My day kicked off with a flight in a Cessna Citation CJ4. It’s the first one in South Africa. Saying that it’s luxurious doesn’t quite tell the reader how fancy it is. I don’t have any photos of the inside of it, so a quick description will suffice.
You can have 8 pax. Two sit sideways, facing the door, two sit facing backwards, and four sit facing forwards. There are three mini TV screens, so you can watch movies, listen to music, or open up a really cool map that shows you where you are.
The seats are comfortable and the isle is lower than the seats, so one doesn’t have to hunch over when they’re out of their seat. And it has a toilet. A real one. This is important ;)
The other funky thing about this aircraft is that it goes high and fast. How does mach 0.7 at 40 000ft sound? Mmm, yes.
The acceleration is phenomenal, and on take-off, I was thrown forward in my seat (I was facing backwards). Even after take-off, you could feel the acceleration forcing you out of (in my case) or into your seat, and they actually had to come back on the power a bit.
The flight itself wasn’t all that interesting. The CJ4 is the jet to have if you want to travel in style.
My luck keeps getting better and better…
Shortly after we had landed, I found out that I was going on a helicopter flight. This is something I’ve wanted to do for years, but I always missed out on the opportunity.
Imagine my joy when I saw I would be flying in the Eurocopter EC145. This toy is huge; it can carry 8 pax, and there’s loads of space (it can be used as a rescue helicopter and all sorts of things). The price tag is also quite huge: 7 million Euros. I’ll take two.
I was excited; who gets to say that their first helicopter flight was in an EC145?! I would’ve been more excited if I could’ve flown it a bit, but beggars can’t be choosers.
As we took off, there was a huge grin on my face. The sensation of going up, backwards and to the side all at the same time was quite something. But once we had climbed away, the excitement vanished; it felt like a regular aircraft.
The thing is a computer; it practically flies itself. You don’t have to touch the anti-torque pedals, and when hovering you can take your hand off the cyclic and the heli won’t budge.
The only thing I liked apart from the take-off was the sense of freedom; we thought there was a whale, so the pilot simply did a 180 degree turn, descended to a couple of hundred feet above the sea, and slowed right down. Not really something I’d try in a Cessna 152. (The whale turned out to be a whole lot of seaweed).
Even the hovering wasn’t all that spectacular. Neither was the landing (well done to the pilot for battling with the strong wind).
Maybe if I get to fly a helicopter, hover, fly backwards, and do all of that other cool stuff, I’ll enjoy it more. But that flight was really a disappointment.
Was interesting to read about your flight in the heli. I run South Africa Travel Online, and we chose this as our travel blog of the week. Linked to it from a 1time newsletter. Keep up the great writing.
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