I am currently 30years old, I recieved my PPL at 21years old. Good story My father was sick of me and decided to send me to Africa with a one way ticket and no money to my name( I lie ,I had $50 Aussie dollars for at least 3 months stay and no working visa). So off to Zimbabwe I went. Its a wonderful experience to be thrown in the deep end. While I was there I managed to make plenty of money... And decided to do my pilots licence with some spare cash (cheapest flying in the world) . Zimbabwe Aviation is based on the old British systems. There are no AIP's , No ESRA, maps yes , no CAO, No CAAPS, none of this expensive paperwork. Of course there are maintenance realeases and The plane documentation. The Aviation Doctor said to me how do you feel? I replied Im 21 and bullet proof...he laughed and signed me off without me even sitting down.
My intructor was great and the plane was old 172 '67'model. Her name was Z-YWF which to me meant Young White Female, and she could find her own way home every time! with or without a pilot. Navigation training was the best fun, I wasnt shown what a nav aid was, n e v er heard of a 1:60, told she could fly for 4 hours and keep 30 up your sleave for the afternoon thunderstorms which arrived precisley on time every day in the wet.
Nav was done with deadreckoning alone, no back ups. He did tell me that I could get primary radar coverage and vectoring at any time from the International Airport, but there was no GPS availible. Landing at Harare International was halerious, I had a 747 behind me in the Que waiting to land, and he asked me on the frequency if I could delay my touch down untill I had flown at least half way down the runway, which I did and he told me later that If I had landed on the threshold I would have been a 25min taxi to the apron (so long is this runway, because of the high altitude of the Airport)
. Later that day at the same airport 2other pilots and myself were running amuck in the the terminal and found our way unescorted and a bit tipsy to the tower where there was 1 controller on duty, we could have taken control of the airport! Instead we sat down with him and watched the proceedings and eventually a case of duty free beer appeared in the control tower and the tower was soon rocking!!! So that was learning in Zimbabwe and the first bold steps...
