Tanzania Wildlife Mission
For Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Michael MacKuen

Today we fly a transport mission for the Kenyan and Tanzanian wildlife agencies. There is apparently some sort of disease threat in the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti. (Caution: this is fiction.) The local agents have been gathering dung samples from the elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, and hippos. Our mission is to visit a number of gathering stations and then transport the fresh time-sensitive cargo to Arusha for laboratory examination. In addition, we take some carefully-sealed matter to the Kilimanjaro Airport for shipment to European specialists. As some of the stations are at remote sites and the amount of the special cargo is naturally substantial, we shall need STOL-capable cargo aircraft such as the C208B Caravan and (better) the DHC-4 Caribou. (Happily, the Canadians have organized a special Caribou Flight that is available for these special missions.) This day begins in the Maasai Mara and visits the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater, and Lake Manyara before finishing up at Arusha and Kilimanjaro.


Morning Departure for Special Cargo Operations

Early in the morning we meet the Kenyan Wildlife Service research team at Keekorok [HKKE] in the Maasai Mara National Reserve. We load the special cargo and proceed to the additional gathering stations at Kenya’s Kichwa Tembo Airport [KHHH] and at Tanzania’s Kogatende Airstrip [HTMZ]. While flying over the Maasai Mara, the KWS team have offered to point out a number of the local elephant, giraffe, and hippo herds in the area. (You will want to fly very low to get a glimpse of the wildlife. The elephants and giraffes are in constant motion and may be difficult to see – luckily these are large herds. The “wildlife” flightplan includes some waypoints that mark the general location of the known herds. Don’t worry if you miss seeing some of the animals...we have a job to do.)

Heading south, we cross the changing landscapes of the great Serengeti while stopping for cargo at Seronera [HTSN] which enjoys plenty of commercial and private flights that make it “the gateway to the Serengeti.” And on to Ndutu [HTNO] on the grassy savanna toward the southern end of the Serengeti. This vast plain hosts the world’s largest animal migration (brief, brief, and longer documentaries). Early each year, January-March, the great wildebeest migration begins with calving in the southern Serengeti (around Lake Ndutu). By April, with the end of the rains and the disappearance of the grass, the migration begins to move northwest to loop clockwise around the plain to the Maasai Mara in the north where the herds graze from August-October. Then with the changing rain patterns in November-December, the migration recommences following the growing grasses to the south. The huge herd is led by 260,000 zebras followed by 1.7 million wildebeest and 470,00 gazelles. While necessary for the pursuit of food and water, the migration can be dangerous: 200,000 (mostly younger) animals die each year due to hunger, exhaustion, and predation. The cycle begins again the next year.

We take a brief diversion over the Olduvai Gorge where the paleoanthropologist-archeologist team led by Mary and Louis Leakey (in the 1940s-1950s) discovered evidence that changed our basic understanding of human evolution. (We pass over “Black Shark” renditions of the Leakey Camp and the Olduvai Gorge Museum.)

Then we ascend to land at Ngorongoro Airport [HTNV], a long dirt strip at 7,768 ft altitude – with a splendid view. The Ngorongoro Crater is a caldera remnant of a collapsed volcano about the size of Mount Kilimanjaro and (depending on definition) it is the world’s largest caldera. Within the walls lies a flat grassy plain whose rich wildlife population numbers something like 30,000. We descend to the surface and almost immediately see an extensive herd of Giraffes (not realistic within the crater), Wildebeest, Zebras, and Gazelles. (You need to be very low to see these, maybe 200-500ft AGL.) A couple of miles south we see Hippos basking in the water. And curling around to the north of Lake Magadi we can see small groups of Rhinos, Giraffes (oops) and Elephants. (You may want to circle around Lake Magadi another time to see the wildlife again. This time you might land at the first giraffe group and then taxi forward to get a better look at the massive herd of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles.) When finished sightseeing, we climb to exit Ngorongoro Crater and proceed down to the scenic clifftop Lake Manyara Airport [HTLM]. Then a descent to the eastern shore of Lake Manyara to see several static clusters of Elephants and Giraffes before landing at the final wildlife-sample gathering station at the Maramboi Airstrip [HTTL].  We are unlikely to see the famous tree climbing lions of Lake Manyara.

Finally, we head east to Arusha [HTAR] which has grown from a small town in the 1950s to a city of 600,000. (It has become a diplomatic hub hosting the African Union’s African Court of Human Rights and it is the capital of the East African Community.) We transfer the bulk of our dung samples to the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute for laboratory tests. And we continue on to Kilimanjaro Airport [HTKJ] for jet-service shipment of our now-sealed cargo to European scientists for further study. Along the way we get a look of Mount Meru (14,968 ft, just north of Arusha) and of course we enjoy the magnificent view of legendary Mount Kilimanjaro. (At 19,241 ft, Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest peak and thus one of the Seven Summits. It also the world’s highest free-standing mountain.) Once we land and finish our mission, the local authorities have arranged to sanitize the cargo bays of our otherwise reusable aircraft.

Documentation
The flightplan can be found here. Note that there are two main flightplans. The “regular” one that has the airports and navigation waypoints. And another one with additional “wildlife” waypoints that mark the geographic location of different sorts of animals. (My guess is that I shall have the “regular” flightplan loaded in my GPS for navigation. And that I shall have the “wildlife” flightplan set up in Little Navmap for the segments of the flight where wildlife-watching takes priority. Your preferences may vary.)

Aircraft
This is a flight of 313nm with 9 landings. The mission mandates short rough field operations and cargo capability. Good choices would be the Cessna Caravan (a popular aircraft in the area) and the DHC-4 Caribou (whose greater cargo capacity is especially useful here). I’ll choose the DHC-4 Caribou in the Greatland Air Cargo livery. Please fly what you like.

Additional Scenery
Most of the airports are in the default simulator. (The only required download is Lake Manyara.) That said, these addons will enhance the scenery appreciably. Thanks to these talented addon creators.

Maasai Mara Animal Safari. darshonaut  (We used this before so check to avoid duplication.)
Seronera Airstrip [HTSN]. benshares
Ngorongoro Animals and Airstrip [HTNV]. Chak991
Lake Manyara [HTLM]. quelcertoleo
Arusha [HTAR]. Chak991
Kilimanjaro [HTKJ]. quelcertoleo

Temporarily, you can obtain the full freeware package here (12MB).

If you have a “seasons” pack, you might try Late Spring or Summer. (You may not want autumn leaves in equatorial Africa.)

Time and Weather
For takeoff on Wednesday, set the simulator at 8:00am local for October 23, 2024. We typically prefer real weather.

Multiplayer Particulars
Date and time: Saturday, October 23, 2024. 1800 UTC
RTWR Multiplayer Discord Channel
Microsoft Flight Simulator Multiplayer: United States East server.

If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Please be kind enough to enter the title exactly as it stands in the title=”xxx” line of the aircraft.cfg file. Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!

Mike,

What a thoughtful and interesting write-up. You should have been a college professor!