Pilot an inspiration to aspirant flyers

In a way, it is sad that, almost 27 years after the end of apartheid and the start of South Africa’s first attempt at building a non-racial society, we celebrate the appointment of a black pilot to the Kruger National Park’s aviation team.

Captain David “Blackhawk” Simelane officially became the country’s first black game capture-rated pilot last week, after notching up 16 years flying choppers. Flying in the game capture mission setting, a helicopter is often in the position of what pilots call the “dead man’s curve” – that part under the altitude and speed graph where, if anything goes wrong, there is little opportunity to recover.

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Game capture is one of the riskiest jobs in aviation, with choppers often flying below tree level in order to herd game into their chutes for loading and transport. In addition, pilots like Simelane have to learn about the habits of different animals and even different genders in a species, and their reaction to a helicopter.

Jobs like this were, not so long ago, something that black kids could only dream about. Now, though, with “Blackhawk” at the controls, these kids can see a future for themselves not only in chopper flying but in the broader aviation industry

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