Skywatch Friday.... Sudan

Pilots always get to see the sky from a very different perspective to us mere mortals. I thought you might be interested in seeing some pix from Sudan. These were taken by a couple of pilot friends, who must remain nameless, as the Sudanese powers that be do not permit photography. (But you know who you are, thanks for the fresh view of the planet)


Sudan is a land of such extremes... It is dry and dusty in the North, but vast areas of the South are swampy. It hardly rains in places, but when it does, there are monster storms, accompanied by lots of lightning.



And of course, there are the infamous dust storms, or haboob. You do NOT want to be caught outside in on of these!

Rain over the Nile in South Sudan.

Lightning over Khartoum

And this is the tail end of this skywatch post... sunrise over Khartoum

I will be away for a while, but there should be some very cool photos of mountains when we return...you know what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen? Well I don't know what animals they will equate with insane South Africans going to camp in a tent in the mountains in winter!
Cheers for now!

the joys of flying in Africa

With the news of the Peacekeepers plane going down in Egypt and the Kenyan Airlines crash fresh in our minds, the hazards of flying in Africa are once again being highlighted. Here is another of those hazards, taken last week by a pilot, who had to divert and spend the night in another town, as landing where he was headed was clearly impossible!!

This is the notorious hubub, or Desert Sandstorm, taken over the Nile river, and it was said to be the worst one since 1960.

Someone who has lived through them describes it like this:
"if it is day light when it comes it turns the entire environment dark red, the only thing I can liken it to is the purple colour/feeling when a massive snow blizzard comes, its everywhere."

Life on this continent is anything but boring!