Jungle Jim
As usual, during the dry and monsoon seasons, I would make many flights to numerous villages. On this particular day during the monsoon season I was scheduled to deliver eight boxes of dynamite sticks, (blasting caps were always flown separately for obvious reasons), to an iron-ore mine called
“Bomi-Hills,” 80 miles north west of Spriggs Payne airfield, my home base airfield in Monrovia, Liberia West Africa.
Keep in mind this is Bushpilot flying. The weather was not good. It about a 300- foot ceiling with visibility a half-mile and raining. Whichever Bushpilot felt like going up to check the weather, he would. Since my Piper Tripacer, with a 160-HP engine in it, was like a hot rod car, (loaded with dynamite), I said, I would go. I joked what a blast it will be if I crashed. At age 23, nothing bothered me. If the weather was not to bad on top I would rev the engine high and low two times, meaning it was not too bad, telling the guys to come on up. I would then be on my way to make my delivery. If the weather was very poor, and I have had to do this many times, I would head out over the ocean, which was nearby, and let down until I could see the water. I would hold an altitude of about a hundred feet, because to go lower would be to dangerous. One cannot judge too well over water just how close the water is. Maybe a seaplane pilot could, but I was a land pilot. I would then make a 180 back to the airfield and ever, and I mean ever so slowly, lower my altitude because, once you see the breaking white caps of the waves; then, and only then, could I push the nose down fast to get right down on top of them. I would then look for the car head lights my compatriots had so generously supplied. They were there but off to my left. Throttle back, bank hard left, careful not to dip the left wing tip into the ocean! For the occasional night landings, my friends would also put a car on the airfield with headlights facing me so I could line up easier. The other Bushpilots would also put a car on the airfield at the threshold with the tail lights facing the aircraft; the headlights shining down the airfield. Of course, I would also us my landing light if the bulb was not burn out. Parts were very difficult to get.
I gave them the roaring of my engine as I passed over the airfield, and I was on my way to Bomi Hills. There was one catch. I had no idea what the weather was like between me and Bomi Hills. This is where being a Bushpilot comes in. I am all alone there is no one to talk to about weather conditions. I must figure out myself if I can go on. Well, at first things didn’t look too bad: rain, broken cloud layers, visibility varied. After 20 minutes things started to look ugly. I lost visual contact with the ground and had to go IFR, on instruments. Rain got very heavy so I started climbing in the goo, thinking I could get above some of the clouds, but luck was not with me. It was looking real black in the direction I was heading and knew it was time to turn back. At 1500 feet I started a left downward spiral. I knew there was a railroad track below me. A Bushpilot will use whatever is available to navigate by…..Railroad tracks, beaches, mountain ridges, water falls, rivers, and even the white bark of a tree. That’s another story while I was flying a Piper Apache twin, also in monsoon weather.
I saw a hole in the layers of clouds below me and kept a tight spiral on it, eventually getting low enough to see the railroad tracks. One thing about flying in the rain, a pilot can usually see straight down in any precip. I saw the tracks and came over them around 100 feet. I lined up them and made like a locomotive back home, or so I thought. The weather was getting worse and blacker than it was before when it should have been getting better. I knew the weather was better behind me. I began to think that perhaps the weather was getting worse in the direction of my home base airfield. This is where you start to sweat.
I thought it best, as of right now, to get set up for full IFR conditions and I tightened my seat belt. A quick scan of all my instruments were reassured me. I was level, oil pressure was good, cylinder temperature good, I had plenty of fuel, the cargo was secure, volts good. But!! The compass was not reading the correct heading towards my home base! I thought, it’s stuck! But it wasn’t. Then I said, “Oh, my God, I rolled out after one too many turns! I was (focusing)on the railroad tracks and not
looking at the compass after my last turn; a lesson that was never repeated. I made a fast 180. Needless to say, the weather got better in time and I landed safely at my home base.
I would like to mention the Bushpilot’s rules of flying using railroad tracks, beaches, rivers, and mountain ridges. We always stay to the right side going to and from. In the two years I was there, there was never a midair collision although 19 aeroplanes went down. I was in two of them. Some were pilot error but most were due to mechanical failures. My two were mechanical One fuel starvation, in a Piper Tripacer on take off, and the other a Howard DGA-15 oil return line broke and I lost all the oil. I had to come down; there was no choice. Both are another two stories. I guess I did a fair job of crash-landing because I am here to write about it.
I must say at this time I cannot take all the credit for my skill as a pilot. I owe a lot to my former flight instructor and good friend till this day. His name is Roy, now a retired FAA pilot examiner and accident
investigator. He was, and still is, one hell of a flight instructor and pilot. It was his training that helped me save my backside many times.
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