Early in 1955 LETTIE and I had to make a business trip to a number of European countries. We contemplated conventional travel, but eventually decided to fly our Swift.

A special long distance tank was installed in the luggage compartment, which, together with the wing tanks, would allow safe 1,000-mile hops without refueling.

The Aero Club in London partially supplied data for two suggested routes to the United Kingdom-one via Central Africa along the Nile, the North African coast, Sardinia and Corsica to Nice and London; the other from Johannesburg through the Rhodesias, the Belgian Congo, and up the west coast of Africa to Europe and London.. No information could be had on conditions in Algeria, the Middle and Near East or for that matter about any private flight through the African Continent; we decided to help ourselves.

The route we devised was a shortcut from Pretoria to Cairo, through Southern Rhodesia, Uganda and the Sudan. From Cairo, instead of braving the Mediterranean in a single-engined aircraft, we decided to go via Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Italy and France to England. From England we planned to go to the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany, returning home via Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, French and Spanish Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and thence down the continent. .

Preparation started in February ’55, with letters on our proposed itinerary to all airports of intended landing, to the Divisions of Civil Aviation of the countries concerned, to the Department of War in Egypt and the Near Eastern countries, to the Tourist Corporation and to the Shell and Vacuum Companies for transmission to all refueling points along the route. Emergency supplies included a first aid kit, signaling equipment, food rations, May Wests and the famous United States Air Force publication "Survival." Clothing for a journey through 22 different countries in three months had to be practical and weigh as little as possible. Nylon came to our aid. Documents included valid passports to all countries of intended visit, fuel carnets along the entire route backed by a local deposit account, and a blg of aircraft papers and logbooks. By early April our permits were all in and answers to our letters gave us good data on local facilities and formalities.

On April 30, we said goodbye to Wonderboom Airport. Weather forced us down at Pietersburg, only 160 miles from our base and next day faulty weather reporting forced deviation on the leg to Salisbury. Lettie was so upset about these initial mishaps in view of the 25,000 miles ahead, that she threw overboard a tiny silver pig given us on departure as a good luck charm.

But it was not a journey to be devoid of thrills! Further bad weather in the tropics, a scare over the desert, falling out of a cloud in a flat spin near Genoa, being arrested as spies in Switzerland, shot at over French Morocco and hydraulic failure over the Mau-Mau forests of Kenya were incidents still to come-pig or no pig.

From Salisbury to Lilongwe, Nyasaland over the mighty Zambesi, one covers bushy wastelands with no civilization, although this country is mineral rich and has recently been surveyed scientifically by an American company. From Lilongwe we followed the picturesque but crocodile-infested Lake Nyasa for 300 miles to Mbeya, Tanganyika. We were here two years before when we covered all the lake regions of Africa, following the trails of the ancient slave traders. We knew the air maps were sometimes 20 miles off. Because Nyasa was last surveyed before 1900, both its large steamers, the Ilala 1 and Ilala 11 have run aground in weather, when there is llittle difference between a storm at sea and one on this vast inland lake. On the nothwest perimeter lies Lost Plateau, an unplotted mountain region which has been crossed by only one white man- a South African, who tells a strange tale of nature untouched because of strong native superstitions. During our previous trip, we flew over it. From Mbeya to Tabora is big game country covered with thick bush and many unplotted rivers. A pilot’s only checkpoint is when crossing the East-West railroad. All sidings for 200 miles are marke with a large ‘T" and an arrow pointing toward Tabora.

Our route now led from Tabora to Kisumu on Lake Victoria over some of Africa’s most beautiful plains and grasslands where game still abound in the millions. Although Kisumu is but 80 miles from the Aberdaire region, stronghold of the Mau-Mau, there has been no incident in this quiet settlement on Africa’s largest inland lake. From Kisumu, we pointed for Juba in the Southern Sudan and soon were over Uganda;s vast swamp where even big planes have disappeared without a trace. The swamps look green and inviting from the air, only issuing ironical warning where the reflection of the sun shows the surface is really mud or water.

At Juba, we greeted some American Air Force people down from Wiesbaden for a spot of shooting. Next to their plane, our Swift looked like a fly. "man, you sound just like a Texan-just like a Texan," one of the officers said.

