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“THERE WE WERE WITH ALL THESE ENERGY COMPANIES SURROUNDING US, AND WE COULDN’T GET THREE BARRELS OF FUEL FOR THAT AIRPLANE” >> But as Curtis-Talyor says, “once a trip reaches its low ground every day. Curtis-Taylor explains: “Avgas [aviation point, there is only one way to go — up”. And quite literally. gas] was always going to be an issue. That was logistically the Little Annie belched out oil and smoke in protest at having most complicated thing to do, and that was what fouled us up.” been made to stand around in the torrid African heat for two Though for the most part, “it worked like clockwork”, it fell weeks, but after having her oil filter cleaned, she was ready apart in Cabinda as they got trapped. to continue. One more weather-delayed day later, and the The crew, however, was now getting used to delays and An-2 was airborne again, at last compensating the crew with hold-ups beyond their control. She says: “We’d calmed down spectacular views of the Gabonese jungle. and been through the worst. Whereas Nigeria had been “I drove through the Congo basin 30 years ago,” Curtisworrying, Cabinda was frankly quite amusing.” Two fuel Taylor recalls, “but that was an entirely different experience deliveries were aborted, the second when the driver on his to flying over this flowering jungle, just a few hundred way to Cabinda was arrested after telling a police checkpoint feet overhead. This is unmapped terrain, and they can’t that he was transporting water. “There we were with all these map it because they can’t see the ground. It’s real virgin energy companies surrounding us, and we couldn’t get three rainforest, and there’s nothing there and it goes for miles barrels of fuel for that airplane,” says Curtis-Taylor. and then disappears into the mountains.” She described the Having seen so many cargo planes parked at the airport, endless waterways and rivers winding through the jungle she picked up the phone to the mission’s agents in Angola and as “untouched Africa”, saying: “It’s the sort of thing you can demanded that a military plane drop off the necessary Avgas. imagine the legendary Henry Morton Stanley hacking through.” Curtis-Taylor admits that she may have been less than polite. More frustration awaited the crew, however, when they “Within two hours he’d called me back and said he’d had to reached the Angolan province of Cabinda and were unable call in every favour with the Angolan Air Force,” she says. “It’s to refuel, despite Cabinda’s role as an oil hub where several costing me huge,” the mission’s agent said, to which Curtishundred thousand barrels of crude oil are extracted from the Taylor retorted: “I don’t care!” Two days later, on 9 February,
WHAT NEXT FOR ‘LITTLE ANNIE’? The Antonov-2 donated by UTair is now used in southern Africa for humanitarian and charity purposes. Despite its age, it is still a robust and fully functional aircraft that can be deployed to transport goods, medicine and people. ExecuJet will update readers in a future issue on the fate of Little Annie.
THIS PAGE ‘Little Annie’ is the nickname of the An-2 used in this adventure OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP The project was dubbed from ‘Ocean to Ocean’ and took the crew from northern Europe to southern Africa UTair pilots Sergey Bykov and Sergey Dmitrenko (From left) Captain Mark Hill, Captain Sergy Bykov, Engineer Alexander Achimov, Co-Pilot Sergy Dmitrenko and CEO of ExecuJet Aviation Group, Niall Olver
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