Jeffery Kempson
I flew Tim and June Liversedge in a Cessna 320 Skyknight from Johannesburg to Shakawe in northwestern Botswana and spent a comfortable night on their luxurious houseboat, the Sitatunga.
The next morning, I flew to Maun to clear immigration and refuel before returning empty to Rand Airport in Germiston. However, the aircraft’s left engine could not be primed for starting. I checked the fuel pump circuit breakers, but all was well. So I called the maintenance company in Joburg, who advised that they would send an aircraft with an engineer to rectify the problem on Monday. It was now Friday morning, so the weekend loomed large.
I got a lift to the convivial riverside Crocodile Camp and, preparatory to booking in for the weekend, walked into the bar area, where I noticed a local bush pilot acquaintance with his arm around the shoulders of a very attractive blonde, blue-eyed girl.
I struck up a conversation with them, and she told me that she had a private pilot’s licence, but had driven her VW Kombi from Johannesburg to Maun, accompanied by a medical student lady friend. She then expressed an interest in seeing my Cessna 320, so we got into her Kombi, drove back to the airport, and climbed aboard the Cessna. After explaining some of the features I fiddled with the fuel pump circuit breaker again, then gave the breaker panel a sharp tap. To my delight the fuel pump came On, so I started the engine, then the other one. Having done a recent pre-flight, I took the girls on a game flight over the Okavango.
Back on the ground, I established sideband radio comms with the Sitatunga, and it was arranged that we could all fly to Shakawe and spend a couple of free nights on the luxury houseboat.
The girls checked out of Croc Camp, I cancelled the Joburg based engineer, and flew back to Shakawe. There we spent two pleasant nights on the beautiful houseboat cruising the Okavango River.
I dropped the girls back at Maun on the Monday morning, bade them goodbye after exchanging phone numbers, and promised to call when back in town.
Hearing that the Kombi was to now travel home via the indifferent dirt road through Ghanzi and Lobatse, I cautioned them on this routing. The blonde gave me an innocent smile, and we embarked on our separate journeys.
I did not know then that Christine, the blonde, together with three friends, had driven her Pinetown registered Kombi, complete with ZA sticker, overland from Durban through Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia – thence the Middle East, Iran and Pakistan to Northern France, then shipped it across the channel to her parents’ home in Kent England. This occurred during the rule of our ostracised White government. Later the Kombi was shipped back to SA.
I arrived home without incident, and a few days later phoned the blonde English rose to arrange a lunch. She had a job with an estate agency at that time. We got on well, and a couple of weeks later she moved in with me at my Inanda cottage. At this juncture I began to realise that I was cohabiting with a highly intelligent lady with an adventurous spirit.
We lived together for eight years. She acquired her Commercial Licence and instrument rating and accompanied me on the delivery flight of a Rally 180 GT from the factory in France to Lanseria. (This article was printed in SA Flyer as “A Scratch in Time.”)
Shortly after that she was offered a flight delivering a Rockwell 112TC to Northern Italy. I accompanied her as far as Nairobi, then she flew the rest of the way herself. I was very proud of her.
We treated the initial part of the Rockwell ferry as a bit of a holiday, routing via Blantyre, then spent a couple of days at the Mombasa Beach Hotel, then on to charming Malindi. While there and wearing a brief yellow bikini, we walked along the beach until we came to a seaside Mosque. Unconcerned, Christine walked inside, innocently displaying her voluptuous charms to the congregation of disapproving worshippers. She had entered out of friendly curiosity, but a fearsome hissing sound emanated from the kneeling devotees. I can’t remember if it was a Friday or not, but we made a run for it, with several furious worshippers in pursuit, some feigning picking up and throwing non-existent stones from the beach, doubtless to mimic a fervent stoning of the infidels. This event occurred prior to our future awareness of Islamic conservatism. Once clear, my lovely companion exclaimed; “What’s the matter with them? I was only smiling and waving to be friendly.”
We returned to our beachside hotel by an alternative route. Then we flew to Nairobi, where I left her to continue her solo flight to Italy, as I returned by airline to Johannesburg, and more mundane freelance charter flying.
A few days later she landed safely at her northern Italian destination, surprising the owner when she told him that she now had a total of only 290 flying hours.
Thereafter, she undertook several successful solo ferry flights including delivering a Cessna 210 from the UK to Lanseria. Later she also flew several fights to Okavango guest lodges, but was somewhat discomfited by the chauvinism of some opiniated South African male pilots passing disparaging comments about female pilots.
One day, after flying a Cessna 182 to Delareyville and spending an uneventful day sitting in a roadside café awaiting her returning passengers, she declared that the excessive ground time wasted in much charter flying was a dreary, unproductive waste of time. So we formed an aircraft sales company called Professional Aviation Services and took an upstairs office at the old Lanseria Airport terminal building.
