A classic bush story

First thing that can strike you when you do bush flying in Africa...it's the wildlife!

Unusual in most airfield of the world, the go around because of giraffe runway incursion becomes a classic to tell your fellow at beer o'clock.
The Selous game reserve and Ruaha national parc are full of surprise, everyday you hope for lions and from times to times it's a giraffe, majestically standing in the middle of your landing strip, staring at you noisy bird, coming for landing, full flashing lights on...the flaps go up to 15 degree, the lever smoothly increased for delivering half of the power, sufficient enough to lift us again, making a fly by obvious to communicate with the unwelcomed intruder. Some times it's elephant or zebras close by, but the trophy goes to the giraffe which doesn't get afraid at all of an airplane diving towards her...

giraffe incursion

Tembo on the air side

It's often that impalas are standing by the treshold of the strip in Ruaha, they can be chilling aside or on the runway in front of you, as soon as they get scared, they start running away and some towards your path, following the rest of the group, the last one crossed in a magnificient jump and almost ended up in my prop.
Some of the birds are pretty impressive too, especially when they are circling in a flock at 500 feet on final, the plane goes up cause the birds goes down.

Airstrip in Msembe, Ruaha

*Even if the runway is long and spacious, full reverse is a usefull trick when landing in a open zoo, to get the slowest taxi speed rapidly, being able to adjust moderate breaking...in case!