Flight Log: Windhuk FYWH -- Mokuti FYMO 03.02.2011

Distance: 269 NM
scheduled Flying time: 2h 10min
Filed Route: DCT WHV DCT OMATA DCT UNGEV DCT
ATIS Windhuk: 0655 rwy 01 wind 030 12kts 9999 BKN 042 temp 17 QNH 1023
Clearance: right turn WHV climb FL 090
Take Off Time: 07:00 (UTC)
ATIS Mokuti: Unmanned strip
Landing Time: 09:15 (UTC)
03.02.2011 Windhuk/Mokuti: At 8.45 a.m., 15 minutes before take off, our handling agent actually arrived. He explained that he'd now got permission from his company to refuel the plane. But we'd already done so two days before and paid with the BP card, so we didn't need his help with that any more.

After getting into radio contact, the air traffic controller asked us if we'd handed in a flight plan. Afterwards he directed us to runway 01. In light wind, from 30 degrees, we were able to take off from Windhoek in sunny weather for our approx. two-hour flight to Mokuti.

It was the first time in two months that I had sat in a plane and flown myself. It was interesting to note that the various commands and manual signals were slightly slower. So the checklist is all the more important to ensure that all steps are carried out in the right order. I had of course encouraged Martin beforehand to make comments if he thought that I could be slightly more precise here and there or fly better. After all, when do you have the chance of flying for 50 hours continuously and hearing a flight instructor's comments? This should help to improve your flying.

After about an hour's flight, we saw elephants again and felt that we and Marie were back in Africa. En route we flew through a few rain showers and turbulent cloud. I had to switch off the auto pilot and fly manually through the rain cloud with more avgas so that I didn't lose too much altitude. But our stormscope showed no lightening. So we didn't have any dangerous thunderstorms ahead of us.

After we had left the Windhoek flight frequency, we were given two more frequencies. We quickly noticed that we didn't have anyone to talk to on these. The point was much more to put out messages to no one in particular on these frequencies, so that the aircraft above is informed about any other aircraft nearby. After two hours, a landing strip was actually in sight and it had to be Mokuti according to our co-ordinates. The runway was more than 2,000 metres long. However, only the first 600 metres was tarmac, the rest was gravel. So it was a good idea to land and take off on the first 600 metres and not use the sand runway. But it was available and provided an extra margin of safety.
After a lot of countryside, clouds and an elephant we landed on the Mokuti strip after 2 hours and 5 minutes.