Shortly after, I persuaded a personable pilot acquaintance to consider replacing their company Piper Cheyenne with a larger, more comfortable, Beechcraft King Air 200.
Based in Ficksburg, this prosperous Afrikaans company ran an insurance scheme for farmers in the Orange Free State. I interested them in stepping up and we liaised via telephone and telex with an enterprising Scandinavian Beechcraft franchise owner whose managing director was also an active and very proficient pilot.
In due course an almost new Danish registered King Air 200 arrived at Lanseria, which we then flew to Ficksburg and performed an impressive demonstration for their pilot Tanner Harris, and company executives while operating from the rudimentary Ficksburg grass airstrip.
Negotiations proceeded well, and a few days later the contract was signed. Their Piper Cheyenne was not traded in, but sold privately, which was a relief.
An interesting aside was that the Kin Air had standard gear, which in SA has mostly been supplanted by High Float Gear utilising larger main wheels to accommodate unpaved airstrips. Interestingly, Beechcraft stated that unless their aircraft were operated on unpaved airstrips more than fifty per cent of the time, the standard gear should suffice. At considerable expense the High Float gear was later installed, whereafter Captain Harris lamented the consequent decrease in cruising speed.
Anyway, we made some reasonable money on this deal, and stepped up from KFC cuisine to steak dinners. We were also invigorated at the angst exhibited by the local Lanseria Beechcraft Agents, who also refused to service this King Air. So we made a plan with the outfit that had the original Canadair Challenger agency at Lanseria and paid their licensed King Air endorsed engineer half his salary on the basis of him giving preference to servicing the Ficksburg based King Air when necessary.
These were the pre-internet days. Our office comprised of Christine, a secretary, Diane, and me, two phones and a telex machine. Sometimes the clattering telex machine was so busy, and got so hot, that I considered keeping a bucket of water handy in case it caught fire.
During this period I followed a drinking regimen that delayed imbibing until five pm. This principle was developed from operations in the Okavango tourist lodge era.
American clients had occasionally been heard to complain that should one of their number suffer a medical emergency, the pilot may not be in an airworthy condition to casevac them out to Johannesburg for first world medical attention. I made a concession to sobriety until five o clock, then added a minute for watch error, telling them after that they would be on their own. I also jokingly cautioned them not to provoke the wildlife with excessively large camera lenses during late afternoon game drives.
On one embarrassing occasion we had entertained prospective aircraft buyers to a seafood dinner at an expensive Sandton City restaurant but later, entering the car park, I noticed that the back right wheel of Christine’s Kombi was flat.
Being inebriated, I collapsed against the left rear wheel. A youthful gentleman who only had eyes for Christine arrived but did not notice me slumped there in the shadows. He chivalrously changed the Kombi wheel, though when replacing the flat wheel and Jack in the boot he heard my slurred mention of “seafood poisoning,” and I gave him an uncoordinated wave of thanks, to which he uttered a furious expletive, and drove away.
Christine was very embarrassed, then became downright angry. After I had seated myself and while trying to close the passenger door, I fell out onto the floor. “I should just leave you here,” she said. I was too incoherent to answer, and opened the window in case a half digested prawn tried to surface.
Things at Professional alternated between being really good, and worryingly dire. I managed to sell a CL44, a very large, four turboprop swing tail freighter, unseen, in Miami to an operator in the Congo. Sadly, it had an engine failure during the delivery flight, and the American owner reduced our commission.
Shortly after this an attractive and affable lady pilot named Gay Russell approached us with a view to the Malawi based company, Limbe Leaf Tobacco, purchasing a Cessna Citation business jet to facilitate their African travels. Gay and Christine hit it off very well, so I left most of the negotiations to her, particularly as she had more business acumen, and a warmer smile than me.
At this time Gay introduced us to the other lady pilot, the pleasant ex-Kenyan aviatrix, Iris McCallum, whose interesting articles appear regularly in SA Flyer.
The sale was completed, and Gay travelled to America where our associate arranged an independent inspection, and subsequently carried out her jet conversion. Gay flew the jet home with an experienced ferry pilot.
This was another feather in our cap, and irritated the then local Cessna agent, who believed that they had an exclusive monopoly on Cessna jet aircraft sales.
In due course, the Citation came to be maintained by Billy Cochrane, the highly qualified and dependable Chief Engineer of the recently opened Comair Jet Centre at Lanseria. I came to know Billy and his vivacious, multi-talented wife Mich very well, and can attest to Billy’s reputation as one of the very best general aviation, and later corporate jet engineers in Africa. His talent had initially been recognised by an earlier employer, the reputable Westair in Windhoek, who promoted Billy to the position of Chief Engineer, the youngest ever in Southern Africa at the time.
In earlier Lanseria days, I frequented the often-rowdy Lanseria pub after arriving back from flights. I fell in with a crowd of hard drinking GA pilots who knew that the pub only closed when the last patron left. However, we mostly maintained the 8 hours between bottle and throttle dictum.
