Flight Plan to Liberia

 

By Bill Wilkinson

 

The move from London to Jersey in the Channel Islands proved to be more expensive than we had allowed for. To exacerbate the situation I had now become the proud owner of three Percival Prentice aircraft, namely, G-AOMF, G-AOLU and G-AOKF. These were all based at Biggin Hill Airfield, on the Southern fringe of Greater London. The aircraft were being rented out to the Air Training Corp. The Prentice was ideal for ab initio instruction, student pilot and flying instructor in the front, student navigator and instructor in the back and were, therefore, very popular.

 

The field had been taken over by people whose honesty I was beginning to question. The crunch came when I got my monthly fuel bill from Esso. One Saturday KF was refuelled with 320 gallons; the capacity of the aircraft was only 80 gallons. It was an outrageous bit of blatant fraud. I wrote to Esso querying the bill and requesting an investigation into the background of their employees. There was no reply from the fuel company, they merely cancelled my account. In addition, the local flying club was making their own arrangements as to parking the three aircraft. They moved them, without my knowledge, to a remote corner of the field where they were being vandalized. It was impossible for me to keep a constant watch over the planes, so I decided to move my flying operations to Jersey. We flew one of the Prentices to Jersey for the first time on November 12th 1964, clearing customs at Hurn airport near Bournemouth.

 

Inga, my wife, expressed some nervousness about flying across such a large expanse of water. It was a clear, sunny day and I said that if there were any problems we would land alongside the nearest ship

 

and to count the ones around us. We were always in sight of at least twelve at any given moment. The Channel is indeed the crossroads of the world. A message crackled through the headset from the Bournemouth Zone, asking me to contact Jersey Zone when at Fifty North. I did not know of the significance of Fifty North at the time. It is exactly half way between Jersey and the UK. By that time

 

we were coming onto the Cherbourg Peninsula. My war-surplus radio did not have the frequencies for the zones in question, but I was able to contact Jersey Tower on 118.3 MHz. There was the minimum of formalities when landing at Jersey. The island was the destination of holidaymakers from the UK and it had a very relaxed atmosphere. The airport staff were always helpful and very friendly.

 

The housing market in Jersey was depressed at the time and we were lucky enough to find a new built house overlooking St Aubins Bay. This stretched our budget to breaking point; some aeroplanes would have to go! Advertisements were placed in Flight International.

 

The relationship with the Biggin Hill management continued to deteriorate. They saw me as a captive milch cow. The move to Jersey did not suit their plans at all. We had, initially, travelled to Jersey in LU. I flew back to the UK commercially with the intention of also flying out KF. When I arrived at Biggin the management presented me with a bill, which was a product of their imagination. I disputed their figures and demanded that they justified them. Not surprisingly they were unable to do so.

 

I went out to KF and started up the engine. The airfield managers were determined not to see me fly away. They parked the crash wagon 12 inches in front of the rotating propeller and effectively blocked me from leaving. I was very angry and left the field with a friend. We returned the following morning at 4 a.m. I went to the local pay phone and rang Gatwick requesting clearance for customs formalities. The crash wagon was in its normal place beside the control tower and no longer impeding movement. As the sun came up I flew to Gatwick, cleared customs, then carried on to Jersey. By nine o'clock I was in my dental practice in St.Helier, Jersey, seeing my first patient. The phone rang with a call from one of my friends at the airport who said that the phone lines between Biggin Hill and Jersey were red hot. I was rather relieved at the successful flight earlier that day and completed the day's work.

 

One tragic outcome of the mismanagement at Biggin occurred when a twin engined Gemini crashed into the barrack block, killing the pilot. The crash wagon could offer no help as somebody had siphoned out its petrol.

 

The advertisements in the Flight International were producing results. An enthusiastic Irishman flew down from Dublin and was happy to pay the price for LU. Two months later I received a letter from a mining engineer in Liberia asking for details on KF. I offered to deliver it as part of the price.

 

He quickly accepted, providing I arrived at Monrovia Airfield by 4 p.m. March 9th 1966. I had four days to get down there to clinch the deal.

