down in an orbit. All the time trying to avoid blade slap lest it be misinterpreted. Jeez, all this is 41 years ago - hope TGG forgives us for the drift but as old age advances they have to potential to become the forgotten flights of the thread title!
Caesar HullUndried Plum wrote: ↑Wed Mar 10, 2021 1:30 pmI actively wanted to be forgotten at one of my landings sites. Fortunately, to the jigaboos we pinkies all look the same to them.
It was where I'd been a few years earlier, with some 'ex' mil guys to obliterate some farm buildings which had been 'appropriated' from a very good friend of mine by the mob.
Long story. I'll expand on it in a post some evening.
* Mike Kruger's outfit spirited the plaque out of Zimbabwe.Caesar Hull was born in Shangani, Southern Rhodesia and brought up in South Africa. He was accepted for an RAF commission in 1935 and, after pilot training, joined No 43 Squadron Tangmere in August 1936. In early 1940, following the outbreak of war, he destroyed a He 111 and shared in the destruction of two others before being posted in May 1940 to No 263 Squadron flying Gladiators. Having deployed with his unit to Norway he destroyed five further enemy aircraft. Unfortunately, in his final engagement he was wounded by enemy fire and was evacuated to England.
He returned to RAF Tangmere to take command of No 43 Squadron on 31 August 1940 and claimed three aircraft destroyed during the following week. However, on 7 September 1940 he was killed in action whilst attacking a large force of Do 17 bombers escorted by Bf 109 fighter aircraft. His Hurricane crashed in the grounds of Purley High School and he was later buried in St Andrews Church, Tangmere. He was 27 years old.
After his death, the citizens of Shangani erected a memorial to his honour. This consisted of a granite plinth into which was affixed a Brass plaque. Many years later the road system in Shangani changed and the monument to Caesar Hull became isolated, overgrown and largely forgotten. In January 2004 Alistair Hull, a second cousin to Caesar, visited the area and found it intact. In order to thwart Mugabe’s so-called war veterans taking the plaque for its brass, he tried to recover it but, on being shot at by nearby squatters, withdrew hastily from the scene. It was at this time that the Hull family, including Caesar’s sister in England, Mrs Wendy Bryan, decided that the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum should be the plaque’s ideal ‘resting place’. Sometime later, two patriotic Zimbabweans delivered it to Alistair in Harare. It was then *air freighted to the UK and presented to the Museum by Wendy Bryan on 17 April 2004.
THE MEMORIAL PLAQUE TO CAESAR HULL CAN BE FOUND IN THE MUSEUM’S BATTLE OF BRITAIN HALL.
MK Airlines 
With the 748 we used to route Cairo then down the East Coast Jeddah, Djiboutj, Mogadiscio, Mombasa, Dar, Lusaka, Harare.Undried Plum wrote: ↑Sun Mar 07, 2021 6:17 pmJust out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?
Fane was a character of note, a racing driver, who was relatively old, at 28 years old,when he volunteered to join the PRU. Like many in that unit he tended to be a maverick, in his case known to play with his service revolver, once shooting a hole in the map in the briefing room (as told by Constance Babbington Smith). He was highly respected in the unit and achieved exceptional results, sadly being killed while fly IFR (I follow railways) in IMC after an aborted mission.Remarkable low-level oblique photographic-reconnaissance photograph taken over the German battleship TIRPITZ moored in Aasfjord, Norway, by a Supermarine Spitfire of No. 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. The photograph was taken by Flight Lieutenant A P F Fane, a former racing car driver, from an altitude of 100 feet, and shows the central portion of the battleship aft of the bridge. -IWM
- From Wikipedia <<translated from German>>Aviator in World War II
After the outbreak of the Second World War , Albert Fane volunteered for the war. He really wanted to become a pilot and trained as a fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force (RAF) . After completing his training, he was transferred to the reserve and in 1941 with the rank of flight lieutenant of No. Assigned to 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit of the RAF. With a Supermarine Spitfire he flew reconnaissance missions over the North Atlantic . His task consisted of photographically recording goals.
On January 23, 1942, he took off from Wick Air Force Base and flew first across the Atlantic and then along the Norwegian coast towards Trondheim . He discovered the German battleship Tirpitz anchored in the Fættenfjord (the eastern branch of the Trondheimfjord ) . During the overflight at a low altitude, he managed to take some pictures of the unmasked ship.