I recall one evening, having run out of ready cash, I sold my slightly defective Breitling Navitimer watch to a local aircraft engineer for R10, then I bought a round of drinks.
One unhappy post pub evening, while Christine was in the UK visiting her aging parents, I drove her recently acquired Alfa Romeo, bought from George Leach, the then Chief Pilot of Anglo American. The little green Alfa was her pride and joy. Before she flew off to the UK to visit her parents, I suggested that she leave the keys with me so that I could drive it occasionally to keep the battery charged. She reluctantly agreed, provided I drove it sober, and in daylight hours.
Sad to relate. One inebriated evening, I left the Lanseria pub and drove the Alfa away into the dark, moonless night. All went well, until I entered a long rural road in the countryside, heading for a cottage we had moved into.
There had recently been a newspaper article alluding to a suspected terrorist shootout in the Hekpoort area. Mindful of this snippet, I was on the lookout for dubious rural criminals. However, I must briefly have been resting my eyes when I felt a shuddering movement through the car. Opening my eyes it seemed that I was in a right banking manoeuvre, so I instinctively moved the wheel to the left to bring the wings level, then realised I was not actually aloft, and over corrected to the right to exit the grassy bank I had mounted. I regained the road with a shuddering thump. After straightening out, the car began to run roughly. Added to this, a small burning patch appeared behind me in the rear-view mirror, then extinguished, only to be followed by another burning patch on the road like a small funeral pyre. Mindful of the recent newspaper article I now believed that I was under attack and accelerated to get away, but the car was performing sluggishly. I looked up, but could see no attacking aircraft.
At the next road junction, I turned ninety degrees to escape, but I was still being trailed by burning patches on the road. After a while the car cut out and would not restart. I climbed out, fell over, picked myself up and opened the bonnet, to be met by a minor inferno. I collected a few handfuls of sand from the roadside and threw them into the engine compartment, to no avail. Then the hooter came on. I managed to stop that by prising a battery connection loose. Then I extracted my flight bag from the boot, moved to sit on a fallen log nearby, lit a cigarette and watched the Alfa burn. Thereafter; it was a long walk home to a bad hangover.
It appears that when the car had ascended the bank, one of the dual carburettor bowls had fallen off and petrol had fallen onto the hot exhaust, ignited, then dropped onto the road as a briefly burning finale.
This unhappy event took some fanciful explanation when Christine returned, and marked the deterioration in our relationship. Christine and I continued living together for a while, then started drifting apart, moved to separate bedrooms, and occasionally went out with other partners.
One New Year’s Eve I was away on a night stop, while Christine and my soon to be new lady friend attended a new year’s eve party. The next day an urbane fair haired, articulate, well-spoken gentleman came to call on Christine. Ironically they had been introduced by my pending new lady friend.
Thereafter, Robert Garbett appeared at our Lanseria office quite frequently and took an interest in our business affairs. We were going through a bad financial patch at that time, and Bob and Christine were attracted to one another, so our relationship took on a decidedly frosty aspect.
There were some bitter recriminations. Then, taking our secretary with me, I moved out and joined the then Mooney agent, Hugh Hodgson, who also owned a maintenance outfit at Lanseria. Interestingly, he was also in the process of negotiating a franchise for the new Mitsubishi Diamond business jet.
I conceitedly reckoned Professional Aviation wouldn’t last six months without me. However, I had underestimated the rather obvious appeal of a well-educated businessman who could read an aircraft manual, wore good suits with double cuff long sleeved shirts, cufflinks, and silk ties. This made a favourable impression on potential corporate customers who, during boardroom discussions regarding the acquisition of expensive turboprop or business jet aircraft, expected the conversations to also include the comprehensive aspects regarding peripheral insurance, financial considerations, and relevant matters pursuant to corporate practice.
After a while I returned to freelance flying for several more years and gave up drinking, which saved me so much money that I was able to buy a used Piper Arrow for cash, which I then flew on charters and made more money than flying someone else’s aircraft.
Tiring of long-distance cut-rate flying in the Arrow, which seemed to attract permanent headwinds, and not being able to afford to pay cash for a 6-seater Cessna 210, I bought a Comanche 250 with tip tanks. This move up to a 155 knot, 4-seater charter machine with eight plus hour’s fuel endurance was extremely practical and affordable. Operating my own aircraft also gave me some leverage with the ‘charter queens’, and induced in me a much greater satisfaction than flying some other aircraft with a dubious maintenance history.
In time Bob married Christine, and we buried the proverbial hatchet. I subsequently both sold aircraft to Professional Aviation Services and bought several from them as well.
Little did I suspect that the Mopani tree region of Northern Botswana held a further romance for me, together with the launching of an exotic new aviation venture.