Yes, we made it! Thank you very much for the responses on questions I had in this Forum.
Here comes a short report on our trip from Germany to South Africa (Western Cape) that we did in November 2022.
Day 1: Augsburg – Dubrovnik – Heraklion
The trip started in Augsburg and the mission was a private ferryflight of a Cirrus SR22 G5 to South Africa in November 2022. The first two legs to Dubrovnik and Heraklion were uneventful in mostly IMC conditions. We have flown to these airports only in summer before, where everything is busy and sometimes hectic. But in November it looked like staff was happy to see some folks coming in. The first night we spend in Heraklion at ibis Styles Central, friendly “no frills” hotel – great place for a stopover in Heraklion.
DAY 2: Marsa Matruh – Abu Simbel (Egypt)
Our first stop in Northern Egypt was Marsa Matruh a military airport with civilian co-use.
From here on the flight was coordinated by Ahmed Hassan from General Aviation Support Egypt, who did an excellent job getting all necessary permits and organising the necessary “blue juice” – AVGAS.
In Marsah (and later on in Abu Simbel) the AVGAS was delivered in a leaking green bowser from Soviet production. The building for custom clearance had many doors and our passports were handed from one to another. The most important man in Marsa seemed to be an official in a white suit with black patent-leather shoes who finally stamped our passports. We were ready to fly in Egypt!
The next leg took us 600NM to Abu Simbel close to the border of Sudan, at the western bank of Lake Nasser. Apart from the Nile valley the majority of Egypt’s landscape is desert, with a few oasis sprinkled around.
In the evening we enjoyed the oriental hustle and bustle of the village with their small shops and takeaways. Next day we got up early to visit the great temple of Ramesses II and the small temple of Hathor and Nefartiti. We were totally taken by the history and the “genius loci” of these temple buildings, despite the many tourists around. We should have taken more time…
Departure from RWY 33 gave us a great view on the temple complex in the rocks. We had to climb in spirals over the airport to FL150 anyway – enough time for pictures.
DAY 3: Khartum (Sudan)
During the 2,5h flight over the Nubian desert to Khartum we frequently lost communication, which worried us in Africa at the beginning, but then we got used to it. Relay requests to airliners remained unanswered. We realised that they also were loosing communication quite frequently. “Just continue as filed” became our motto. Foreflight has a nice little feature “Area Control Center” that shows control frequencies of the sector you are in. That was sometimes quite helpful to get into radio contact again.
Khartum is a huge metropolis at the confluence of the white and the blue Nile. When flying through the desert at a low flight level coming closer to urban areas you are reminded what significance water has for life. While approaching Khartum we were handed over to tower frequency quite early and we got approach and landing clearance by a very professional female (!) tower controller. After landing a short moment of shock! We had forgotten to get the General Declaration in Abu Simbel. The GenDec is a mandatory immigration document for flights leaving or entering other countries. It allows for immigration as flight crew and border control. With the help of Ahmed from GASE (whom we met in person in Khartum) we received a copy per WhatsApp that was printed out by the local handler.
For the first time we received AVGAS out of a barrel and as we realised later, it was the most expensive fuel bill throughout our journey (USD 7.50/litre).
We stayed in the Al Salam hotel close to the airport. No credit cards accepted, you need to pay cash (USD).
Great service, very good food, no alcohol… – what about a Shisha and a peppermint tea?
DAY 4: Khartum – Lokichogio (Kenya) – Nairobi/Wilson
Although we had Garmin Connext on board, we could not retrieve graphical radar images of the weather situation in Africa. Only METAR, TAF and PIREPS. A call with Sebastian Golze before we started our trip, had confirmed that this for some reasons (data format and bandwidth) is possible, but far too expensive.
Before we took off we developed the routine to download the relevant weather forecast charts hour-by-hour from Windy and saved them for later usage during flight. The closer we got to the equator the more important this information was. Of course not very accurate and up-to-date, but better then nothing.
The 690NM flight and longest leg of our trip from Khartum over South-Sudan to „Loki“ (Lokichogio) took us 4:20h. We departed early in the morning from RWY 36 and had a great view on the city of Khartum. The pre-dominant colour from the cockpit perspective changed slowly from beige to green. The atmosphere got more and more humid. We were going IMC from time to time.
Due to NOTAM the TORA/LDA of the runway in Loki was 850m (instead of 1.800m), which presented later on a significant challenge. But of that a little later…
When we landed we saw many aircraft wrecks and spare parts lying around. The „remainder“ of the asphalt runway was a little bumpy, but not too bad. When we opened the doors, we were greated by a young army soldier having shouldered an AK-47 with the words: „I am here to protect you!“ Aha… 4 to 5 other people showed up and were interested in who we are. Passports were stamped in a small hut.
Then we were waiting for the ordered AVGAS barrel. An hour later, “Washington” turned up with the barrel in his station wagon: 2m tall, his eyes and the way he was talking told us, that he „was in a different mood“. Accompanied by curses he rolled the barrel out of the trunk of his car, almost smashing his feet. Several time he asked us, if we have a pump. Obviously he was keen on selling us one for a “little extra”. The fact that we had a pump with us, was disappointing to him and made him a aggressive. Later he turned away and wanted to file our flight plan.
It took us some time to refuel the airplane. We filled jerry cans first and then from the jerry cans into the airplane using a filter. We wanted to have 100% control on the amount of AVGAS going into the Cirrus. Everything took much longer than expected. Temperatures turned to 38 degrees Celsius in the afternoon, almost no wind, airport altitude was 2.100ft. We did our calculations more than one time. For security reasons and much to the delight of the „airport staff“ we decided to leave our toolbox, anti icing and some other stuff behind to add some safety margin to our take-off. Good decision! We departed safely on RWY 09 and were happy not to have stayed overnight, as originally planned. „Hamdullah“!