 

In the early hours of the following day I flew KF to Biarritz in France. After refuelling I left for Madrid arriving six hours later. An overnight stay made me realize how hasty had been my departure. My sole baggage was a toothbrush and a change of clothes.

 

At Madrid Airport I flight planned to Casablanca. The officials in the Flight Clearances Office demanded to see my Insurance documents. I had completely forgotten to bring them.

 

The matter was resolved when I said that the aircraft was now theirs and that I would be returning to London on the next commercial flight. As I walked out, the clerk shouted after me to come back. He offered to accept a manuscript Declaration of Insurance. I immediately wrote on a blank piece of paper: "I hereby certify that British Registered Aircraft Percival Prentice G-AOKF is comprehensively insured with Lloyds of London.

 

Signed Bill Wilkinson date 6th of March 1966"

 

This was acceptable to the Flight Clearances Office in Madrid. Both the clerk and I heaved a big sigh of relief. I took off for Casablanca and was touching down on its solitary asphalt strip four hours later.

 

A quick refuelling and I was on my way to Agadir. During the taxi ride from the airport into town I noticed a remarkable number of new buildings, nothing like the shanties on the fringes of Tangier. The hotel guest rooms were all separate units. I was curious about this as I stood on the courtyard outside

 

the reception building, looking at the setting sun over the Atlantic. Then it came to me! Six years previously Agadir had been flattened by an earthquake and 40,000 people had been killed. A cold shiver went up my spine. I went to my cabin and had a night of deep sleep.

 

At the airport next morning I was questioned closely by the police. How much money did I have? Was I taking any foreign currency out of Morocco? My answers were brief and confident in the negative.

 

They disbelieved me. I invited them to search the empty rear cabin. The policeman then imposed a fine of ten Dinars…… for what? I offered him a solitary British pound, which he eagerly accepted.

 

During the flight from Agadir to Al Aauin I started to feel the heat. I had neglected to carry any drinking water with me. A stupid oversight when you are flying over the Sahara! To complicate matters, a red warning light came on. I looked at the Ammeter. It was reading zero.

 

I said my favorite combination of rude words. I landed at Al Aauin at midday, refuelled, had a sandwich, bought a bottle of Evian and felt much better. The preflight did not reveal any disconnected wires. When the prop was turned over, however, there was no movement in the generator. I repeated my .choice selection of rude words. Would the charge in the batteries last me to Liberia? I only needed them for starting the engine.

 

The ignition was from two magnetos, batteries were not needed for this. How many starts would I need? The engine started first go, thank goodness! I took off for Port Etienne on the coastal edge of the Spanish Sahara. On arriving there four and a quarter hours later, a fierce sandstorm was blowing.

 

There was only one runway pointing North-South and the wind was from the East. I thought this was going to test my crosswind landing abilities! No problem. The Prentice wheeled on beautifully. Its wide undercarriage was made for crosswinds. I taxied onto the apron, then leapt out and sealed off all of the intakes with a roll of sellotape. One of the Bedouins looked at me as if I was totally deranged.

I asked an airport worker how long the sand storm would last. He said that it would finish at seven in the evening. I made sure that the aircraft was firmly tied down. At precisely seven o'clock the wind died down. It was as if the weatherman had turned a switch off. I was impressed.

 

I walked to the nearby airport hotel. It had seen many sandstorms and it was completely buried. The entrance had been kept clear and there was a path into the large mound of sand. Although completely without windows, the hotel was cool and very comfortable.

 

After a good nights sleep and a hearty breakfast I carried out a thorough pre-flight inspection and removed the sellotape from all of the inlets. The engine kicked into life and I took off for Dakar in the Senegal. I enjoyed the scenic flight over the Sahara, the endless mountains of sand and thanked God that I wasn't hoofing it.

 

Dakar airport was a large airfield built by the French. As I taxied in I was surprised to see an Antanov passenger jet parked on the concourse. "What the heck are they doing here?" I asked myself.

 

I gathered up my papers and headed for the Flight Clearances Office. I was also on the lookout for somewhere to eat, when I noticed that I was being followed by an attractive airhostess in the light blue uniform of the Russian Aeroflot. The sight of my dilapidated, war-surplus flying machine must havebeen a great worry to the Russians.