On July 18, 1942, Fane took off from RAF Benson on a flight that took him to Flensburg . There he took pictures of submarines in the port of Flensburg . On the return flight he missed his home airfield in bad weather and had to make an emergency landing... during the crash landing, he was thrown from the plane and died. Albert Fane had flown 25 reconnaissance missions
Didn't they make a film about Mogadishu in the context of aviation?Ex-Ascot wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 1:11 pmWith the 748 we used to route Cairo then down the East Coast Jeddah, Djiboutj, Mogadiscio, Mombasa, Dar, Lusaka, Harare.Undried Plum wrote: ↑Sun Mar 07, 2021 6:17 pmJust out of curiosity, what is the current GA-friendly routing from the Med coast to Southern Africa?
During World War Two Ogilvie served with the RAF, rising to rank of Group Captain. He was mentioned in despatches three times and was awarded the Companion, DSO, in March 1941, and DFC in January 1942. He died in December 1944 when his Spitfire went missing over the North Sea and is commemorated on the University of Glasgow Roll of Honour and at Runnymead Memorial, Berkshire (panel 200).
Cometh the hour cometh the man...In March, 1941, this officer undertook an important daylight reconnaissance sortie and obtained the most valuable results. In the execution of his important task Squadron Leader Ogilvie displayed exceptional navigational skill throughout the flight of over 1,100 miles. As commanding officer of the unit, Squadron Leader Ogilvie has set a splendid example both in the air and on the ground and his courage and determined leadership have been outstanding. He has completed numerous daylight reconnaissances, often under difficult conditions, obtaining excellent results on many occasions. London Gazette No. 35134, Dated 1941-04-11
Read the rest of this sad tale here...The most imposing tomb in a walled European cemetery on the island of Lamu, off the coast of Kenya, is that of Dr Anne Spoerry: born in France in 1918, died in Nairobi in 1999. The inscription tells visitors that she was a “legendary flying doctor”. And, indeed, she is revered in her adopted country for bringing healthcare to thousands of people living miles from help. “She probably saved more lives than any other individual in east Africa – if not the whole continent,” said her friend, the anthropologist Richard Leakey. Dr Tom Rees, a founder of the Flying Doctors, says “she personally eliminated polio from nearly 100 miles of the Kenyan coast.”
But after she died, her nephew, Bernard Spoerry, opened one of three safes she kept in her up-country farmhouse. In it, there was a surprise. Among the many documents it contained was one, dated October 25 1947: “Central Registry of War Criminals Consolidated Wanted List. Spoerry, Anne Marie, C.R. File No: 191069 C.C. Ravensbrück (Ger.), Reason wanted: Torture, wanted by FR. (France).”
I knew nothing of this when I visited Spoerry’s grave with my wife in December 2000. My first reflection that serene evening by the Indian Ocean was on the selflessness of an old friend. Like so many others, I believed she was a verifiable heroine. But something did niggle – the memory of Spoerry’s total embargo on the subject of the second world war, any mention of which made her quick to anger. So the next day, when I ran into Bernard – who had inherited Spoerry’s many properties in Kenya – I asked why the subject of the war was so off-limits to his aunt. I had heard rumours that she had been tortured by the Germans – was it true? All he knew, he said, was a family story that Spoerry had once been denounced as a “sex slave”.
…
I met Spoerry in October 1980, when I was working in Kenya as a journalist and filmmaker. After a long campaign on my part to secure an audience, she finally agreed to meet me. Imperious from the start, she kept me waiting for hours outside her Nairobi office in the headquarters of the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref). I later learned that the little more than 5ft-tall woman who finally emerged regularly packed a .38 Special in her bush jacket.
She appeared to register stony indifference to my pitch – to write about a week in the life of a flying doctor – but just a few days afterwards, there I was, sitting in the co-pilot seat at the start of a four-day flying safari through the north of Kenya. I carried much of her equipment and, at every clinic, marched to her command. We saw at least 150 patients, all tribal people, some dressed simply in a string of beads. We encountered ailments as diverse as mental illness, spear wounds, corneal ulcers, leprosy, malaria, breech birth and one case of osteomyelitis.
Spoerry conducted three medical tours like this nearly every month for 35 years, often landing on barely discernible airstrips. Week one: the Northern Frontier District. Week two: villages along the shores of Lake Victoria, and week three: the Kenya coast, from Mombasa to the Somali frontier. In the early days, she often saw 1,000 patients a month and inoculated 2,000 children a week. By the end of our circuit, my reporter’s detachment had deserted me. I was besotted.