At Malakal, further North along the Nile, the settlement of 60,000 natives is practically stark nude. On the airport we met Brian Dempster and his young wife, who had just completed a motorcycle trip from London, via Gibraltar, along the North African Coast to Cairo, and from there south along the Nile to Malakal, a distance of 5,500 miles. Dempster told us they were planning to peg a hippo down in the swamp and take color films as the crocs swarmed of their prey. All this would be done with frogman equipment. They intend selling the films to TV companies in Europe and the U.S. They will earn their money.

Next day at Khartoum we disobeyed tower instructions to make a main runway crosswind landing in a 50 mph gale and sat down into the wind on a short taxi strip. We were immediately summoned by the airport controller, who demanded an explanation-and got it with both barrels.

Between Khartoum and Wadi Halfa, over the Nubian Desert, where one would die of exposure if stranded for more than four hours, Lettie and I saw a strange object aloft. It was flying at jet speed and shone bright silver in the midday sun. We noticed it change course and come toward us, perhaps 1,000 feet higher. When about a mile away it seemed to stop and hover. We could clearly distinguish an oval shaped front view, similar to artists’ impressions of flying saucers. Excited and worried because it seemed to be watching us, we decided to proceed of course as though we had not spotted anything. After three long minutes, the object darted off northwest at very high speed and disappeared on the horizon within 30 seconds.

At Wadi Halfa, next day, recuperating from nerves and to acclimatize to the temperature of 110 degrees, I had a chance to sell Lettie for 25000 pounds-to a wealthy desert trader. He said she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. I agreed, but made the point that she was my biggest investment. Besides-where could I find such a co-pilot? Having no co-pilots on hand, he was stumped. From Wadi Halfa we cruised low via Luxor to Cairo, to enjjoy the relics of ancient empere-Abu Simbel with its rock temples, Luxor with its Valley of the Kings, and the Great Pyramid of Ghiza. While on "final" at Almaza airport, Cairo, we heard another plane vainly asking for landing clearance, and as we taxied in, the voice was still at it- now literally pleading. We saw a large twin-engined plane circling and circling. As we climbed from our Swift, we noticed red carpets out and rows of uniformed dignitaries at attention. One of them met and whizzed us out of sight in a jiffy. As I checked in at the tower, I told the controller that a twin-engine plane was begging for landing instructions. Peering out the window, the controller turned pale. He flicked a few switches, gave instructions, and the twinengine ship landed. In it was the first prince of Saude Arabia who had come for political talks with the Egyptian Government. The controller explained that we had called him on one frequencies down in order to hear us-and forgot to turn them up again!

After five glorious days in the capital of the Pharaohs, we departed via Suez and the Gulf of Aquaba to Amman in Jordan. Things here seemed to be difficult-landing, parking and take-off charges, documents galore to be signed, customs men wanting to go through everything, immigrations asking irrelevant questions, and the passport official refusing to issue a visa until I showed him a letter from a superior official, after which he wanted to charge us double. Lettie and I were fuming. Just then a smartly groomed gentleman enquired in perfect Oxford accent if he could be of assistance. We told him our story. He bellowed at the officials in no uncertain terms and ushered us to a limousine. For the next two days, our new friend showed us the works-Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, Jericho. We visited the place where our Lord was born, where the Virgin Mary is buried, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Mount of Olives, the Old City of Jerusalem which lay closer to his heart than any other city. What a wonderful friend! Next day he drove us seven miles to the airport, whizzed us through all the formalities and during final goodbyes handed me a paper. On it was itemized, in typescript, everything that he did for us as from the time of our arrival. Total bill: 25.7.6, pounds South African currency!

The journey now took us through Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece to Naples, and on through Rome to Milan whence we left in bad weather for Nice. <limbing through overcast to clear the Southern Alps, the instruments suddenly gave incoherent readings and gravity started playing havoc with loose items in the cabin. One moment we were hanging by our belts and the next pressed deep in to the seats. The plane was out of hand. We came out of the cloud in a steep diving turn and I recovered control. We foun later that two of the flight instruments had worked loose from connecting hoses.

Flying in Europe was pleasant, generally speaking. We ran into unfamiliar conditions but found that common sense and good basic training did the trick. We traveled from Nice to Paris, London, The Hague, Odessa, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg. Business kept us busy.

