Member-only story
My Love For Bushplanes
and taking local service routes around Africa
How this fascination started
I am fortunate because my day job requires me to travel to Africa a lot. Not to bush clinics per se but off the beaten path used by tourists. It is during these trips that I make an effort to catch local commuters and bush planes.
You are airborne for fifteen minutes on the commute between Dar Es Salaam and Zanzibar Island. This is definitely “the local,” even though the trip crosses territorial borders (Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region and requires one to fill out an entry card upon arrival). Half the passengers on this Precision Air flight stay and continue onward to Kilimanjaro. You climb out of your seat as you would on a bus. People on this route travel with grocery bags or attache cases, few have luggage. They may have been en route to see their doctor or lawyer or simply to go shopping in downtown Dar Es Salaam.
There is no more liberating experience than strolling across the tarmac to your plane on a beautiful and warm afternoon.
Back in 2000, the last plane of the day from Dallas and Oklahoma City used to be much smaller still. Out West, we never called them bush planes, but that is what they were.
Still, anything with two propellors is considered big and not really a “bush plane.” A bush…
