There is a certain nostalgia these days for what some have called ‘the golden age of air travel’. During much of the ‘50s and early ‘60s, before wide-bodied jets whisked hordes of tourists to the Azores, to Cancun and Chiang Mai, air travel meant piston-engine propeller planes with unpressurized cabins that took as long as 18 hours to lumber across the north Atlantic. But still, crisp cabin crew seemed to have just stepped off fashion house runways. Outside thundered the piston engines, with prim passengers in hats and bow ties, shoes gleaming. The cockpit might invite wide-eyed children for a look-see, the ground below easily visible from a 10,000 ft. flight ceiling. Crowds of well-wishers would jam the boarding gates waving farewell or welcome signs. The drama and romance of Earhart and Lindberg still hung in the air.
Though the breakthrough of jet-powered fleets dominated major global routes through the ‘60s and ‘70s, that era of Earhart and Lindberg lingered long in the backwaters of world aviation. When we packed our bags and rushed out breathless to dirt or even grass airstrips in south Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa, we met with castoff aircraft from World War II and the Berlin Airlift that had once figured in world headlines. We tracked air traffic not by radar but by eyes trained on the horizon and ears cocked to the wind for the throb of twin-engine DC-3s. Uncertain weather and 11th hour requisition of planes by VIPs made a casino of this ‘golden age’ of flying. But as with flashy games of chance, an adrenalin rush was assured.
In the mid-’70s, our family took leave of students and colleagues at our teacher-training school in Africa’s Great Lakes region for an assignment in Kinshasa (now, Dem. Rep. of the Congo). A 4-engine Dakota (DC-4) awaited us on the Bunia airstrip where we clambered aboard destined for a burgeoning African city vibrant with Congolese rhumba and the promise of windfall mineral wealth. The vast Congo Basin covered by rainforest lay between us and our destination.
We lifted off, banking out over Lake Albert, the upper reaches of the Nile, and then headed south along the Blue Mountains bathed in afternoon sunshine. The route took us along the snow-capped Mountains of the Moon (Rwenzoris), past volcanoes of the Rift Valley, and then veering west out over the rainforest broken only by looping rivers that flashed in the sinking sun.
The pilot informed us that we would touch down in the remote mining town of Lodja before resuming our flight to the capital. We came in low over the forest toward a clearing slashed from dense vegetation. But our touchdown failed to make full use of the landing strip, with the pilot braking furiously to avoid overrunning the clearing into the vines and trees beyond. This he just succeeded in doing, but at great strain to the disc brakes. We limped back to the quonset hut that served as the Lodja airport. There the pilot announced that we could deplane for only a few minutes since he was required to be airborne before sunset.
Shadows deepened as we stepped out onto the gravel apron to stretch our legs. A smattering of new passengers climbed aboard the plane with their luggage as the pilot re-started the engines to signal a return to the aircraft.
The motors revved as doors were closed and we buckled into our seats. But despite powered-up engines, there was no movement of the aircraft. It was frozen in place. The pilot made a second attempt – to no avail. The crew announced that there had been a malfunction of the brakes, and repairs would be made to free up the wheels. We deplaned as light began to fail. Someone appeared with a hammer, tapping at the wheel housings hoping to jar the brakes free. That, too, failed to release the wheels.
At last, all able-bodied passengers were asked to gather at the undercarriage of the plane to push it forward – as with a balky car – while the pilot gunned the engines. The result was a comedy turned maelstrom. As we laughed at the improbability of this scene – passengers pushing a 4-engine disabled aircraft on a dirt strip in the rainforest of central Africa at sunset – the pilot went gonzo throttle as prop-wash of dust and gravel engulfed us full-on. But in vain.
The sun had well and truly set. Since Hilton, or even Motel 6, had yet to arrive in Lodja, we were billeted by kindly souls in empty schools, churches and community halls overnight. The next day a mechanic arrived to liberate the landing gear allowing us to resume our westward flight. As we approached N’djili airport outside Kinshasa, the plane was overtaken by a ferocious nighttime rainstorm. Water began dripping into the cabin as turbulence tossed the plane. Lightning flashed in the clouds. Passengers began singing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ as though re-enacting the closing scene of the foundering Titanic. But under airport lights, we finally stepped out onto tarmac midst pelting rain, braced at the thought of having completed such a journey.
Such were, for us, the glories of the so-called ‘golden age of aviation’, such the whiff of the heroic era of Earhart and Lindberg.
There are so many ways your African adventures could have ended your lives, and yet here you are to regale us with both danger and providence. Thanks, Jonathan!
This brings back so many memories of flying in Southeast Asia in the 60s and 70s. I remember boarding a single engine prop plane in Ho Chi Minh City, heading for Phnom Penh, as mechanics were up on the roof of the airplane with their hammers!! And the time Earl and I were flying back to Vientiane, in Laos, after bouncing over the mountains. We circled and circled over the capital, only to be told that the landing gear was stuck. We could see the fire trucks below waiting to put out the fire from our belly landing!! That was the same trip that we grabbed some napkins and started writing our last will and testament, like who we wanted to care of our two children that we left behind in Vietnam, should we not make it back alive!
Ah, the memories of the DC3! Gudrun , her 2 brothers and mother flew out of Berlin in 1949 on one that took them to West Germany and the MCC refugee camp Gronau on the Dutch border. That plane had brought coal to West Berlin. We both had our last DC3 flight from Blantyre Malawi to Lusaka Zambia in 1965 which was also carrying some chickens. We had a stop in Lilongwe and ushered out to a small shed, and given a sandwich for lunch while the plane was refuelling.
Oh yes! The old DC 3’s were the work horse of airplanes in the 1950’s and after. My first airplane flight was on one flying out of Fort Wayne, IN — March 1956. Later on some more mostly in Africa. Never cared for them although cognitively I knew they were probably safer than some others.