Leaving Hamburg for the return trip on July 7 with a good weather forecast, we headed for Zurich. Further south, the weather deteriorated, and eventually forced us down the Rhine to Basel, from where our route was entirely determined by available valleys. We decided to land at the first airport and the map showed one about 15 miles ahead. On arrival, it looked absolutely deserted and was miles from the nearest village. Immediately after landing, there was a terrific fuss. Jeeps, motorcyclists and guards stormed down on us from camouflaged quarters on the side of the mountain. We were suspected of smuggling. When they found no evidence of this the questions changed and we could sense their thoughts now focused on espionage! The plane was again searched, this time for hidden cameras, and recording equipment. Higher officials were summoned; evidence was recorded; photostatic copies were made of our map and experts determined whether the overprint indicating the position of the aerodrome coincided with the date the original map was printed. Our map, being a U.S. Air Force issue seemed to baffle the party. That evening, we were taken under guard to a village hotel. One guard was posted outside our room while two others patrolled the hotel.

AT 10 o’clock the next morning the O.C. liberated us. I told him I thought Switzerland had been at peace for 600 years, and couldn’t understand the fuss about a legitimate precautionary landing. "If we do not take precautions, we may not be able longer to boast that record," was his reply. " You see, you landed at one of our secret airports, and you have no doubt deduced that we have a jet factory inside that mountain."

We loved Switzerland but time pressed so we continued to Marseilles, Madrid, Lisbon and Tangier, where we had to procure transit visas for French Morocco and Tunisia. Street fighting had already flared up at various points, and it was only after we signed a document indemnifying French authorities in case anything happened to us in transit, that visas were issued.

Weather was down to 150 feet when we left Tangier for Algiers, and we followed the shoreline closely. Flying past one of the many forts on the north African coast between Tangier and Oran, tribesmen dashed out and fired at us. I immediately dove to within a few feet off the ground, and kept out of rifle range.

From Algiers we crossed the great Eastern Desert in a 640-mile hop to Tripoli. From there to Benghazi, Tobruk, Alexandria, Cairo and down the Nile to Luxor. From Luxor, to Wadi Halfa, to Kharuoum, we flew through the best dust storms the Sudan could blow up, and thence to Malakal and Juba that had changed from a real desert three months before, to a tropical paadise. From Juba we filed a flight plan for Nairobi but decided to fly via Kisumu, because of promised storms in the afternoon over the Rift Valley. Overflying Kisumu we saw to the south terrific thunderstorms and over the 8,000-foot mountains between Kisumu and Nairobi which stretch for 80 miles, hung a solid wall of ominous cloud, only 500 feet above the peaks. The latter held the greatest promise of reaching Nairobi, so we set course.

When we reached the Rift Valley, the clouds made a steep dive into the depths and cut off our only chance to reach Nairobi. We made a 180 turn back to Kisumu. As we turned, the undercarriage, flaps and hydraulic indicators began flashing and we started to loose altitude. We had only 400 feet to play with, so had some fast figuring to do. Evidently the hydraulic system had failed, and the wheels had come down. At that altitude, with our load of souvenirs and fuel for another four hours’ flying, the drag was too much for our plane. The Swift is fitted with an emergency one-way system to get the wheels out of the wells if they are stuck. This system is not wired to get the wheels back into the wells if they should be out. To get them out, one turns clockwise on a lever. In desperation, I caught hold of the emergency lever, and started turning it anti-clockwise and it worked! We were a mere 25 feet above the jungle. We have since checked the emergency system carefully, trying to simulate conditions an that fateful day, but turning the handle ant-clockwise doesn’t do the trick any more. Both Lettie and I feel that it was Providence.

But still our troubles were not over. We had no brakes or flaps and, as we approached Kisumu, the engine lost 400 rpm. Now we couldn’t afford to undershoot and if we overshot, we’d run right into Lake Victoria. In this predicament we turned in on final approach. Flicking the monitor lamp to see whether the undercarriage was down, all the indicators started flashing again. In desperation, I gave the emergency lever a final make-or-break jerk, and presto, the green light came on and the other lights went off, showing that the wheels were down and locked.

That night I worked on the plane until I found the trouble. It was due to the dust storms in the Sudan the previous day. The electric exciter motor which activates the hydraulic reservoir was clogged with dust of the finest grain imaginable. After cleaning, the hydraulic system again functioned perfectly. The engine rpm drop was due to a short in one of the shielded cables. A reel of insulating tape fixed that.

Next day we proceeded via Tabora to Karonga on the northern shore of Lake Nyasa and to Salima on the southern shore where we spent a few days, to arrive home refreshed. From Salima we flew to Salisbury and on to Pietersburg for customs clearance. And exactly three months after we left home, we landed at Wonderboom-the greatest thrill in 25,0000 miles of flying.