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While Olivier went to pay the fees and file a flight
plan I topped up his trike and readied the trikes for flight. After an hour and a half, I went in search of him.
I met up with Olivier near the tower. He was fuming.
The same cashier that had given us a tough time the day before had refused to process the paperwork saying that we couldn't go because we had flown into prohibited airspace. The man was suddenly playing God. He said
that if the Civil Aviation representative signed the flight plan we could go. We decided that if we couldn't get the signature within an hour we would just get into our trikes and take off and fly to Gabon without
permission and without even talking to the ATC. It was perplexing for me that a cashier could hold us to ransom.
Last year a French pilot was kept at the airport for 5
days for trivial reasons like using the wrong runway. Eventually on the 5th day he took off for a quick test flight and then raced to Libreville even though the ATC at Douala screamed at him to return and land. I am not surprised. It took us another 30 minutes to get the signature and then we were free to go. To get things done quickly we (Olivier in particular) fought very hard with everyone. In places like this in Africa, the bureaucrats have no concept of time ….. today, tomorrow – it's the same to them.
While walking back to the trikes Olivier showed me a
copy of that days local newspaper where the headlines screamed 'Cameroon, Number 1 in the world for corruption!' On the second page was the United Nation's listing of the world's most and least corrupt nations.
Surprise, surprise …. Cameroon was the worst and the second worst was Nigeria. Avoid those 2 countries like the plague.
Relieved to be on our way we headed straight for the
coast and freedom from harassment. After 5 minutes of flying I settled down to my usual routine and started scanning all the instruments. I was already quite anxious that the engine was only running on one ignition,
having not been able to fix the problem, when I noticed that the Voltmeter was registering over 16 volts
- it should be 14 max. I immediately switched the strobe and landing light on and the voltage came down, but then after 15 minutes it was up to 16 volts again. I called Olivier to say that I needed to land to disconnect the rectifier regulator to prevent the battery from cooking and maybe causing a fire. Actually I wasn't sure what would happen, but didn't want to take the chance. I selected a piece of deserted beach and landed, disconnected one fuse at the engine and within 1 minute took off again without a problem. I was grateful that I didn't have these problems over the north Atlantic!
Ahead of us was a monster storm and Olivier said that
he wanted to land and wait for it to pass, but I persuaded him to continue. We flew out over the sea, about 2 km away from the beach, but still encountered heavy rain. Out of the corner of my eye I seemed to be
seeing flashes every now and then and wondered if it was my imagination or lightning. Suddenly, bang, right near us a bolt of lightning hit the sea. Yeaaahhhh, we turned right and raced further from the coast. Once
we were past the storm Olivier said that next time he is going to land before the storm. He has a much healthier respect for storms than I have.
After an hour another huge storm lay ahead of us on
the coast, but this time it didn't extend as far out to sea. I discussed the rain and the cloud and the wind with Olivier and we decided to keep going. Again we flew into heavy rain but within twenty minutes were
through it and back above the beach.
After nearly 5 hours we landed safely at Libreville,
Gabon. A bad and challenging piece of Africa was behind us. One of the microlight club members, Serge, was there to meet us and whisked us through immigration and even filed a flight plan for us, so that we could
fly to the microlight club 20 km away before dark.
At the microlight club I was delighted to see about
15 microlights, all in good condition, parked in a hangar. Amazing, in Gabon, a centre for microlights. The trikes were Air Creations, Cosmos's and two DTA Voyageurs. After the sun had set we sat at the bar and had
a few drinks with some of the club members. Olivier was taken to his new home with Jacques and Chantal, and I went to stay with Serge and Martine at their home.
Later we went out to dinner with more club members.
It was a great evening and a celebration for us. Slept like a log in my own air-conditioned room. 5 star luxury!
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