Post 30: The Mooney has a problem as we fly into the Heart of Darkness

Skimming the beach off Angola at 200ft. Memories of
 Darius and Heinro in Mozambique

March 20

Dateline: Hotel Elais, Boulevard Generale de Gaulle, Pointe Noire, Congo, Brazaville

Todays leg: Sumbe, Angola via Cabinda to Pointe Noire in Congo Brazaville

2 hops

395 nautical miles

3 hours 49 minutes flying time
Health warning: You will need a map to make sense of this post



A cannibalised Antonov at The Aero Club
Pointe Noire, Congo Brazaville and club aircaft

 The Mooney has undercarriage problems: Bernard’s powerful Mooney has damaged its rectractable undercarriage. Bernard notices it this morning at Sumbe, where we landed two days ago, in a gusting crosswind with vicious windsheer. All of us struggled to get our aircraft safely on the ground. Jo did well with Alpha Charlie.The Mooney has a complex system. Two doors have to close in sequence when the wheels are folded up into the wing. One door did not. The problem may have nothing to do with the tricky landing. In any case on takeoff today for the Congo, the Mooney’s wheels would not retract. Bernard tries side-slipping the aircraft to nudge the door closed. No joy. He and his co-pilot, Derek, decide to push on and try and fix it tonight.

Fortunately we are guests of the ( French) Aero Club at Pointe Noire. It’s full of pilots and “ bricoleure”, handymen.  

Bernard handcrafts a part
 for his stricken Mooney

Bernard and Uberpilot Helmut ( stripped to the waist) spend 3 hours in sauna-like heat hand-crafting a part.They will go for a test flight first thing to see if it works. 

Angola: women really don't hasve it east here



Angola: Big country; major oil producer; struggling to come to terms with 40 years of virtually uninterrupted war; an estimated 10m landmines were sown; 2 million people died; endemic corruption all the way to the top,not helped by western oil companies with huge slush funds; stunningly beautiful; over 1600km of breathtaking Atlantic coastline; fabulous gameparks sadly depleted by war and poaching; a trickle of tourists since the civil war ended in 2002

Here is an email about Angola I got yesterday from Quentin Peel, my old mucker and ex-Africa Editor of the Financial Times

“Angola I fear now very corrupt. Oil money has worked its evil. Cubans went home. Chinese arrived, but live in enclaves in neo-colonial style. I only visited once. Went south with army convoy at the time to see if the South Africans were making mischief, and got shot up by South African air force. ( Before the end of Apartheid South Africa invaded southern Angola. They saw it as their backyard) A (Communist) East German correspondent kept asking smugly: “Why are your friends shooting at you? Mike Woolridge (BBC) got hit by shrapnel in SA bombing raid. On an earlier trip, I drove from Windhoek( capital of Namibia) to the border with Angola when western contact group were trying to negotiate a ceasefire. I met a black petrol station owner who spoke German (I was driving with a foreign correspondent from Der Spiegel, the German magazine). I asked him what he thought of western peacemaking. "The trouble with the western powers was they made the wrong decision in 1941," he said. "Sorry?"  He said : "They didn't back Adolf Hitler when he invaded the Soviet Union." Africa is weird and wonderful." Thanks Q. Here' s to the FT's corps of foreign correspondents.

Overflying Luanda, Angola' capital

Cabinda and the mouth of the Congo river

This bit is complicated. Bear with me. It’s worth it. We fly from Sumbe to the Angolan oil enclave of Cabinda.This is sandwiched between two, separate nations. BOTH are called Congo.

In the south is what is euphimistically known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( formerly Zaire). This was explored, subdued and handed to Belgium by our very own Henry Morton Stanley of “ Dr Livingstone, I presume” fame in the 19^th century.

It is also the setting of Joseph Conrad’s poetic novel “ Heart of Darkness”,a study of corruption which flows from unlimited power. Plus ca change. Plus c'est la meme chose.

On the northern banks of the mighty Congo river ( the deepest and possibly the most powerful in the world) is Congo Brazaville ( a fomer French territory). I hope you’re still with me.

Cabinda sandwich

Last year, just before the soccer World Cup, the national team of Togo was shot up by separatist rebels after it crossed the border into Cabinda. They came in by road. I don’t know why. Two players and the coach died.Others were injured including Emannuel Adebayor, formerly Arsenal and Manchester City now with Real Madrid.

We are told we have to get clearance from Kitona military airbase in the Congo or skirt their airspace 15nm out to sea if we don't want to be invited to land by their fighers jets. It’s Sunday. Nobody’s in the tower, much as in the UK. No worries. Jo and I decide to go down to 200ft to check out the coastline. I am reminded of Darius Briers who extracted me from Mozabique with Heinro three weeks ago.We did the same on the east coast of Africa. We overfly the runway at Luanda, the Angolan capial, at 2500ft. The visibility is gin-clear. Abeam, dozens of tankers are waiting to load their precious cargo of oil. The sea just off the coast is dotted with oil platforms. Enormous flames burn off excess gas from the drilling rigs.



The Congo river from 2500ft



Before we get to Cabinda we reach the mouth of the Congo river. It is, excuse the cliche, an awesome sight. I have to say to myself several times” You are flying abeam the Congo river”