Bush Pilot - Hugh Pryor

FRANK

ABUKUTSA AT HUWERA

Pilots are immensely privileged. Flying over the vast and intricate surfaces of the Earth gives us a view of our planet which is not available to ground-locked mortals.

The Amazing Wadi Douan in Yemen.

YOU CANNOT HELP BUT BE impressed by how infinitesimally small is man when you view the planet he inhabits, particularly at night, against the rich tapestry of the universe.

We are minute little beings, clinging to a rippling mantle, floating on a sea of magma, spinning in an unfathomable void which is speckled with myriads of other clusters of stars and planets like our own. The universal forces which propel our existence are so gargantuan that we are only now beginning to appreciate our own insignificance. It becomes more and more difficult to believe that we are indeed created in the image of God.

I sometimes wish that I could buy a DVD of the geological history of the world. To be able to see how mountain ranges are forming and continents are drifting, of how ice caps ebb and flow like tides and seas become deserts, would be thrilling. These momentous events take too long for us to appreciate or comprehend in our short lifespans, but if I could catch a glimpse of that primeval turmoil, it would increase tenfold my ability to see into the future and to understand my relative unimportance in the grand design.

Sitting on the plateau in Yemen, five thousand feet above the plain which forms the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula, you gain an intimate glimpse of the titanic struggle which is broiling under your feet. There is almost no vegetation. The geology is revealed as it happens, formation grinding against formation with no modesty, like naked mud-wrestlers.

It was before the first Gulf War, and James Bond was still up against the Soviet Empire. According to one senior opposition shadow Minister, Maggie Thatcher still had the biggest balls in the British Parliament and I was flying a Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porter for a French seismic survey company in South Yemen and we had a camp on the top of that self same plateau.

The seismic survey company was famous for its toilet facilities. There weren’t any. The showers were only one better. That’s one between sixteen people. The food menus appeared to have been inspired by those found in late eighteenth century French Revolutionary jails. Really the only saving grace of Camp Life was the entertaining nature of the inmates and the generous supply of alcohol. Things eventually got so bad that all the Pakistani labourers, the cable layers, the operators and the domestic staff, including our Pakistani cook who was blessed with the unlikely nomme de cuisine of William, went on strike. The Crew Chief, Renée, and his colleague Serge, immediately formed a crisis committee and unanimously volunteered Driss, the Moroccan explosives expert, Lazarek, the computer guru, and me, to take over the catering.

Our first job was to clean out the kitchen trailer, which was an experience in itself. Our labours must have seriously depleted the cockroach stocks of the Arabian subcontinent. It always fascinates me how you can be minding your own business in the remotest corner of the Rub al Khali (the Empty Quarter, as the deserts of Arabia are known), surrounded by hundreds of miles of nothingness and the flies will always find you.

It once occurred to me that you would never be lost in the desert, if you could speak ‘Mouchoise’ (French for Fly language.) I distinctly remember being told, as a toddler, that flies only have a range of about two miles, maximum three. Those ones in Arabia must have amazing ferry tanks installed, or maybe they are refuelling from camels en route…or possibly from the kitchens of remote seismic survey camps. We certainly had our share, anyway!

That first day of the strike, in my piloting capacity, I loaded three large cool-boxes into the back of the Pilatus and flew off to Aden, the then capital of what used to be South Yemen, to get the supplies. That took about three hours there, and three hours back. It was a brain-numbing trip which I used to make three times a week. The Pilatus is an unstable old thing and if you allow your concentration to drift for more than a couple of minutes, she falls over. Nodding off can be seriously damaging to your career if you don’t wake up before the ground comes through the windscreen.

Have you seen the passengers?

There are few professions which require a person’s mind to be so totally concentrated for six hours in a day without a coffee break or toilet. I had found one of them. I still loved the old Pilatus Porter though. Cantankerous she was…yes…but when the chips were down, she would get you home, out of the most intimidating situations.

When I got back from Aden, I parked the Porter between the tie downs and put her to bed. Her Pratt & Whitney PT-6 turbo-prop engine ticked contentedly as it cooled. We unloaded the aircraft and put everything in its proper place, in the growing dark, as the sun slipped quietly away, down behind the hills to the west.

The barbeque was all glowing cinders and hot weldmesh, just crying for thick, richly marinated fillet steaks. We butter-wrapped potatoes in cooking foil and threw them in the fire. Lazarek had thrown together a coleslaw salad with the inspired addition of sultanas and chopped mint. I had brought oranges and bananas back from Aden, with the frozen food. Beers suddenly appeared, to wash away the day’s dust and tensions and everybody relaxed into the warmth of a high desert evening. This happy state of affairs continued for over a week. It couldn’t go on like that, of course. Our clients were getting too fat on this regime and so, suddenly, after ten days, i was instructed to go to Aden and pick up the new catering staff. We were effectively being relieved of our duties… in the nicest possible way, you understand. The Frogs have never been famous for their tact, have they!

I arrived in Aden, armed with the regulation cool boxes, and parked by our workshop/container. Tony, the engineer, greeted me and enquired about the health of the aircraft. As usual with the Pilatus Porter, there was nothing to report. Its legendary reliability was accepted like one of the laws of physics by the pilots and almost to the point of boredom by the engineers.

“Have you seen the passengers?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Tony replied, “You’ve got one ‘Khawaja’ (local lingo for ‘European’) and two Kenyan Africans. One of them’s enormous.” Tony grinned. “Looks like a rugby player. If you want to meet them, they’re waiting in Domestic Departures.”