Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Africa

I can't spare a lot of time right now so the review of this flight will be a little short. The flight itself wasn't that long either, just 90 minutes. 90 more minutes with a Cessna going to the log.

A recent visitor country on my blog was Nigeria so a flight there was in order. More so that I had never done a flight in west-central Africa. This great part of the World is also excellent for airline or cargo flights. Definitely on the list for the future.

Getting ready, 19L



The problem when flying in Africa, if you consider it a problem is the long distances, it's such a large continent that setting up a short hop requires a lot of attention!

The first flight I set was from DNMM Lagos to a city in Cameroon. When I found out the whole deal was going to take like 10 hours in the C206 I looked for some place much closer.

After 20 minutes, I set up a VOR to VOR route to DNPO Port Harcourt from Lagos Murtala Muhammed. The 260NM route took a tad over 90 minutes from brake-release to shut-down.

Over the plains of Africa


The weather was calm at Lagos, just as expected a balmy 31C with scattered clouds at 1300'

I took off in a southerly direction, turned back to the north to intercept the necessary radial according to my flight plan.

Nice view to the right


The enroute flight was calm to say the least and I climbed to 6000' to ensure some good visibility.

After about an hour and a half of sight seeing and playing around with the instruments in the C206, I flew a left downwind leg for a landing on runway 05.

Approaches are a piece of cake with GA birds, whether curved or staight in. That said, my touchdowns are either too firm or I float too much, not to mention I always touchdown left or right of the centerline.

Final runway 5


The slow approach speed with full flaps provided me some good view of the Port Harcourt city surroundings.

4 white! I don't think so


The VAPIs in FS can go wrong and this was no exception as seen in the above shot. There is no way I was too high there.

DNMM definitely deserves a full airliner or cargo flight for sure, a heavy Air France and Lufthansa arrived just as I prepared for take-off.

This will probably be my last flight for 2010, 43 flights in total this year.

Thanks for viewing and happy new year to all the regulars of this blog!

3 comments:

  1. Gotta love that short final series of shots. That C206 is a keeper.....

    I know nothing of Africa Onur, always planned on doing a leg or two in South Africa but never got around to it.

    BTW, Did you see any Giraffes?

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  2. I wish I had!

    In some Nat Geo documenteries they film the animals from small airplanes at tree top altitude. I love those...

    It would be great to have animal autogen in FS.

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  3. They have it in FSX!

    Ya know I forgot how great that C206 panel is. You got some great captures there Onur.

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