 

This tickled me. I paid my landing fees and flight planned for Conakry in Guinea. My Russian friend was still hanging about outside the office as I went about the formalities. She disappeared inside as I walked back to the plane, but first stopping briefly at the cafeteria for a coffee and a sandwich. She was waiting for me outside the cafeteria when I had finished. I resisted the impulse to introduce myself before organizing fuelling and completing the preflight check. (My usual chat up line of: "Hello, my name is Bill. Do you come here often?" might not have been appreciated by the KGB representative for Senegal.) The starter sounded a little bit tired and I wondered how many starts I had left now. I taxied to the designated runway keeping an eye open for a last glimpse of my airhostess.

 

As I crossed the border into Gambia my little Bayside portable radio announced, via Dakar control, that my flight plan had been cancelled. There was a revolution in progress at Conakry. Bathurst was right below me. I called them and asked for a clearance to divert.

 

As I rolled to a stop on the enormous concrete runway, I was startled to see that two crash wagons, with sirens howling, were chasing me down the strip. I taxied into the apron and climbed up the control tower to consult with the controllers. My arrival had interrupted their lunch break. Squatting on the floor two of the workers were scooping up a porridge like mess with their fingers from a large bowl placed between them. It looked very unappetizing. Deciding that flying had finished for the day, I managed to get a lift into town with the American Consul. We drove alongside the river and I felt there was something I ought to know about this country. My eyes caught sight of the numerous graves on the riverbank. Then I remembered! The country was known as "The White Man's Grave". Malaria killed off the settlers as fast as they arrived. My stomach tied itself in a knot. I had no insect repellent with me. The consul dropped me off at the "best" hotel. It looked ancient and decrepit. I explained to the porter my concerns about malaria. He showed me the shutters on the windows with their wire mesh screens and the mosquito netting over the bed. A warning buzz announced the presence of a mosquito already inside. The porter chased it all around the room until he shouted in triumph that he had killed it. There was no air conditioning and I had a very fitful sleep that night.

 

At dawn I went out the front door to watch the beautiful sunrise. In the tropics this is very spectacular. Something stirred at my feet. I looked down to see one of the locals asleep in the road. He was covered in dust and was quite invisible in the half-light until he moved.

 

I flight planned for Robertsfield in Liberia, the international airport for the country and situated about 25km from Monrovia. The controller warned me to take care when flying over Guinea. Everyone was trigger-happy in that part of the world he advised. As I flew over the former Portuguese colony, I looked down onto the Military airfield at Bissau. A dozen Migs were sitting on the tarmac. Not wanting to see them scramble up after me, I put the nose down and flew with the throttle wide open at treetop level until I reached the border. Giving Conakry a wide berth, I flew over Sierra Leone. Freetown seemed to be a collection of tin huts and six hours after leaving Gambia I was touching down at Robertsfield. This was the only airfield in Liberia with customs entry facilities. The airfield was run by an American administrator who lined up the baggage handlers and other tarmac workers and said that I had to pay them for their services. He demanded: "This man gets a dollar, this man gets a dollar, this man gets two dollars. The next man is the foreman, he gets five dollars." I handed out the money to each man as requested. The total cost was $20. The American then cleared me to fly to Monrovia, just 25 Km away.

 

I pressed the starter button and nothing happened. The battery was totally exhausted There was an hour to go for my deadline! I set the controls, put chocks under the wheels and proceeded to hand crank it. I had never done this before and wondered whether I could get the engine going without being chopped

 

up by the large metal propeller. The tarmac workers stood lined up by the wing tip, mouths agape. On the fifth try the engine chugged into life. I set the throttle, removed the chocks and taxied onto the runway. The workers remained in line, mouths still open, as I took off.

