Bekah Blog

BEKAH SYMONDS
'Jack of all trades' Bekah moves to South Africa to become a Parachute dropping pilot.

Last updated: 21 June 2006

Last updated: 21 June 2006
I did my Skills Test and ‘conversion’ onto a C182 at the same time which was one slight bonus. (In SA you have to ‘convert’ onto every different plane - even C150 to C152, which consists of a written paper and a short test flight.) The instructor was really thorough but thankfully it all went smoothly.

The whole flight was along the south coast of the Southern Cape which has to be one of the most beautiful places. It really has everything – beaches, sand dunes, cliffs, lakes, fields, forests and even mountains just a little inland. One leg of the Nav part of the test was over the mountains so we climbed to 7500ft to clear them. I’d never flown over mountains before and always thought it would feel like you are really high, but of course the ground level is that much higher too so you don’t!

A few days later I got to drop my first load of skydivers. This was a student load so we climbed to 4000 ft, through little fluffy clouds, then throttle back as the static line student literally hangs onto the strut with their legs out behind them before they let go and the ‘static line’ attached to a hook in the plane opens their parachute for them. These guys are seriously brave. I did a skydive course in Florida a couple years ago and had the luxury of a radio and a person on the ground giving instructions on when to turn the parachute and when to flare etc on landing. These guys have nothing, they are on their own from jump one!

No help whatsoever! They do really well though and I’ve only seen a couple broken bones….

It is so good to be flying again; it has been a little heart breaking after doing a CPL to be told u can’t do something a PPL holder is doing! But it was worth the wait, especially for the high loads.

Last updated: 14 June 2006
Once again my new ‘new boss’ was to be out of the country for a long period of time so we communicated solely by email for 3 weeks and I followed instructions to start a marketing campaign to drum up business. I got lots of flyers and posters etc made and in between times I worked in the airfield club house bar, sweeping, mopping, cooking breakfast, flippin burgers and fuelling aeroplanes.

Pretty much Compton Abbas all over again! It is what I enjoy though so I was happy. Then the repping started when my green VW bug took me all along the coast and through the mountains to all sorts of places to advertise the Skydiving in all the guest houses, Backpackers, bars and touristy places etc. offering commission to anyone who can persuade people into jumping out of a plane!

So I haven’t mentioned flying for a while…. Mainly cos I start getting a little agitated about the subject! One thing I didn’t check out before I headed down here was the situation with the SA CAA and licensing. The South African CAA very politely states that they have no provision to accept any foreign licences. So my hard earned Commercial licence isn’t worth the paper it was written on!

You can validate a licence for 12 months but are then only allowed to fly the specific aircraft you have flown so far. You are not permitted to fly a C152 even if you have training or have a thousand hours on a C150! Well at least there is a country out there with a CAA even more ridiculous than ours! So biting my tongue and muttering quietly to myself I sat all of the SA PPL exams, apart from Nav, in one afternoon. Thankfully I passed them and now I just have to do a PPL Skills Test. Grrrrrr!

Last updated: 1st June 2006
I started work in ops at the airport, it was busy and the people were really nice though it would have helped if I understood Swahili! My boss was away for a month but had told me I could get experience flying his C172 which sounded great. It turned out that Feb is the start of their low season which wasn’t due to pick up until around June. Then I saw that the 172 had no engine so I thought it was time to make a plan! If I was going to be flying I could have put up with the climate and conditions in Dar es Salaam a bit better, but I wasn’t going to be flying for months so I gave them my thanks and quit.

I found the heat and poverty all pretty uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be able to change location too many times due to dwindling funds, so I decided to play safe and go and check out South Africa. I emailed all the Drop Zones in SA to see if I could find work as a Parachute dropping pilot. I heard back from one place straight away. They have a quiet drop zone right on the south coast and needed a pilot/parachute packer/marketing person. I am bit of a ‘jack of all trades` and I love the sea so I hopped on a plane to Johannesburg and made a beeline for a little place called Mossel Bay. It is the most beautiful area with an all year round summery climate without getting too hot! The coastline is spectacular with sandunes, long golden beaches and craggy cliffs for contrast. I got a cabin in an old train that had been converted into a Backpackers and spent a few days relaxing and recovering on the beach.

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