During my first of many trips into the DRC, I realized that depending on the type of work you do, one is exposed to sometimes harrowing flights in a variety of different aircraft. But nothing grabbed my fancy more than flying in the Antonov An 2.

Designed in the 1940’s, the An 2 is a relatively large biplane generally used as a light utility transport because it’s slow speed and good field performance. This quality makes it very suited for short, unimproved fields of which there are plenty in the DRC!!!

The client knowing that I have a particular interest in aviation was kind enough to let me sit in front with the pilot. He introduced himself to me as Yuri and passed me a flask.
“Courage?” he asked…
“Ahh…no thanks” I quivered wondering what was in the flask.
Yuri then started shouting something towards the back of the aircraft and a packer climbed over the cargo littering the entrance of the cockpit and stuck his head inside the minute gap that used to be the emergency exit.
A barrage of instructions came from Yuri…and none that I understood.

Yuri looked at my quizzing mug and elaborated in a stiff Russian accent.
“Dis packer dropped bag of cement on last flight…Dust Everywhere! Dust on Windscreen…Dust on instruments…I can’t see things. Just making sure he knows I kill him if drops one again.”
“Oh boy” I sighed as a sense of impending doom came over me.
“You like my office?” Yuri pointed at his cockpit.
It was a little different to what I was used to in an aircraft, because all the instruments displayed metric information. But most of all I admired the very old fashioned fan blowing air onto Yuri’s face.
“It’s interesting for sure. I fly Cessna’s at home…”
Yuri looked at me with a beady eye and muttered only one thing back.
“Dis very different” and started the engine.

Nothing prepares one for the noise coming from the Shvetsov ASh-62 radial engine. It’ loud, bombastic and it filled me with exhilaration.

Before I knew it we were airborne, crossed the Kasai River and were flying no higher than 100m (app 330 ft) above the ground. The tree tops from the jungle were almost touchable and scenes from the movie “Out of Africa” came to mind. We flew between valleys…and then at very low level with a river before struggling to get enough altitude to clear a hill.
It was amazing!
As the flight progressed Yuri gave me control of the beast. I took control and found her to be remarkably responsive and easy to trim. Straight and level turned out to be a breeze. Yuri pointed towards the GPS and I noticed that we needed to change our bearing. Next he pointed at the compass and showed me which bearing to fly.
A subtle power change, a bit of stick and rudder and Voila! Not that I’m an expert…but to me…she handled like a dream.
Yuri smiled at me appreciatively as he took back the controls.
I was still staring out of the cockpit when I noticed that our altitude had dropped a little more than it had been during the very low level parts of our flight. I was starting to think that Yuri was maybe getting a little reckless. Before I even looked forward…all three wheels had touched the ground on a runway I did not even recognize from the air.
It was the smoothest landing I had ever experienced.

As we finished taxing to the end of the field…hundreds of Congolese kids were waiting in anticipation of the excitement an An 2 brings when it lands. Cheekily, Yuri swung the tail at them and briefly opened the throttle. A plethora of dust flew into the crowd before he cut the engine. Instead of being annoyed…the crowed cheered in exhilaration.

To sum up things…I have flown in many aircraft in my life before, ranging from airliners, cargo planes to aerobatics aircraft. Nothing spoke to my soul more than the approximately twenty flips I have had in the An 2 to date.
The Russians are not necessarily known for building things that encapsulate romance. But with the An 2, I think they managed to get it right.

A tribute to a great aircraft!

City: Johannesburg

Country: South Africa

The software is free to download, and only requires you to register on their website and link it to your geocache account. It is currently supported on BlackBerry and Nokia phones, but have a look on their website for full details. http://www.geocachenavigator.com

In a nut shell, the software will use your built in GPS on your phone to find your location. It then uses you’re internet connection on your phone to query the geocaching website for any caches that are close to your current GPS co-ordinates. You can then see them in a list and choose which one you would like to hunt. You can log your visit to the cache directly from you phone, and move on to hunting the next one.

The software also supports you inputting the co-ordinates directly, and has support for the 3 major formats of co-ordinates.

This is a fantastic product for on the go geocaching and allows you to cache anywhere in the world without having to search manually on the geocaching website for a cache, then write down all the details to put into your GPS. It’s also very convenient considering you always have your phone on you, but you don’t always have your GPS unit.

Website: http://www.geocachenavigator.com

City: Worldwide

Country: Worldwide

According to their front page, “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.”

I registered on their website and did a quick search to see if there were any geocaches close to where I live. To my surprise there were 15 of them within 5km of my house (over 700,000 worldwide). I put the co-ordinates of a cache that was very close to my house and on my way home from work, and thought I would give it a try. I think when I actually found it I was more shocked than anything else, as this little film canister (the cache) was in the middle of the parking lot of a busy shopping centre. Trying to retrieve the cache undetected is half the fun and after signing the log book and placing the cache back in its home, I was hooked. Once you have found a cache, you can log it on the geocaching website, and it will be stored in your profile. Your profile also allows you to watch caches to see if other people find them. This is useful if you decide to hide your very own cache, and want to know when people find it, and how often.

Another really fun aspect is buying yourself a travel bug. These are like the metal dog tags you would wear around your neck in the army, and each one has a unique serial number. You can then place your travel bug in a cache and give it a mission such as going from London to New York. Someone who finds your travel bug is allowed to remove it from the cache and help it on its journey. This is not to say they have to fly it New York, but they have to get your bug that little bit closer to its destination. Once they have placed it into another cache, they log it’s travels on the website and you can follow where your bug has been and how it’s progressing in its mission.

My wife and I have gone geocaching quite often since and it always results in a great day out, and we get to see places that we would otherwise not have discovered or seen. I also travel a fair amount worldwide and I’m always sure to get the co-ordinates of some caches close to where I will be staying. This is a great way to force me to get out and about in a strange place, and on my last trip to a small place called Cirencester in South West England I even bumped into a fellow geocacher who I chatted to for a while (it’s not every day you see someone with a GPS looking in the same place as yourself).
Geocaching can be done with almost any GPS that can accept co-ordinate input, and a lot of the GPS’s on the market even allow you to plug your GPS into your computer and download the geocache information directly from the website. I have recently downloaded a piece of software for my Nokia N95, which has a built in GPS, and with this nifty piece of software my phone will go onto the internet and inform me of geocaches that are close by to me, no matter where in the world I happen to be.

So in conclusion, if you’re looking for something fun to do outdoors, and you want to meet new people and discover new places. I highly recommend geocaching.

Website: http://www.geocaching.com

City: Worldwide

Country: Worldwide