Newly married, the Fly Me to the Fun couple rent a Cessna 182 in Nairobi and fly to a safari airstrip in the Maasai Mara for a fly-in safari.
What the video covers
Written in our own words. It only describes what the video shows and says.From a bucket list idea to a rental in Nairobi
The pilot behind Fly Me to the Fun has wanted to fly in the African savannah since before he earned his pilot licence, and he and Lainey have both dreamed of a safari. They recently got married, and this trip is how they start that next chapter. The first idea, flying their own 60 year old two seater via Goose Bay, Greenland, Iceland, Europe and the Sahara all the way to Kenya, is quickly shelved. Instead he contacts flight schools in Kenya to rent a plane he can fly to a game lodge in the Mara, and decides to bring an instructor because he has never flown in Africa or landed in the bush. Performance is the next puzzle: Nairobi sits at 5,500 feet and it will be around 90 degrees, so a Cessna 172 with three adults, safari gear and fuel would be tight. He is referred to Captain Dilip, an instructor with access to a Cessna 182 who knows the Maasai Mara, and after a required prepayment the flight is booked.
Departure from Wilson Airport
The aircraft is 5Y-CJX, a 1982 Cessna 182 with a basic analogue six pack and a portable GPS, waiting at Wilson Airport, the small Nairobi field used by flight schools and safari flights. The 5Y prefix marks a Kenyan registration. Captain Dilip works the radios and the YouTuber does the flying. They taxi to the holding point of runway 14 and take off with a right turn out, wind 090 at 14 knots, then follow the departure procedure: an initial climb to 6,500 feet until crossing the threshold of runway 07, a heading towards a newly built stadium and a further climb to 8,500. Leaving the control zone they set standard pressure, 1013, and continue with Nairobi Centre, maintaining flight level 85 on the way west to the national park. The plan is to land at Kichwa Tembo, one of the main safari airstrips in the park and a 15 minute drive from their lodge.
A flapless landing at Kichwa Tembo
Kichwa Tembo was not the original choice. The Angama Mara Safari Lodge, on a cliff overlooking the Mara Triangle, has its own 5,000 foot strip, but it closed in 2022 for improvements and has been held up by administrative delays ever since. After top of descent Nairobi Centre releases them to a local advisory frequency, where they listen for other traffic while descending into the Mara. With calm wind runway 08 is preferred, so they approach from the west and join a right downwind, although another pilot reports their radio as unreadable. On approach the flaps do not come down, so they fly a flapless approach a little faster onto a strip of about 1,000 metres, helped by plenty of wind, with animals visible on short final. It is his first African bush landing, and Captain Dilip tells him he has a great future as a pilot. A guide from the camp then picks them up while Dilip flies back to Nairobi, and on the 15 minute drive they already see baboons, warthogs, zebras, wildebeest, hippos and buffalo. They spend four nights at Angama Mara North Camp, with 37 hours of game drives, a hot air balloon flight low over the Mara and a traditional Maasai wedding blessing.
