Flight Log: Maun FBMN -- Durban FALE 23.11.2010

Distance: 773 NM
scheduled Flying time: 6h 21min
Filed Route: MNV GBV JSV STV EVARI APKIK APMAT
ATIS Maun: 0700 rwy 26 wind 240 8kts CAVOK temp 30 QNH 1012
Clearance: left turn climb FL 110
Take Off Time: 07:25 (UTC)
ATIS Durban: 1320 rwy 24 wind 190/10 kts 4000 mtr S 008 O 009 temp. 19 QNH1012
Landing Time: 14:00 (UTC)
23.11.2010 Maun/Durban: After a good breakfast in the pilot's café Bon Arrivée directly at Maun international airport, we went to passport control and then to the airfield. Not much air traffic had built up yet. Only one plane left before us. We took off at 9 a.m. from runway 26 and into the sunny skies. The thermometer already indicated a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius.

We flew south towards Durban. We soared over the Kalahari Desert in Botswana to the border of South Africa. After about an hour's flying time, we could only see desert below us, with little hills, a few sandy parts and a lot of rock. We had to ascent to over 3,000 m to achieve our scheduled altitude. While we were flying over the Kalahari Desert, we had no radio contact to speak of at all. This didn't change until about 100 miles before the South African border. Once we flew over it, we had left the Kalahari Desert. Large-size settlements cropped up more and more frequently. Radio traffic was now on a very professional basis. For the first time in ages we heard 'Plane identified'. This means that radar surveillance over South Africa is the same standard as in European flight zones. The standard of English and the instructions sounded very European or American.

We still had wonderful weather. In front of us however we saw various storm fronts building up which we identified from our glass cockpit from flashes of lightning. Our stormscope remained a very reliable source of identification.

To start with, we decided to fly over increasingly thicker clouds. We asked for permission to ascend to 5,000 m. We quickly noticed that this altitude was not sufficient to fly over the cumulus cloud. Slightly shyly we asked to change our flight altitude again. Now we wanted to descend to 3,000 m to fly under the cloud. This proved to be the better alternative.

About three quarters of an hour before we reached Durban, the weather took a turn for the worse. Below us the blanket of cloud had already closed so that we had to prepare for landing without any outside vision. For this landing I switched off the auto pilot. With flight instructor Martin, I wanted to carry out the whole landing approach with instruments manually. When we flew into the clouds it started to rain. We dropped to 200 m and we didn?t see the runways lights until then. It was still raining when we eventually touched down on our runway safely.

After landing, two handling agents received us. They took us to customs and that was the last time we saw them. So we organised a taxi ourselves and set off for the Durban Hilton.