Accompanied by CB’s, we landed after a 3 hour leg in Nairobi/Wilson, the busy General Aviation airport of the city. The first beers at the East African Flying Club close to the airport were a delight! When you stay in Wilson overnight, we recommend book your hotel room there. Very friendly staff, good bar and restaurant and on top of this they do your handling!
DAY 5: a night in “the Mara”
Next day we were invited by a friend to his lodge in Massai Mara. “The Mara” is a large national game reserve park in Kenya named in honour of the Massai people. It is north to the Serengeti national park in Tansania.
When departing from Nairobi calculating density altitude and take off roll is a must! Wilson is on 5.500ft with 2 crossed runways each around 1.500m. Temperatures are rising in November to >35 Celsius. We landed in the bush on a short landing strip 30 minutes to the East of Wilson and did a tour through the wilderness. We were guided by Daniel a young Massai, proud of his origin and customs, knowledgeable about nature and animals, but also connected to the world by social media, discussing the results of the COP27 climate change conference with us.
Before departing we were inspecting the whole runway by feet and did a careful analysis of the area surrounding us. The Cirrus is not the #1 airplane for bush flying, we saw lots of Caravans and Cessna 206 in Wilson – much better choice!!!
DAY 6: Zanzibar (Tansania)
Our next stop was Zanzibar, the archipelago in the Indian Ocean. We decided to stay in Zanzibar city and enjoy the night with good restaurants and the busy activities on the marketplaces and the seafront.
Do not talk to more than one handler at the airport. Everybody wants to charge you some money. It required some clear “announcements” to get out of it…
Second thing is, when departing from Zanzibar to Pemba make sure the tower understands that you do not want to fly to Pemba on Pemba Island, but Pemba in Mozambique…
DAY 7+8: Pemba – Vilankulo (Mozambique)
The flight to Pemba took us 400NM along the coastline of Tansania and Mozambique with wonderful views. It was quite busy on the radio and the controller from Dar-Es-Salaam did a very professional job separating the airplanes without any radar control.
We decided to stop for a fuel in Pemba, a small international airport in Mozambique. The airport was quite busy with humanitarian operations of UN aircrafts and helicopters. On top of this the presidential airplane was on a parking stand. He was obviously visiting Pemba that same day.
Refueling was quite easy with a separate BP service station. Paperwork required some time and the airports’ system was agonizingly slow. We had to hurry up, because GAT closes between 12:00-13:00 and we wanted of course to get out without having a “naptime”.
The next leg with 3:30h along a wonderful scenic coastline brought us to Vilankulo, where we decided to take a 1 day rest in one of the beach resorts – an absolute dream place where you might let yourself unwind.
DAY 9: Lanceria – Plettenberg (South Africa)
The 3,5h flight brought us through very active weather to Lanceria, our airport of entry north of Johannesburg. We knew that this flight could be challenging due to thunderstorms and embedded CB’s, but our routine preparation through Windy made us believe that we might pass through if we are early enough. We were wrong!
After passing the South African border clouds looked harmless and confirmed our judgement on the weather. We went IMC and only minutes later we heard this typical noise on our headsets indicating that the atmosphere is electrically charged. It took only a very short time until our stormscope showed active discharging clusters left and right and all of a sudden in front of us. Now the weather got more intense with rain, hail turbulence, convective wind shear and lightning. The radio was pretty busy that time a lot of airliners were asking for “headings to avoid weather”. Luckily we got in, telling the controller that we are in a thunderstorm and asking for a heading out. The answer was “I have no 100% accurate picture of the weather, but it I see you in a cell. Try heading 290” – which we immediately were turning to. The weather got calmer after 20-30 seconds. This was probably the most dangerous situation of our whole trip and could have ended nastily. We landed safely in Lanceria. Inspection of the aircraft fortunately showed only smaller damages by hail.
After escaping the weather we had trouble with border control and customs. They claimed that we did not correctly declare all the goods in the aircraft which was simply not true. At the end we could solve that, but it took us hours.
Paying the landing fees was also a modern scavenger hunt. We found the office in the parking lot next to where you pay for car parking. Makes sense!
Our last flight took as on another 3,5h leg to Plettenberg at the Western Cape our final destination of our 6.000NM trip where friends welcomed us.
What a trip!
Thanks for sharing. Impressive adventure.
You were lucky with weather, especially getting out of that cell in one piece.
Amazing trip! Thanks a lot for sharing.
Envious reader here…
Quite an adventure. Many thanks for taking us along 
PS
Was a bit puzzled at first when seeing Zanzibar North of your route on the SD shot… luckily the impression only lasted for a short moment 
Brilliant trip, what an adventure! Excluding the fuel costs, what costs were involved, including General Aviation Support Egypt and the associated paperwork, landing fees, etc?
One for the bucket list!
Pilot Bambi has recently flown the same route (there is little choice on the Eastern route, so everybody uses the same airports, more or less). The videos are very light on practical infos for pilots, but here and there, she does mention the horrendous costs at most African airports, often way more than 1k Euros, sometimes more than 2k Euros, IIRC. Would be nice to get more precise numbers from @Manitu, including fuel costs and costs for permits (the latter is usually the smallest issue).
Super report, Manitu. Thank you for posting it
What a great adventure.
Please also try to put some airport reports in our airport database. Over many years lots of people have gone down that route but few of them post details for pilots doing it later. Especially contact details as needed to get permissions, etc. Thank you.
The videos are very light on practical infos for pilots
Presumably because she just shoots the videos
Great trip, thanks for sharing! I remember Lokichogio well from it’s heyday in the early 90s. At the time it was the hub for UN ops into South Sudan. VERY interesting parts of the world !!
