Gunship Over Angola

In the heady days of the late 1970s, the undoubted highlight of the 87 AFS Helicopter Course took place towards the end of the course, when, for two weeks, the entire school moved to Kelvin Grove, a country lodge just outside the town of Bergville, near the foot of the Drakensberg, owned by an ex-SAAF pilot named James Sclanders.

Rising up from the Natal midlands to a height of nearly 3 500 metres, the Drakensberg produces extremes of weather and changing flying conditions. For aspiring SAAF chopper pilots, the region represents the ultimate challenge to newly acquired flying skills. One moment you could be barrelling along in clear air, climbing progressively higher towards the Lesotho plateau, which lies atop the Drakensberg Escarpment, and the next you could be sucked into a 6 000 feet-per-minute (1 830 metres per minute) downdraft, which, if you did not immediately take emergency action, could cause your aircraft to slam into a rock face within seconds. One moment the sky could be a bright blue and the next you’d go around a mountain and the other side could be engulfed in a thick mist, blotting out visibility and leading almost certainly to the demise of the aircraft and crew. And all of this occurred in an environment of indescribable beauty and grandeur on an unmatched scale.

The ancient basalt formations such as Cathkin, Sterkhorn, Cathedral and the Eastern Buttress are visible from hundreds of kilometres away on a clear day, and hidden behind them are titanic gems such as Champagne Castle, Monk’s Cowl, the Devil’s Tooth and the Bell. Gatberg, situated at about 2 400 metres above sea level and along a precipitous ridge called the Dragon’s Back, is a favourite photographic opportunity for helicopter crews, and landing atop its tiny platform is a feather in the cap for any chopper guy, novice or veteran.

Captain Dreyer had his own favourite spot. One day, while teaching me the rudiments of power loss at higher altitudes, he told me to relax, took the controls and headed full tilt for what appeared to be a sheer cliff face rising up between the massive Cathkin Peak and Champagne Castle and which I recognised as Monk’s Cowl.

Reducing speed as we approached the Monk’s Cowl rock face, which rises 1 200 metres from the saddle between the aforementioned peaks, the Alo crept forward and then entered a narrow chasm in the mountain, the sides of which were thousands of feet high and which had not been visible to us just seconds before. The floor of the chasm rose in seemingly endless steps above us and we slowly climbed into the half-light provided by a thin sliver of sky far above.

It was late June and the South African winter was well under way. In the upper reaches of the Berg this meant below-freezing temperatures throughout the day. As we flew ever higher up the hidden cleft, the water that coursed downwards in summer stood starkly solidified as ice, defying gravity, as if waiting for someone to flick a switch and release it into the valleys far below. Just when it seemed that it was about to become too dark to continue the climb, we came around a corner and the chasm opened out into a 200-metre-wide waterfall tumbling off the Lesotho plateau.

The entire extent of the waterfall had frozen into an intense azure hue off which the sunshine bounced like thousands of fairies dancing and twirling in an enormous and magical ballroom. Countless icicles, some as long as telephone poles, clung to the surrounding rocks, and the sudden brightness of the light stung our eyes and forced us to squint.

I realised that I was no longer breathing.

Captain Dreyer’s landing on a small platform at the foot of the waterfall was the gentlest that I ever enjoyed. As the Alo’s engine quietened and then stopped, none of us spoke at all, completely mesmerised, perhaps even hypnotised, by what was around us. How long we remained there in that trancelike state, or how long it stayed with us, I can’t remember. But the experience is encapsulated in a line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in which Caliban says, ‘And when I woke, I cried to dream again.’ The Monk’s Cowl experience that June afternoon was a priceless gift and the indisputable highlight of my SAAF flying career.

Back at Kelvin Grove things tended to get hectic. Often.

87 AFS had brought along an entire team of chefs, as well as bar and kitchen staff, to cater to our every food and drink need. When the flying duties for the day were over, students, instructors and guests gathered in the pub. Sedgewick’s Old Brown Sherry was a particular favourite, and was consumed faster than it could be delivered.