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Well the title of this post sums up yesterday and today quite well I’d say.  I’ll leave it to my readers to make the connection!  The dry season here in Nigeria is upon us, and with that comes the Hamatan.  During the months of December – February, a Southwesterly wind that picks up sand from the Sahara desert makes its way through the country reducing visibility immensely and kind of giving everything a rusty color.  The sky has an odd tint, which you can clearly see in this picture I took upon arrival into Abuja yesterday.

All of the extremely small dust/sand particles in the air make me cough and have a dry throat so I find myself drinking a lot of water, which is probably for the better anyways.  I don’t cough that often, just on occasion, mainly after having been outside for some time.  The Hamatan creates havoc for airlines though, that’s for sure.  Often the visibility can be reduced so much that we cannot land.  Here in Nigeria, the airports report their visibility in meters, so we can then reference our instrument approach charts to see if we are able to land there.  If the reported visibility is below our “minimums” (each instrument approach chart tells us the minimum visibility needed for that specific runway and airport) then we cannot land.  In fact, for Part 121 airlines like Arik Air, we’re not even allowed to commence the approach if the reported visibility isn’t sufficient.  For other aircraft under different rules, they may be allowed to at least try the approach and see if they can land safely within the constraints of the instrument approach.  If they see the runway at or before their minimums, they can legally land and claim that the “in-flight” visibility was sufficient. 

But for us (Arik Air and other Nigerian airlines), we’re out of luck and have to delay flights or divert if the weather doesn’t cooperate.  Yesterday however, Paul (a new captain from Holland) and I were able to successfully transport hundreds of passengers around the country safely and relatively on time despite the visibility at each airport trying to deny us.

One of our new routes for the Q400 which we do 3 days a week I believe, is the Lagos-Asaba-Abuja-Ibadan and the same way back route.  It’s 6 legs total, and each flight is 40-55 minutes in length.  It’s a nice triangle as you can see, and provides us a wonderful tour of the Southwestern part of the country when the weather permits it.

Each airport, thankfully, had sufficient visibility for us to land, but in Asaba and Ibadan, it was barely above our minimums!  While in cruise, heading towards our destination, the PM (Pilot Monitoring) calls up the destination’s tower to get the latest weather and then shares it with the PF (Pilot Flying).  Paul told me the visibility and immediately I realized it wasn’t going to be easy.  We elected to do a flap 15 landing, which makes it a bit easier to execute a missed approach in the event that we could not see the runway.  We also carefully reviewed our plan for the missed approach, and what we’d probably do if we couldn’t land.  We set up our minimum descent altitude and speeds on our displays, and I briefed the whole approach.  I kept the approach the same as I always had, configuring the aircraft for landing far enough out so that we were stabilized and so that he could focus on trying to see the runway and monitoring me, while I flew the aircraft closer and closer towards where the runway should be.  At Asaba, we do this with the help of our FMS (Flight Management System) which provides lateral and vertical guidance towards the runway.  At about 200 feet above our minimum altitude, Paul said he saw the runway, I looked up and there it was! The wind was blowing steadily from the North creating a cross-wind situation.  I pulled back on the yoke, stepped on the left rudder and tilted the wing down slightly to the right and touched the wheels down one by one (typical of a cross-wind landing), slowed the aircraft down and transferred controls to the Captain so he could taxi us in. 

The Asaba airport is quite large, and even has jetways, although it is far from finished, as you can see from the photos.  Currently the passengers just pass through on the ramp level.  We sure get a lot of passengers on this route though!  I have a feeling I’ll become quite familiar with this airport over the next couple of years.

This picture is taken to the Southwest.  It’s quite desolate in this direction, but the surrounding area to the North and East are quite large, with some impressive bridges spanning across the nearby river.

I don’t mean to confuse anyone, but those three particular pictures of the Asaba airport were NOT taken recently.  These were taken about a month ago, so notice all of the clouds, and no dusty/hazy air.  The visibility was wonderful back then, as the rainy season ended and the Hamatan was yet to come.

 

Onto Abuja buja buja, and then Ibadan

In Abuja, the weather was much more reasonable.  Paul flew a nice ILS approach and we saw the runway at least 3 miles away.

Ibadan on the other hand had similar visibility to Asaba.  The approach was pretty much the same as Asaba, except now the crosswind was from the left, and it was quite a bit more bumpy as it was later in the day.  I wonder what goes through the passengers minds during the bumps (although perfectly safe) combined with the odd haziness we descend into. 8)

This photo was taken during boarding as I walked back to our aircraft.  Notice how the sky is cloudless, and very hazy.  The departure was a bit interesting. Right as we were about to rotate during our takeoff roll, we flew through about 15 birds who were circling near the burning grass likely looking for rodents and insects.  Whenever they burn or cut the grass, you can see birds nearby taking advantage of the opportunity.

Fortunately, we didn’t hit any of them, to the surprise of both of us.  After landing in Abuja again, we did a thorough inspection and found nothing suggestive of a bird strike.

So onward we went, to Asaba, and finally landed in Lagos, my home away from home.  It was fun flying with a new Captain.  He wasn’t new to the area though, he used to work for Denim Air, which flew Q300s for Arik, and he also flew Q400s for Olympic Air out of Greece. 

Twas a great warm-up to the weather and conditions I can expect for this final week of flying before I go home to spend Christmas and New Years with family.  I will do this same trip tomorrow, no wahala.

 

Egusi Soup

Eheh.  I was feeling adventurous today around lunch time, and after convincing the Nigerians taking my order in the restaurant that I was serious and wasn’t joking around, they took my order and watched me “try” and eat the Nigerian dish with big grins on their faces.  I had tried it once before over a year ago but just to show them that I wasn’t afraid to try their local food, and see if I still didn’t care for it, I decided to give it another solid effort. 

More specifically, I was having Egusi Soup with chicken, and Eba (the stuff on the plate).  It’s hard to describe how it all tastes.  It’s quite spicy with quite powerful flavors.  You take the Eba which is malleable, dip it in the soup and grab the stuff inside and eat it.  After I washed my hands and told them I was finished.  They gave me grief for “wasting” so much food, and failing to eat the bones.  I guess they eat the bones?  I’ve seen my Nigerian friends eat a BBQ fish bones and all, so I’m thinking they’re not joking around.  But I was full man!  Cut me some slack.  They also said that the food I eat looks and tastes just as strange as the Egusi Soup looks and tastes to me.  Interesting comment and I agree.  All around the world people tend to like and get used to the local food around them. 

 

Updates

I’ll be spending my first Christmas and New Years at home in 2 years.  I missed the last two because I had to be at work here in Lagos.  So Leanna and I are doing a road trip all over the West coast of the United States to see family and friends and just have a blast!

So if you don’t hear from me until January, I wish a VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY AND NEW YEAR IN ADVANCE!!!

Also, if you want more exciting Nigeria related stories, definitely check out my other blog which I share with my girlfriend Leanna:  http://cnlsnapping.wordpress.com/

Cheers!

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