AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2014 - 83

LINDBERGH WAS HERE
Charles Lindbergh visited Kenya
in 1964. His itinerary included a
stop in Kilaguni, where modern pilots train to protect the
nation's wildlife, and where the
tree referenced in his 1964
essay, "Is Civilization Progress?"
still can be found today:
"Lying under an acacia tree
with the sounds of dawn around
me, I realized more clearly
facts that man should never
overlook: that the construction
of an airplane, for instance, is
simple when compared to the
evolutionary achievement of a
bird; that airplanes depend on
an advanced civilization; and
that where civilization is most
advanced, few birds exist. I
realized that if I had to choose,
I would rather have birds than
airplanes."

AFRICAN BUFFALO visit a Kilaguni

BAKER VAIL

Kenya's protected land area: about 18,000 square miles,
about 8 percent of the nation's total land area and equal to 75
percent of the land area of West Virginia (24,230 square miles).
both sides, across their country. Kenya, like many African nations,
has been for decades locked in a struggle to protect the same animals that fuel its tourist trade, including elephants and black rhinos,
which have been driven to brink of extinction-in large part because
rhino horns now fetch nearly $30,000 a pound on the black market,
more than 10 years' honest wages in this part of the world.
"It is a heritage that we have to conserve for the whole of
humanity," said Robert Muasya, acting deputy director of security
for the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Mwangi was flying a typical mission profile, not far from clipping treetops as he scanned for targets on the ground. He is one of
the more senior pilots in the small KWS Airwing, assigned to support rangers with supplies, medical evacuation, and reconnaissance.
He is the lone airman tasked to cover both Tsavo East National Park
and Tsavo West National Park (along with some surrounding areas),
a total patrol assignment about the size of New Jersey. He has logged
more than 5,000 hours in his Super Cub since he transitioned from
ranger to pilot seven years ago. Like others in the small corps of
KWS aviators, he usually is the first to detect a killing.
"It's very painful," Mwangi said. He has been more fortunate
than many of his comrades, who have survived crashes and recovered from injuries; a few have lost their lives on missions like this.
Flying so low, he has been shot at by poachers. Mwangi fights discouragement as the tolls mount. Kenya lost 59 rhinos in 2013, and
many more elephants-nearly one each day, on average. "It has to
stop," Mwangi said. "This destruction. This killing. It's not even
really human. I don't know what to call it."

waterhole (far left). The KWS
Airwing is based in a Wilson
Airport hangar in Nairobi (top
left). The KWS Field Training
School-Manyani, located within
Tsavo West National Park, has
expanded significantly in recent
years (left center). The crew
prepares the KWS Airwing
Caravan for departure from
Nairobi (bottom left).

So Mwangi flew by the seat of his pants, eyes outside, circling
the group of "poachers" that all too often are the real thing, his
comrades on the ground closing in on them. A red yaw string taped
to the center of the Super Cub's windshield by visiting American
pilots swung back and forth as he turned, banking with a very slim
margin of error, perhaps a hundred feet off the ground on this day.
STICK AND RUDDER. Patty Wagstaff, a three-time U.S. national aerobatic champion and acclaimed airshow pilot, has made it her own
mission to help KWS execute its difficult and dangerous job. For the
eighth time since 1999, Wagstaff spent a little more than a week in
Kilaguni spanning late February and early March. Along with two
fellow American pilots-Dr. Richard Sugden, making his third visit
to Kenya, and Richard Spencer, his first-they flew with a dozen
KWS pilots (nearly the entire group). Wagstaff was first recruited
by Bill Clark, an American biologist who has worked with Kenya's
government since the 1970s, and helped create the KWS air wing in
1990. Clark is an honorary warden of the KWS, a prestigious rank
given in recognition of his many contributions. He has over the years
secured many of the resources deployed in the air: donations of
aircraft as well as volunteer trainers including Wagstaff, John and
Martha King, and others who have made the trip to east Africa.
This weeklong clinic in Kilaguni is the first held in three years,
and the Kenyan pilots are grateful for a chance to sharpen their skills
and spend extended time with their peers. Deployed for months
at a time to cover 59 national parks and reserves scattered across
Kenya's 225,000 square miles, they rarely see one another.
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2014

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