FLYING A NAVION RANGEMASTER FROM LAGOS TO NAIROBI

Laura McDermid continues her stories of Iris McCallum’s flying exploits.

- Laura McDermid

We had survived our slow flight from Lagos to Bangui due to the nosewheel malfunction and the huge line of thunderstorms we had to get through.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING after a decent breakfast, we made our way to Bangui airport, hoping to find an aircraft engineer who could check the faulty nose wheel.

We were guided to the local aero club, which was a table under a huge wild fig tree in front of a small hangar. We were introduced to François, a small, wizened man in filthy dungarees, with a shock of white hair and bushy eyebrows which appeared to have a life of their own.

He did not speak English and of course, neither Ashraf nor I spoke any French.

Fortunately, he possessed the ability to communicate through means of sign language. Whenever he got excited, his eyebrows would wiggle up and down furiously and he’d shout “Oui, oui…. oui, oui”

We led him to N2486T and by means of hand gestures and diagrams, he seemed to understand our problem.

Ashraf and François crawled under the nose wheel. Neither could see anything visibly wrong, so François suggested that he remove the nose wheel completely to inspect it thoroughly.

We taxied the aircraft to the little hangar in which languished the dusty remains of a C172. Every square inch of the hangar floor was littered with tools and a disparate collection of spare parts.

Following yesterday’s rain, it was humid and the sun was beating down relentlessly. We gratefully accepted cold beers and squatted in the shade of the giant tree.

François set to work clearing space and setting up the jacks. It was discovered that the nose gear trunnion was slightly bent. We figured that this must have happened