A pilot who took what Winston Churchill called "the pictures that sank the Bismarck" is being commemorated.
Michael Suckling located the battleship, which was the pride of Nazi Germany's navy and a threat to allied shipping during World War Two.
His images, taken from a long-range Spitfire and returned to commanders in a daredevil night-time dash, led to a major propaganda coup for Britain.
A Bramley apple tree is being planted at the National Memorial Arboretum.
PO Suckling's unheated, unarmed and unpressurised Spitfire took off from RAF Wick in Caithness just before noon on 18 May 1941.
Twenty years old and with boyish looks, "Babe" Suckling, from Southwell in Nottinghamshire, was a relative veteran, having completed 19 such missions.
His plane groped through the skies above Norway, photographing ports, fjords and secluded inlets but finding little of interest.
Nearing the end of its fuel range, he took an unauthorised detour and at Grimstadfjord, near Bergen, finally spotted the huge ship with a cluster of support vessels.
CharlieOneSix wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:12 pmSo the raspberry ripple one in the centre of my photo, rear row, must be yours UP! Mine was G-AWJW - third from the right, front row. Salisbury Airport, February 1980, before the fun started!Undried Plum wrote: ↑Tue Mar 09, 2021 8:45 pm.........Harawe might be a bit problematic for me.
Last time, I wore a pistol on my hip when flying a 206 on tall skids, which was painted like a fukkin raspberry ripple, from outlying bits of rural areas of Rhodesia to collecting stations of black-painted cuboid tin poll-boxes.............
206-ramp-Salisbury-Feb-1980.jpg
It is always good to have a good getaway driver and vehicle in the African context... also good to get have a beer with your mate before he took off heaven bound, my friends tend to just bugger off, without a bye your leave (with increasing monotony these days).Undried Plum wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:58 pm
The previously untold story goes as follows:
I was just the Driver, Airframe. The getaway driver, in effect.
Heminway, John Hylan. In Full FlightOn February 6, 1999, a mob of yellow-billed kites circled Wilson Airport in Kenya, the busiest civil aviation hub in all Africa. The carrion birds had just left the nearby Nairobi slum of Kibera and were exploiting an uncommon void in the airspace over the runways. They might have been honor guards as they circled above a cortege of Land Cruisers, sedans, and buses out of which poured mourners: women in dated frocks and men stiff in regimental blazers, shiny at the elbow from age. Here and there, Ismaili and Sikh women, exiting minivans, arranged their saris. The great majority of arrivals were African, dressed in clothes reserved for church, weddings, and death.
Within the hangar only a few found seats; otherwise, it was standing room only. None could recall Wilson Airport so hushed, with all airplanes tied down, as a mark of respect. East Africa was in mourning for its celebrated flying doctor Anne Spoerry (pronounced Shpeuri), felled by a stroke four days previously at age eighty, still in harness to her life’s calling, helping the rural poor. Over a thousand people found space in the Flying Doctors’ hangar to pay last respects. The ceremony rang with the solemnity of a state funeral. Many had traveled from overseas, and no sector of Kenyan society was lacking. Infants strapped to their mothers’ backs, creaky-limbed elders, a colorful array of tribes, Asian merchants, Europeans, Americans, government ministers, the diplomatic corps, and unattended children all jostled for sight lines in the echoing metal building. Dr. Anne Spoerry had spent nearly fifty years in Africa, tending to the health of over a million patients, drawn mostly from the far corners of Kenya. It was said no other physician could match her industry, tenacity, and productivity in the cause of Africa’s well-being. As a sole lifeline for the poor, it was not uncommon for patients to declare her a saint. In the hangar the mourners were a study in devotion, stifling coughs, eyes flickering from emotion, minds reliving the triumphs of her life. The sight of Spoerry’s Piper Lance PA-32 plane, known throughout Kenya as “Zulu Tango” from its call sign, 5Y-AZT, drew many to reach for handkerchiefs. Positioned front and center, both coffin and airplane were draped in tropical garlands. For those who once awaited Anne on ribbon-thin airstrips, this Africa-scarred machine spoke of endurance and courage. Zulu Tango had been their sole glimmer of hope in a land begging for miracles. Over the course of Spoerry’s long career, no place had been too far, no airstrip too risky, no patient beyond caring. Inside the echoing hangar, eulogies ran long, with every speaker heaping praise on the doctor for her no-nonsense style, strength, and compassion.