Flying at cloud-base

[Fairy Flycatcher]

This morning, a mixture of anger, sadness and regret driving a bit of a wedge between David and me, we decided to go for a flight to look for the wreck of the Cessna in the mountains.

When David tried yesterday to get through, with some slim hope of saving the pilot's life by pin-pointing the wreck to the Emergency Rescue guys, the cloud was far too low to be safe (for a local, who knows the area backwards - how much more for an out of town guy at 120kts)

This morning, flew the route we suspect the C182 took, and it was spectacularly beautiful. Today cloud-base was about 500' higher than yesterday, so you can see how incredible it was that he pushed on.

We landed on a dirt road to ask the locals if they know the directions. CAA and the Airwing had not been there yet, and the road directions we had were a bit shaky. I can't tell you how I felt when suddenly, from all around these beautiful hills, 100's of people came sprinting out of their huts to see the microlight on their road. Kids and women, men, dogs and an old rusted bakkie. Everyone wanted to see. Beautiful people, smiling, excited. It made my heart fill with love for our country. Soon, we will arrange to go land on this hill and do flips. Its a wonderful spot.

I am glad that we never found the site, I did not really want to see it, I just wanted to understand. It was getting late, we had to get back for our first customers at 08:00. The locals pointed us in the direction, and we could see the neck he tried to cross. The mountains beyond that are even higher, I doubt he would have made it further in any case.

But the flight was a kind of healing experience. It is so beautiful up there. It is so incredibly sad, but its done, and now we must go on.

[loansharkblv]

Hi FF,

This is one of those feel good stories - Why not post it as well on the thread called "Good" on 123.34 Avcom....