Welcome to Wilderness Air FAQ

Wilderness Air operates in an environment that is foreign to many people. Operations into and out of remote airstrips with blue chip foreign tourists requires pilots who are technically competent and able to communicate well with clients.

Wilderness Air is privileged to fly into some of the most pristine wilderness destinations in the world. We believe flying is an integral part of a guest's holiday experience and therefore our pilots need to have a fundamental enthusiasm for being in such areas.

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• Pilot Employment at Wilderness Air

• Safety Practices

• Wilderness Air Pilots

• Single Engine vs Twin Engine

Wilderness Air Pilots

Wilderness Air frequently operates aircraft in an environment that is foreign to many people. The nature of our operation dictates that we regularly operate aircraft in and out of remote and unprepared airstrips. Many of these airstrips are also in areas with high concentrations of wildlife. These factors pose safety concerns over and above those found at normal major airports. Safety for our guests and staff is our prime consideration and working with these constraints is our challenge. There are many things we do to make our operation safe.

Over the last 12 years we have constantly reviewed and improved our safety practices and the result has been a fine safety track record. Safety issues can be broken down into several main components: the pilot, the aircraft and the airstrips.

The Pilot

We believe that there is no substitute for having the right people in our organisation. Our pilots are a critical part of Wilderness Air and we choose them with care. Wilderness Air is privileged to fly into some of the most pristine wilderness destinations in the world. We also believe flying is an integral part of a guest's holiday experience and therefore our pilots need to have a fundamental enthusiasm for being in such areas.

All our pilots are passionate about their jobs and are with Wilderness Air because they want to be in wilderness areas. We believe that pilots who are in tune with their environment will be safer pilots. It is true many pilots move through Wilderness Air on their way to airlines, some also stay and pursue careers in our operation. Whatever the case, we spend time selecting and training our crews to ensure that safe practices are always followed.

All Wilderness Air applicant pilots follow the same rigorous entrance process. When Wilderness Air is recruiting pilots, we normally advertise in Maun or Windhoek. All applicant Resumes are scrutinized carefully. Suitable applicants write a series of tests which ask questions that are both technical and of a personal nature.

Only successful applicants are interviewed by both management and other pilots. After that, successful applicants are employed on a probationary basis for training. During their probation period, pilots are given a ground school and 100 hours of flight training. At any time during this training period, pilots who do not meet our standards are removed from our program. During the program our new crew are taught the skills required to enable them to go on line with enough experience to be fully confident in themselves and their equipment. This program is overseen by training captains who themselves have many years and thousands of flying hours of experience.

Pilots who successfully completed our training program go on line after a final route check. But the training does not end there. Indeed a pilot's training never ends. Regular and routine flight tests are conducted to ensure that all crew are proficient in all aspects of their flying all the time. Typically pilots stay with Wilderness Air in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe for two years. Our more successful crew stay longer and graduate onto our larger aircraft, the Cessna Caravans which they also normally fly for two years.

Wilderness Air South Africa has opened new opportunities for pilots and some pilots migrate from Namibia and Botswana back to South Africa to operate our more sophisticated aircraft, the King Air 200 and Pilatus PC-12. Many flights from South Africa visit neighboring countries. There is no better crew for the job than those who have lived in the countries of destination. Our crew have good local knowledge of most of the areas we fly into and they understand the safety issues of each area well.

Aircraft

Wilderness Air operates a wide variety of aircraft. Different aircraft are best suited to different applications. Because each country has a different set of operating constraints, different aircraft are employed in each region.

Detailed specifications of the principle aircraft types operated by Wilderness Air are listed in the aircraft section of this website. Wilderness Air does operate other aircraft types on a smaller scale. These aircraft types are: Cessna 310, Cessna 402, Beechcraft Baron, Piper Seneca. All Wilderness Air aircraft are maintained regularly and in accordance with the manufacturers requirements. We have also developed some maintenance practices over and above the normal requirements as a result of our specific operating environment.

The net result is that we believe that our aircraft are in tip top condition.

Some of the things we do:

• Our aircraft are inspected daily by our pilots before all flights

• Our aircraft are inspected by qualified and licensed maintenance personnel at least every 100 hours and sometimes as frequently as every 50 hours

• Wilderness Air only ever purchases aircraft piston engines that have been remanufactured by the original manufacturer in the United States. When our piston engines reach their overhaul time we remove those engines from service and replace them with remanufactured engines

• Wilderness Air only ever overhauls aircraft turbine engines with the original manufacturer, Pratt and Whitney. We monitor our turbine engines critical parameters daily and track operating anomalies with the aid of purpose designed software. This ensures that we know our turbines are all in sound working order.