CHAPTER 32 SQUEEZING IT ALL IN ! THE CARRYING CAPACITY OF OUR WONDERFUL DAKOTAS

Five Dakota's of 3 Squadron Rhodesian Air Force flying in a loose formation to drop their loads of paratroopers on one of the many attacks on Terrorist Camps outside Rhodesian borders. Over enemy territory the formation was tightened up and the Daks would descend to the 500ft AGL drop height.We called this THE DAK ATTACK

March, 1974, the giant Cabora Bassa dam across the Zambezi River in Mozambique was filling fast and the tiny rural village at Macombe was flooded. The Rhodesian SAS had been using this village as a forward base for operations against the terrorists who were infiltrating into the North Eastern parts of Rhodesia. As there was a grass airfield, about 2500ft/800mts long there, it provided a convenient point for the Dakotas of 3 Sqn to resupply the SAS troops operating from this village. But now there was water everywhere and the time had come to get out or start swimming.

This map shows Makombe (red arrow) on the Zambezi River inside Mozambique which was being flooded by the Cabora Bassa dam down stream from the village. They were flown to Musengedze Mission on the Musengedze (black arrow) river which also had a suitable airfield for Dakota aircraft, in other words about 800mt long.

 Of course we could not abandon the locals and so decided to fly all the villagers to higher ground at Musengedzi Mission, just across the border inside Rhodesia. Many hundreds of villagers assembled with all their worldly possessions stacked around them. They included, but were certainly not limited to, chickens in coops, goats, bicycles, babies, boxes, blankets and cooking utensils. Leaving this behind was unthinkable – without these paltry bits and pieces, these people would be absolutely impoverished.

So the aircraft were loaded. All the goods piled down the centre of the cabin and then as many villagers as possible were squeezed in down either side where they just sat on the floor or on laps. The two pilots climbed over the pile of goods into the cockpit, fired up the Pratt & Whitney engines and flew the refugees to the Mission.

This was a test for the good old Dak – and of course for the pilots who flew them. The empty weight of the Dakota was 18200lbs and the normal gross take off weight was supposed to be 26000lbs. The Rhodesian Air Force stipulated a normal maximum take- off weight of 32000lbs, but in emergency situations such as this, it was stretched to who knows how many lbs, just get it in!!!

The last evacuation flight out of Macombe on 12^th March 1974, was Skippered by Bob d’Hotman and the 2^nd Pilot was Dave Thorne. This time the pilots remained in their seats up front and only the Engineer supervised the loading of the remaining villagers. The goods were piled in, literally up to the ceiling. The lucky last person in was the Engineer and he only just managed squeeze into the toilet.

Capt Rob Warracker of the SAS shoved the Dakota door shut, latched it from the outside, gave the pilots the thumbs up, and a cheerful shout of, “That’s the lot and the Tech is in the shit house!”

The engines fired up and Bob taxied it out to the very end of the grass runway. He could feel there was one hell of a load on board. He lined up on the runway, stood on the brakes, wound the elastic bands to max, released them and started to pray.  The old Dakota thundered down the grassstrip, and, as the airspeed indicator reached 50kts, he called for 1 flap. This was selected by Dave and, as usual, the aircraft bounced into the air, clearing the trees with significantly less space than normal!

 Bob radioed ahead to Musengedzi to ask for a head count of everybody who got off this particular flight. In total there were an astounding 97 passengers on board. Admittedly most of these people were undernourished, but they also had all their goods, including livestock with them. This was an outstanding accomplishment as the good old Dakota was only designed to carry 20 passengers.(CAA used to squeeze in 50 miners returning from the South African Gold Mines to Nyasaland. QANTAS fitted slings to their DC3s and carried 50 passengers between Australia and PNG)  

 It was, to put it mildly, an interesting day for both man and machine. I’d originally flown into Makombe to make sure all the parachuting equipment was recovered from this forward base before it was abandoned to the flood waters of Cabora Bassa.  Once done, I hopped on board the last flight out of Musengedzi to New Sarum. After several flights ferrying man, beast and belongings, the smell inside the aircraft was something to behold. Eyewatering!

• This story emphasises the capabilities of this wonderful aircraft . If you could get it inside the cabin, you could fly it. We once squeezed 24 paratroops and 8 PJIs onto a Dakota. 24 were dropped by static line at 500ft AGL and the remaining 8 PJIs carried out a HALO from 8000ft immediately afterwards. The static line stick was the final jump for a basic course and the PJIs were just showing off to the relatives watching from the DZ – as we were wont to do whenever we could.

On this occasion, at least the take- off was from Salisbury Airport, which had one of the longest runways in the world. But even the Salisbury control tower was impressed when the Skipper told them he had 2 crew and 32 paratroops on board for a drop on to the 32 runway. Three of the PJIs dispatched the 24 troops in one long stick and then pulled in the bags. The five other PTS staff, squashed into the cockpit area, only came out after the large stick had jumped.

Then the Skipper applied power, climbed to about 8000ft AGL and the eight of us jumped out to make a star in free fall and steer our SAVIAC Mk2 parachutes onto the DZ in front of the now qualified paratroopers and their highly impressed families.

Now it was the turn of the pilots to strut their stuff. The Dakota gave us a great beat up when the Squadron pilots showed their skill, almost using the propellers to cut the grass on the runway. Some of those beat ups were truly memorable and whenever I saw the aircraft line up and zoom towards me I’d duck. Both pilots and PJIs – the Rhodesian Airforce was full of show-offs. But, even if I say so myself, we really knew our stuff.