London to Darwin #3: I once had a flight in Africa.

CAIRO, EGYPT

I had this image in my mind of me swooping low between the pyramids to capture an incredible image from the air… alas, it was a dream set a century ago. The minimum height allowed for flying in Egypt bow is 8,500’ - and with the permanent haze above the city, they were so indistinguishable, I didn’t even take out the camera. But that’s ok - because you can get up close and personal, and I chose the Sphinx Airport as it was nice and close. Soon after landing I was dropping bags at the hotel and straight into a car to the historic mystical and geometrically pleasing structures. I’d been a decade earlier with my family, and simply they are still awe inspiring.

Ross Smith had great freedom wandering the pyramids, and was even able to get a photo with no one else in it! Here is the photo he took, and my best effort to get the same, I couldn’t get in the same position, so had to take a slightly different perspective…

Pyramids - tick. Now, there were two other photos to get, one of a street scene with mosques in Cairo, and one of boats sailing on the Nile. I figured I only had time for one, and decided the street scene was the one - and Girge (pronounced George) offered to help me find it - we ended up having a great adventure, cris-crossing the town asking for help to locate the location based on the description and the image - what could possibly have changed in 100 years? Girge was completely into it, reminding me of my night in Patna with Prakash in 2015, one of the most memorable of nights, again here, it was wonderful to have my young airport handler so proud of the city he lived in he gave up his personal time to show me around.

It took a while, but that made it all the more fun. We drove into the area of Cairo where most of the mosques are, he had a rough idea of where to go - twice we thought we’d found it, but then the turret was quite right, eventually, and after probably several kilometres of enthusiastic walking, we found it! The street life was electric - it seemed no matter the time every shop was open, the city a buzz with activity. loved it! The most amazing feat - check out the young chap delivering bread on his bicycle!

The original image from the Nat Geo, and what we managed to capture. A tad hard as we were taking photo at night, with lot’s of street lights, but I was pretty chuffed in the end. Girge had picked up on my love of coffee, so took me to his favourite coffee house to get some freshly ground coffee. I loved the coffee emporium style and it was freshly, very finely, ground for Arabic coffee.

What a great night! Needed to get some rest as had an early start the next day for Haifa in Israel.

But… so easily does a plan collapse. I had been advised flying from Cairo direct Israel was not possible, so had planned via Aqaba, adding about 200 miles to the direct rote, for a quick pitstop then onwards departure. But there was an unusual delay with my permission to enter Jordanian airspace and land - I had been assured by handlers it had not happened before, but had been assured it would come first thing in the morning. But after waiting at the airport, it simply didn’t. Other plans were investigated, even getting special permission to fly direct to Israel, as long as I relocated to the main Cairo International airport, but the day was getting away, so decided that was the best plan, but we’d do it first thing tomorrow.

That pleasingly gave me the chance to go back in to town to try and get a photo of Feluca’s sailing on the Nile. Arranged a driver and after a horrendous 2 hours of traffic, made it to the river just on sunset, and rented a Feluca with a captain and went for a post sunset cruise. I was so pleased to have this moment, albeit brief, but made up for an incredibly frustrating day of poor neighbour relations and paperwork. These boats I susp[ect haven’t changed much in the century since the Vickers Vimy passed through Egypt!

It was a late night, with only a few hours sleep scheduled, I was soon back at the airport ready for my flight, was quickly away to Cairo International, a huge and a tad intimidating. I had to quickly go through passport control, but at the private terminal which makes things so much quicker.

Until, that is, word came back the controllers were not happy with my flight plan. That’s ok, how can I change it to make you happy? Well, rather burn up too many pixels telling this tale of woe, let’s just say over the next FIVE hours, no matter what I submitted, it was rejected, and it became clear passage direct to Israel from Egypt was simply not going to happen. Grrr. Luckily, in the meantime, my Jordainian permit had turned up, so we quickly reverted to that plan, and afteer another hour of flight planning discussion, that included things like “no, I cannot fly at 23,000’ “ we ended up with a seriously long flight, 150 miles longer than necessary, around the Sinai desert, to Aqaba. as really up against it now, I not only wanted to keep moving as my Darwin Bound date of December 10 loomed quickly, but I was to be guest speaker at a dinner in Israel TONIGHT !!! I was determined not to let them down, whilst also being conscious of maintaining safe operations.

Finally reluctantly accepting the longer route, and hoping my fuel calcs were correct (which they were, I’m very conservative on this subject…) I got away - and was immediately told to climb to 11,000’ - and soon after 13,000’ - and then to track due south to a new waypoint - changing my route to adding another 150 miles - and I have to tell you - I really started to worry, that would make my fuel start looking very marginal, and I had images of having to ditch in the sea… So I pleaded with the controllers, explaining that both height and route were precarious for me, all demeaning really, and I’m sure sounded pretty distressed on the radio, after the intervention of the captain of another flight, they relented and let me return to the planned route and descend to 11,000’, where without bottled Oxygen I would be ok.

The Sinai desert was certainly forboding, jagged peaks rather than the sand dunes I expected, it was a relief to came across to the gulf and land at Aqaba, where there the legendary handler Khader at the Royal Jordanian Flying Club had me quickly refuelled with MOGAS and on my way - a 30 minute or so turn around, surely a record for an international landing! A quite spectacular flight into Israel, where the ATC was as polite, friendly and helpful as I recalled from last time, such a nice change from being growled at by Cairo and Amman.... As happened back in 2015, within 10 miles of the Israeli border, my GPS signals all died - and were erratic for the next 15 minutes, luckily I anticipated it this time and was ready with good old magnetic bearings, stop watch and my flight plan sectors - reminiscent on this occasion to navigating 100 years ago. I was soon in Haifa, but that story, as was often said at the end of the Batman TV episodes of my youth, To Be Continued…