|
|
|
|
Refueling in Francistown (Botswana) on the way up to the DRC.
|
|
|
|
A Mobil ripoff in Zambia.... Naaah!
|
|
|
|
Kolwesi open cast mining pit. At one stage the largest in the world.
|
|
|
|
Two giangantic powerline towers, 470 feet high.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A small electric furnace refining copper ore.
|
|
|
|
A new copper smelter build by a Chinese company.
|
|
|
|
Likasi Mall
|
|
|
|
Cobalt enrichment plant in Kambove. I changed one of hangars into the helicopter shelter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Minerals are easy to find... Look for a hill with no trees. The soil is so mineralised that nothing grows.
|
|
|
|
A palace for Laurent Kabila in Lubumbashi. Never finished.... White elephant anyone?
|
|
|
|
Close up. Supposedly it goes several stories underground.
|
|
|
|
A couple Ka-26s.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I was cleaning the windshield when I heard a loud explosion... My heart stopped...
|
|
|
|
... a square drum! The result of not opening the air vent hole and very energetic pumping.
|
|
|
|
Be afraid Colonel Sanders... "Katanga Fried Chicken" is coming...
|
|
|
|
A turbing Islander doing a geo survey.
|
|
|
|
|
|
A B3 dragging a very heavy (+500 kg) bird from Aeroquest.
|
|
|
|
MI-26. BIG!
|
|
|
|
And another one. My B3 in the back looks like a toy.
|
|
|
|
Boy, oh boy... the Russians build seriously big machines! This Ilushin brough in ballot boxes and papers for the election in 2006.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rain season started
|
|
|
|
No pot of gold here... just copper.
|
|
|
|
Lafoi Falls in the Kundelungu Nature Reserve, with a 384m drop it is the highest waterfall in Africa and number 169 worldwide.
|
|
|
|
I'm helping out with a survey using a BA and a Heli-MAG bird from Heliquest.
|
|
|
|
|
|
View from the top.
|
|
|
|
Business end of my long line. Getting ready to pull a couple pumps out of the forest.
|
|
|
|
650 kg of pump safely loaded.
|
|
|
|
A hungarian prince build himself this "castle" for his Congo farm.
|
|
|
|
|
|
This is just plain weird... (Ndola airport)
|
|
|
|
My exotic Xmas tree.
|
|
|
|
A G1 lost the pin holding the steering in place... ouch.
|
|
|
|
Friends in low places. Menda concession.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shituru, Gecamine's factory in Likasi.... The smoke comes from the old sulfuric acid plant, and is ACID...
|
|
|
|
A Mormon church... again... Weird!
|
|
|
|
Likasi airport. Abandonned in 1991. The 337 hosts a colony of bees now...
|
|
|
|
A sink hole appeard overnight after a heavy rain storm, this is the view from my bedroom... Not very far away.
|
|
|
|
|
|
My new toy.
|
|
|
|
A very rare sight in the DRC, live Sable antilopes, actualy live anything...
|
|
|
|
I know I am overweight... but this is ridiculous!
|
|
|
|
The end result of all this digging and processing. 98% pure copper sheets.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Always pre-flight... The machine stood for a couple of weeks... and a fellow aviator decided to build a nest in it.
|
|
|
