Pilotwannabe1123
New Member
Do they have any US registered aircraft?
South African Flying
- Thread starter Pilotwannabe1123
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drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
Shouldn't matter too much in most of Africa, as you should be able to convert a US certificate easily. It is a bigger deal in Europe, where license conversions are very difficult.
Pilotwannabe1123
New Member
Thanks Beagle!
Have you flown in the bush?
Have you flown in the bush?
drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
Nope, I'm commenting about something I know nothing about. Gotta love the interweb. Never even been to Africa.
Pilotwannabe1123
New Member
haha lol, ive been but never to South Africa
touch-n-go
Well-Known Member
The only people who fly U.S registered aircraft are usually missionaries. If you are going to fly locally registered aircraft in a particular country, you would need a licence conversion. That whole process is dependant on the particular country. I know in Zimbabwe the process of conversion was a lengthy one to a large extent because you were dealing with the inefficient government there. I think if you intended to fly as a commercial pilot with a foriegn commercial pilots licence, you would still need to do ground school and the written as well as a flight test there. This could take a while as the commercial exams can only be taken twice a year at the civil aviationheadquaters
This rule even applied to the some guys I knew who were in the national airline's ab-inition program who the airline would send to Ethiopia and would come back with their Ethiopian Commercial Multi instrument, would still be required to do ground school and take exams to get their Zimbabwe conversion.
Anyways, Africa is a big place and different countries do different things. If you are really interested in Africa flying, I would start with companies that regularly hire foreigners as they may have a scoop on how to navigate the system.
Aw, well - thanks for the info. Haven't been back since '75 and knew lots of changes had to have been made. The practice area (at least, where were went) was Bindura. Still the same as far as you know? IIRC, John Plant was the owner, or CP, or maybe both at Tech-Air. Maybe you heard his name around MFC or Pegasus? I recall flying in another 140 and an Aztec, can't remember their registrations (though I do have pictures of the other 140's wing after she came home from a trip with half a dozen bullet holes in her!)
touch-n-go
Well-Known Member
ppragman's post answered that.
As ppragman posted, Sefofane is one of the biggest out there. I would also maybe add Proflight of Zambia and Solenta Aviation in Southafrica. I don't know if they are hiring. Also Sefofane has a lot of good info on their website about pilot positions for foreigners and fly in different countries. Here is a link to their job page http://www.sefofane.com/employment.html
It may also answer questions of permits and stuff.
touch-n-go
Well-Known Member
Practice area was a huge chunk of airspace they called Delta Seven Zero when I was there. It started at Gwebi dam which was a few miles north of the airport and went as far north as the Great Dyke Range. The western limit was the Harare-Kariba highway. It then went as far east as Concession along the Harare-Bindura highway. We had prohibited airspace in the Mazowe are due to the Sats. Never heard anyone talk of John Plant unfortunately. Thats a crazy 140 story.wow.
primate
New Member
I used to work in South Africa a fair bit, sometimes around Rand Airport in Germiston (Johannesburg). I ate lunch at the airport quite a bit (Harvards restaurant, great wood fired oven pizza and outdoor seating on the flight line). http://www.randflight.co.za/
Anyway, I used to stop in to the flight school every now and then and ask the same question, how hard would it be to convert my U.S. private pilot's license to an SA one. They told me that basically I needed to do it all over with them, that U.S. standards were low and I would have to go through all their various stages in order to have the required experience to be eligible for a checkride. I think it was this place: http://www.randflight.co.za . In any event, it was at least always a consistent story. They told me that if I had an ATP, it would be a different story. Still haven't picked that up yet though.
swisspilot
Well-Known Member
I was about to get a job at Nyassa, I did the interview with them (interview was in German), back when they still use to hire fresh CPLs, the owner is a really nice guy but he only hires peoples who speak multiple languages and have flown the planes they have in their fleet, most of their customers are from Europe, so their pilots (right now: Austria, Danemark, France and Netherland). The pay there is really good for African standards (they pay half of your ticket to go home on the first leave!!), you have lots of free time and accomodation is pretty nice.
ppragman
FLIPY FLAPS!
Not entirely true. A guy from our outfit went down there last year, as far as I know, he wasn't a German speaker. He did have considerable PA32 time.
swisspilot
Well-Known Member
Do you remember his name?
What I said is what I recall from the interview, I also remember the last guys that where selected. I' m sure that things may not always be like that. I would have loved that job, contract was 1 years, and as I said pay was pretty good compared to sefofane and others.
Looks like they did not hired anybody since last feb....
swisspilot
Well-Known Member
Most company will not hire you with e-mail or ask anybody to come for an interview (Nyassa is not one of them), you have to pack your stuff and go there and knock at the door at every single place. This is how you get a job. The season is about to start, not many openings but if you go there and you hang around a bit you will be able to land something.
Somebody asked about taking wife there, well have you ever traveled to a 3rd world country in Africa? you think your wife would live there, in places like Maun? Flying is amazing there but you have to remember you will be living on a daily base in a place, where if you are not use to you will hate it. East Afrcia si nothing like you see on Travel channel....going there and travel around will give you an idea of what will be living there for 1-2 years and this way you can also get contacts to get a Job.
Somebody asked about taking wife there, well have you ever traveled to a 3rd world country in Africa? you think your wife would live there, in places like Maun? Flying is amazing there but you have to remember you will be living on a daily base in a place, where if you are not use to you will hate it. East Afrcia si nothing like you see on Travel channel....going there and travel around will give you an idea of what will be living there for 1-2 years and this way you can also get contacts to get a Job.
swisspilot
Well-Known Member
I can give you my mom's personal experience about that, because of my dad's job we had to go in places like that. I can also post a little story on what it would look like to bring a family with you there...we have done it.