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In This Issue...
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Travel
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Long Distance Glider Towing
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Long Distance Glider Towing
A Harrowing Journey from Germany to Namibia
By Kimberly Marx
For a long time I have been a professional pilot in the towing business, mostly towing advertising banners throughout the German skies. I have become well known as a result, nicknamed “The Black Baroness” due to my long black hair and my ancestry which dates back to the old Austrian nobility. So it was little surprise that a German pilot named Helmut came to me in September 2004 with an exotic request " he wanted me to tow his glider all the way from Germany to Namibia in South Africa.
On Nov. 9, we set off towards France for our first leg. The glider, a 32-year-old two-seater Bocian, was piloted by Helmut and copilot Jacque. I was flying the towing aircraft, a Polish “Wilga,” with my own copilot Marco, a young man who was just starting to fly. The Wilga is an ideal towing plane, powered by a nine-cylinder Russian radial engine producing 260 horses. On our first leg I settled on my nickname for this great plane " “The Polish farmer’s best girlfriend.”
Stopping at Valence in the Rhone Valley our first night, the idea dawned how awkward towing a glider over such an extreme distance was likely to be. During dinner and the obligatory French red wine, we realized that we had managed only the first five percent of our trip. We still had to cross the Mediterranean Sea and the long distances over the desert, the mountains and the rain forest.
The Second Day " Still Over France
The next day the weather over Italy did not allow us to continue to our planned destination of Rieti, so we proceeded to the French village of Fayence, near Cannes. Waiting there for three days, we had time to consider some of our problems. One was communication, since the glider crew was not used to radios. They continuously lost the proper frequencies, so we agreed to apply a red tissue behind my rear window as a sign that I wanted to talk to them. That way we could discuss speeds and altitudes.
Finally we departed Fayence for Rieti. But the wind over the sea south of Genova had increased up to 40 knots, making for a hell of a ride over water. My greatest fear was losing the glider. When we came across the little airfield of San Vincenzo, just off the coast opposite Elba, I wanted to have a look at the field before making up my mind whether to continue. I banked my plane to get a better view, causing the glider crew to think, “Aha, Kimberly is banking the plane; time to close down for today.” So to my surprise I suddenly saw a glider below me, looking exactly like our glider. I was still more surprised to realize it was.
As I landed, I was already wondering how to get out of there tomorrow with our flying circus. But Italy is one of the best countries in the world, and some very nice people came to help. With the assistance of a local pilot and his tiny car, the four of us found a sympathetic little hotel and had a superb meal.
The next day we set off for Grossetto to get some fuel, only to find that on Monday Grossetto was not open for general aviation. So after half an hour or so we were back at San Vincenzo. Instead we decided to fly to Elba, but were worried that our remaining fuel was getting low.
Fortunately, about then a young family with two kids came by, curious about our airplanes. We asked if they would drive us to get 20 litres of car fuel, as the Wilga was not fussy about what it consumed. Yes, no problem, they said. They took our money and the jerry can, and soon were back with our fuel. Twenty minutes later we were off for Elba.
Getting Over the Mountains
Elba is a great island, very beautiful but also expensive. We enjoyed it for a night, but next morning found the winds were blowing from the north, meaning we had to depart towards the mountains. Don’t forget, we were an 80-meter-long flying object, so in the tight left turn out of there our whole morning coffee consumption was running in sweat pearls from our foreheads.
The weather was not good that day flying over the beautiful Italian countryside, low enough to see all details of the villages. I followed a motorway until it disappeared into a tunnel. I decided the Wilga might be a bit too massive to take this opportunity, so we went up over the mountains to land at the aerodrome of Pescara. After another night of good food and wine, we continued down the east coast of the Italian boot, a fabulous flight looking at tremendous scenery from half a mile offshore.
At Bari we banked our aircraft east across the waters towards the island of Corfu. Once we’d landed in Icarus country we were informed that “The glider shall follow the ‘Follow-Me’ car,” indicating that the locals were not entirely clear on the concept of gliders. We enjoyed the evening exploring this great island, working our way through Greek food for a change.
We continued along the Greek coastline past Athens, slowly outrunning the approaching European winter. The romantic islands of Syros and Kos invited us to dream of times long past. Then we started our leg to Cyprus. The Nicosia controller reported winds of 35 knots gusting up to 50 knots, far above the normal capabilities of the Wilga, much less the glider.
