If my mother could see me now a5

bravado dictated that we just didn’t give a shit.

After a long discussion, we decided for a reasonably high flight level of sixteen thousand feet while transiting into Zaire. We would need to refuel en route to ensure enough fuel was available for any contingency, this would be done in the Northern town of Lubumbashi.

The reasons for choosing a high (for us) flight level for this flight were threefold. Firstly it saves on fuel, secondly you are not at risk from small arms fire, and thirdly and perhaps most importantly we would have a good chance of avoiding any ground launched surface to air missiles (SAM’s). If there was a launch we would have more time to carry out whatever actions necessary to avoid the incoming Grim Reapers Scythe.

Being a propeller driven aircraft with slow revving air cooled engines the chances of a heat seeker achieving a lock were minimal so the third reason, although potentially the most devastating and therefore the most pondered, was perhaps the smallest real risk of the inbound and outbound flights.

From our point of view the only threat we could not cater for was that from other aircraft, we were blissfully unaware of what air power could be