IRIS FLIES ACROSS SUDAN
Laura McDermid continues her stories about Iris McCallum’s early years in East Africa and the Sudan.
The five months that I’d been at Sunbird Aviation had been a steep learning curve in terms of learning how to navigate unchartered territories using only a watch and a compass.
I found that the most difficult aspect of this was to keep the faith. I soon learned that the secret to bush flying is to maintain your heading, and not to do anything stupid by trying to correct something you have no control over.
Easier said than done of course.
On 8 September 1980, I was to fly a bunch of Belgian Missionaries, who were based in Aweil, a city in northwestern South Sudan near the Sudanese border, from Wilson Airport in Nairobi in my old mate ‘ARN’, the Piper Aztec 5Y-ARN.
In order to clear customs and refuel, we had to fly to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, a distance of 489 nm and then a further 343 nm to Aweil.
These were all new places, and not many pilots had flown there.
Whenever I was unsure of a route, I would consult one of my colleagues. I sought out Captain Douglas Bird, inevitably named Dicky Bird.
Dicky Bird had done my first Kenyan instrument rating on his Piper Twin Comanche PA-30 (known amongst the pilots as the ‘widow maker’). I had previously done a twin rating on a PA-30 in the USA, and was comfortable flying the aircraft, even after not having flown one in a long time.
The aeroplane was VMC critical and was known to live up to its nickname if flown in adverse weather. Having only ever flown the PA-30 at sea level in Florida, flying this aircraft at altitude was a wonderful challenge.
Dicky Bird brought out some large Operational Navigation Charts (ONC) and laid them out on the board room table. ‘Iris, the most difficult part of this trip will be from Bor to Aweil’, he drew a line with his pencil between the two points, ‘there are no land marks and no navigation aids.’
He took out his protractor and ruler and measured the distance.
‘You’re going to be flying approximately two and half hours over the Sudd.’
The Sudd is a vast swamp in South Sudan formed by the White Nile’s Bahr al-Jabal section and is the largest freshwater wetland in the Nile Basin, covering an area of 500 km south to north and 200 km east to west.
The Arabic word Sudd means ‘obstruction’, as indeed this swamp proved to many intrepid explorers over the centuries.
‘Iris don’t fly directly from Bor to Aweil, fly to Wau instead and most importantly pick up the railway line.’ He drew a squiggly line on the map punctuated with bisecting lines, indicating the railway line.
‘Once you find it, turn right; Wau is at the end of the line. From there it’s not a long fight to Aweil, just stick to your compass heading and time.’
‘Oh and Iris, another thing, never ask your passengers if they recognise anything from the air because they won’t, even if they’ve been there a thousand times.’
I was all set.
Kenya Breweries had just launched the Tusker bottles for export, which we fondly nicknamed Dumpies.
Having learned early on that you had to be self-sufficient on these trips if you wanted a cool beer at the end of a long hot day, I managed to squeeze six of them into my mini green cool bag with an ice pack.
It was the morning of the departure. I glanced at my watch for the umpteenth time willing the hands to freeze. My passengers were late which meant that I’d be chasing the sun that afternoon.
Furthermore, flying in the rift valley as it was heating up always meant a rough ride.
By the time we got through customs and immigration at Wilson, my airborne time was 10h30.
I flew north along the Great Rift Valley, skirting Nakuru National Park, over the Turkwell Gorge, along the river via Eldoret and over Kitale on the Western wall of the Rift west of Lake Victoria, and within sight of Mt. Elgon.
The land here was predominantly used for farming, and was a rich verdant green, a testament to the fertile soil.
The sun was now directly above me, pressing my shadow into a tight ball.
I remained high over the Lolibai and Dongatona Mountains, until I was cleared to descend into Juba.
The flight took 3.5 hours. Due to a difference in time zones, we had gained an hour, a small win.
As I opened ARN’s door, a wall of heat hit me. I felt as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus. I tried to suck air into my lungs, but it seemed devoid of oxygen and my mouth gasped stupidly like a fish on dry land. The heat scorched my eyeballs and leached every ounce of moisture out of them.
I blinked rapidly in a vain attempt to stimulate my tear-ducts; each time I closed my eyes it felt like sandpaper behind my eyelids.
After refuelling the aircraft, I tackled the nauseating process of immigration and customs, ushering my passengers into the airport. In the arrival lounge, old fans whirled overhead at almost zero RPM. They didn’t help to cool things down, in fact they seemed to spread the heat. I watched as the fans above my head groaned impotently, no doubt slowed by years of fly shit.
We departed Juba at 13h30 local time for Bor. The soft, superheated air rising from the runway offered so little body for the wings that we ascended reluctantly, seeming actually to sag when the wheels broke ground and sometimes barely surmounting the oncoming trees.
As expected, the flight was rough. I heard one of my passengers vomit noisily into an air-sick bag. That’ll teach the buggers for being late.
This part of the trip was still easy, I just followed the White Nile North for about 40 minutes to find Bor airstrip. The Nile held an excitement and allure when viewed from the air. This river had so much history that, regardless of how many times I laid eyes on it, it was like seeing it for the first time.
I landed at Bor and offloaded the supplies that I’d bought with from Nairobi for the local mission, and topped ARN up with avgas.
We spent 40 minutes on the ground and got airborne at 16h00 for Aweil via Wau.