A Sample Feature From Aviation News

Chicks or Guns?

Above: Plain and unmarked, this turbofan-powered Boeing 707-300 typifies the type of aircraft used for the darker side of cargo work.

A Boeing 707 sky tramp pilot reveals the ‘other side’ of commercial flying where shady deals, dirt strips and cluster bomb cargoes combine to give an air of adventure with the reality of flying ‘near the edge’.

The load manifest might say ‘earth moving equipment’ or ‘military supplies’. Sometimes it is genuine freight, such as relief supplies, garments or even day-old chicks. Sometimes it’s 30-year-old rockets like our own 3.5in of distant memory or the ubiquitous Katyusha or Stalin Organ, still widely used in third world conflicts. Some former Soviet bloc countries have been unloading this stuff on to third world antagonists prior to joining Nato and re-equipping.

The average pilot, let alone the average passenger, has little idea of what is going on around them in certain parts of the world, particularly Africa. For instance, on a tec stop, full of bombs, we’ve been parked between 747s loading passengers and our No 3 engine tended to emit sheets of flame on start-up. Doubtless the authorities were unaware of our load and a request for remote parking would have caused a big problem.

However, that was all years ago. More recent was a dodgy contract to carry freight from Entebbe in Uganda to Kisangani in Zaire, about an hour to the west. The freight was loaded at the old terminal, connected to the new one by taxiways. The military controlled the old terminal and the buildings were just as the Israeli commandos left them in 1976 – wrecked. The army commander said that he was coming with us along with about 20 troops, armed with guns and grenades. “But we’ve no seats, no pax oxygen and we’re not insured to carry passengers” I explain. Talk of insurance to an African officer going off to war produces much mirth. But we are not in a position to argue, as they are armed and determined but at least they’re disciplined and sober, unlike some Zairoise officers on a previous occasion. We check the weapons are unloaded amd store the grenades and magazines downstairs. The army commander, badges of rank almost invisible to prevent sniper targeting, was a decent bloke and after take-off I made us some coffee and we discuss the army and our BAT (British Army Training) teams, etc. Noticing his bulging pockets and 9mm side arm with magazine in place, I ask him why he is all ‘tooled-up’ contrary to our request in Entebbe. “Well” he says in perfect home counties English, “put it this way. I expect to go down the steps at Kisangani and fight immediately”. “Holy smoke” says I, “what are we getting into, and no danger money”. Talk of danger money causes more African laughter.

On arrival we find the Ugandans holding the buildings and western end of the airfield and the Interahamwe (Rwandan Hutu) holding the eastern end and touch-down area, with both parties issuing conflicting instructions on the R/T: Pidgeon English from the Interahamwe and ‘Oxford’ English from the Ugandans, so you know who to deal with. (Not covered by the CAA R/T handbook.)

Ugandan troops with LMGs formed a perimeter around the aircraft. There had been recent fighting on the airfield and the tension was tremendous, far more so than Juba, Asmara, Phnom Penh, Colombo or Bagram of recent fond memory. The jokers in the pack then being respectively, Johnie Gurang, Ethiopian Sukhois, Khmer Rouge, Tamil Tigers or worst of all, the Taliban.

Our return load was 40 tons of coffee. Not the really important load of course, that would have been diamonds smuggled out by the warring parties to finance further bloody adventures.

Above: The front office of a Boeing 707 pictured in the late-1960s. Not much has changed, but more modern aids make the flying a little easier. (Photos, Av News Files).

People who don’t know, sometimes talk of ‘cowboy charter operations’ but in fact we took few chances apart from the small risk of SAM-7a or b (not in the ATPL syllabus), small arms fire below 6,000ft (tracer burns out early), the nasty 12.7mm heavy machine gun (an ‘area weapon’) and the ever-present rpg which was not a serious threat. Considered more sinister were the Stingers which had been supplied by the USA (delivered by our SAS) to the Afghans for use against Russian aircraft. Most had been bought back at huge cost but about two dozen remained unaccounted for and were of great concern during our 31 trips into Bagram for the Mujahadeen in their battle against the Taliban. Fortunately, having good contacts, much useful information is available about who is doing what, and to whom in this world which enabled us to fly sensibly and avoid the long V2+10kts approach flown on more normal occasions.

Above : At the bottom end of the airfreight market are the Russian operators with their former military transports, such as the Antonov An-12 Cub – a civil variant is seen here – and they can often outbid western operators due to lower wages and costs.

For the rest of this article please see the November issue.