 

Fifteen minutes later I was joining the circuit at Monrovia airfield. This was, essentially, a light aircraft field with a few Cessnas, TriPacers and a couple of Cherokees on the tarmac. A slim, middle aged, white man ran out to the Prentice as I sat there with the engine idling. We introduced ourselves above the engine noise. He was Holger Helgesson, the mining engineer who had agreed to buy my plane. I explained why I could not shut the engine off. We took off for Buchanan some fifty miles down the coast. This was a port for shipping out the iron ore being mined at Mount Nimba. The airstrip ran alongside the railway line to the port and there were railway workshops nearby. We shut the engine down after landing, removed the batteries and dismantled the generator. There were many helpers. They were so excited at the prospect of owning their own aircraft. This would improve communications in the wild, jungle covered country. The parts of the broken generator drive shaft were taken to the railway workshop for a welding repair and the batteries were recharged. I did not notice that, during the course of removing the batteries, I had spilt battery acid onto my trousers.

 

That night I stayed with Dr Schøtt, the Danish doctor for the mining company. "My name is pronounced 'shit'," said the doctor with a big smile on his face. I was being very well looked after.

 

The newly restored Prentice started first go the following day and three of us, Holger, another mine worker and myself flew up to Mount Nimba, where the open cast mine was located. The airfield was on the side of the mountain and should be approached by flying around the mountain. On the final stage of the approach I saw a very large, luminous, green snake sunning itself on the end of the landing strip. I lifted up the right wing to avoid running over it and then touched down. If I had hit the snake, the plane would have cartwheeled into the jungle. We walked over to the operations hut and discussed the flight with other mining engineers. They were very happy to have access to the port and their homes within a half hour's flying. Normally it would have taken six hours by train.

 

We flew back to Monrovia to collect the cheque from the bank and to send a telegram to tell Inga that I had arrived safely. It was Liberia's National Day and the Post Office was closed. Sending telegrams were out of the question. The electricity and telephones were also turned off. Fortunately we were able to collect the cheque, though.

 

The following day my hosts presented me with a peanut tray and a snake basket, souvenirs of my visit. We then flew to Robertsfield for me to connect with a KLM flight bound for Amsterdam.

 

The first stop on the return journey was to Lagos in Nigeria. There was to be a two-hour stopover there.

 

I wandered outside to watch the aircraft movements. Something out of the corner of my eye caused me to glance up. On top of the flat roof of one of the airport buildings were two soldiers, one of them was clutching a longbarrelled sniper rifle complete with telescopic sight. I glanced to the building on the other side of the reception lounge. Sure enough, there were two soldiers lying there, one with an enormous rifle. A DH125 executive jet landed and stopped in the middle of the field. A stretched Mercedes limousine raced across the field and halted alongside the jet. General Ironsi, the premier of Nigeria, got out of the car as the door of the aircraft opened and a tall slim man, wearing a colourful dish-dash of Northern Nigeria, climbed out. He was probably a tribal chief . They stood talking in the middle of the runway for about half an hour when the tall gent climbed back into the aircraft, the plane taxied to the end of the runway and then took off. General Ironsi drove off in the Mercedes. A couple of months later General Ironsi was assassinated.

 

Our boarding call came eventually and along with two other passengers in the 707 I enjoyed the eight-hour journey to Amsterdam. During the flight I was able to arrange my connecting flight to London with the aircrew.

 

It was raining in Amsterdam as we touched down. The 707 parked alongside the Viscount waiting to take me to London. As I ran through the rain to board the BEA aircraft, I became aware of the water running down my legs. The sudden impact of the damp weather on my acid impregnated trousers had caused them to fall apart. Strips of cloth had peeled off and my bare legs were exposed for the world to see. The perplexed British European airhostess looked at me with revulsion as I climbed the stairs into the Viscount. She swept her arm forwards and commanded:" Come with me." We marched straight into First Class. "Sit," she ordered. I was, initially, embarrassed by my dreadful appearance, but then I saw the amusing side of it all. The hostess had brought me through to the expensive seating area, so that I would not alarm the honest, British, travelling, public. I was still clutching my peanut tray and the snake basket. These became shields to protect my modesty until I could purchase a new pair of trousers at the men's shop at Heathrow.

 

The next day I flew to Jersey and banked the cheque. Inga asked me that evening if she could, at last, buy curtains for the lounge. She certainly could, as we now had the funds.

 

About a month later we received a letter from Holger Helgesson saying that the Prentice had proved to be a great success and that the mining company was thinking of buying a second one.