“Do you really want to land at Pafos?” Well, what alternative did we have? At least the Pafos runway was aligned directly into the wind. It was no easy approach, and once on the ground I not only had to battle taxiing in these conditions but tow the glider besides. I can assure you, dinner that night was well earned.
Going It Alone
My copilot’s holiday was now over, meaning I would be flying the Wilga alone the rest of the trip. Two days later the wind at Pafos had vanished almost completely and clear weather prevailed for our next leg to El Arish on the northern Sinai. This was the most crucial part of the trip, because if we had a problem there our chances were close to zero. Towing a glider over open water for hours puts a lot of tension on your nerves.
We lost radio contact after an hour and a half and were not able to establish communication with Cairo Control. For a while a high-flying airliner relayed for us. But approaching El Arish, our target airport in Egypt, I still could not contact them, so I decided to go ahead and make the approach anyway. We had to dive through a cloud layer, exciting for the glider crew to see the rope disappear into the murk for two minutes. I came out of the clouds right over the airfield and heard the controller yelling over the radio. But lacking anything else to do, I continued my approach to a position overhead the airfield where I could release the glider. Then suddenly they seemed to find our flight plan, as they cleared us to land " Inshallah!
Stuck in Egypt
The next day we continued to Hurghada, which seemed to be swarming with thousands of hard-drinking divers from Germany and Russia. We hurried on towards Assuan. Well, not “hurried” " someone back in Germany had organized us an authorization number for Saudi Arabia, but that number turned out to be fake and the Saudis turned us back over the Red Sea, threatening us with consequences. After sorting all this out, a second departure was more successful.
We ended up staying for two and a half weeks at Assuan awaiting a permit to proceed, using this time to see Luxor, very interesting and a real must-see if you come to Egypt. But I started to lose my patience and developed a plan to fly over the Sudan without permission, landing in Eritrea. For this distance, beyond the normal reach of our airplanes, I made some special preparations. We bought some heavy duty plastic jerry cans and an old hand pump on the Assuan market. The plan was that Jacque, the copilot from the glider, would join me in the Wilga. He would pump fuel from the plastic tanks into our main tank. Finally we got permission to cross Sudan for a landing at Khartoun.
Sudan and Khartoun were exciting but chaotic. If anybody asks me which country I would like to see again, my spontaneous answer would be Sudan. We stayed more than a week, awaiting the next permission for Ethiopia, our opinion of our support agency back in Germany sinking ever lower.
It was Dec. 23 by the time we took off from Khartoun to fly an eight-hour leg to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. I grew extremely worried when I talked to Helmut, the glider pilot, and learned that he refused to take anything to drink on this leg. After about five hours of flight time Jacque had just finished his job of pumping fuel when we saw the glider flying erratically behind us.
All efforts to reach him by radio failed. About half an hour later, we had just crossed a ridge and reached some flat highland when he disconnected and landed on a field near a native village. Jacque and I were quite surprised and landed nearby, to find a highly confused glider pilot, running around and not able to make any sort of sense.
Held in Jail
For an hour I tried to get communication with high flying jets without success. I decided to fly to Bahir Dar, an airport about 90 kilometers away, taking the still-disoriented glider pilot with me. I began to reconsider the wisdom of undertaking this trip with Helmut. He had rather thin nerves from the beginning, and this was not a simple adventure; this could kill you. Nothing to drink on an eight-hour flight over the African desert was definitely the wrong plan.
The police held us in custody in a hotel assuming that Jacque, whom we’d left back with the glider, was a spy we’d dropped into their country by parachute. The next day everything was smoothed out and we had to proceed to Addis Ababa to talk to the authorities. Helmut did not like this prospect, so he vanished on an airline flight, leaving his glider behind. I made a report to the Civil Aviation Authority and we continued our flight without the glider. We reached our destination in Namibia on Jan. 2, two months and nearly 13,000 kilometers after departing.
If you ask me about this trip, I would say it was the trip of a lifetime that I would not like to have missed. Would I do it again? Yes, but with more time for preparation and crew coordination. Perhaps we shall. We still have a glider, parked in the Ethiopian Highlands, waiting for us to get the funding to recover.
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