402
FLIGHT
LA PAZ.BOLIVIA
LIVING
hiqh?^ Commercial Airport
in I k World
13 404 ft 4085 m
By N. J . CAPPER
PAH AGRA
mum
WITH A TWIN PIONEER ROUND THE ELEVATED-ALTITUDE AIRPORTS OF SOUTH AMERICA
L
A PAZ, capital city of Bolivia and the highest capital in the
world, is over 12,000ft above sea level. Its nearest airport,
J El Alto, is just over 13,400ft and is the highest commercial
airport in the world.
During a tour of South America in a Scottish Aviation Twin
Pioneer I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to visit
La Paz. With a crew of three—co-pilot and two engineers—I had
flown many hundreds of miles over the Caribbean waters and
islands and over the jungles of the Guianas; interesting and often
formidable enough, but nothing to the craggy "moon country" and
tremendous altitudes of the Andes. To climb up to 17,000ft or so
is fairly commonplace even in a piston-engined aircraft; but
virtually to stay up there for a landing is, to say the least of it,
a novel experience.
We carried sufficient spares and equipment for a trip of five-anda-half months and on our way through Colombia and Equador we
had encountered some of the problems which confront the aviator
in this part of the world. Bogota, capital of Colombia, is more
than 9,000ft up and Quito, capital of Equador, is still higher.
We had also seen why the aeroplane is accepted as the only
practical means of transport for passengers and most of the freight.
What railways there are look fairly primitive and wind their way
up into the mountains by very tortuous routes. Good roads are
far too expensive to build.
The airfields that serve these high-altitude cities lie in natural
basins, and (it doesn't seem to matter how high you go) there are
always mountains towering above. Pilots get to know the weather
and the terrain and how to find their way through gaps and over
ridges to the flat ground where the airfield lies. It was all very
new to us, but there was a wealth of good advice available and
a fairly comprehensive radio beacon service. Nevertheless, it is
quite alarming to be confronted by what appears to be a wall of
massive rock with the altimeter showing 10,000ft or so and broken
cloud all around. The best way to avoid the daily build-up of
cumulus and cumulo-nimbus cloud is to get your flying done
before noon, but this is not always easy to arrange. Fortunately,
the weather is generally good; the bad spells, caused by tropical
fronts, are usually of short duration.
Our trip to La Paz was made from Lima in Peru, with a
refuelling stop at Arequipa, an attractive-looking city 9,000ft up,
though quite near the coast and reputed to have 360 days of
sunshine a year. We had some 600 miles to do from Lima so,
although we got out of bed pretty early, it meant a late-afternoon
arrival at La Paz.
After clearing Customs and Immigration at Lima we climbed
through a layer of strato-cumulus into brilliant sunshine and flew
south along an arid coastline broken occasionally by a dried-up
river bed. The cloud at Lima had formed a few days before we
left and we were told it was liable to persist for some months,
having a rather gloomy effect on an otherwise delightful climate
with the temperature in the high seventies. About 50 miles south,
however, the cloud dispersed and we had bright sunshine all the
way to Arequipa.
Here we stopped for fuel and a sandwich lunch. Away to the
east we could see ominous signs of cu-nim clouds building up.
They were partly obscured by the mountains and only the white
The Twin Pioneer at El Alto Airport, La Paz
tops were showing. We took the sound and helpful advice of the
air traffic control officer and decided to follow what he called the
light-aeroplane route. This meant another 50 miles or so, but a
sprinkling of emergency airstrips on the way.
After take-off we climbed steeply to 17,000ft until we could see
a gap between the peaks; but when we were through it we still had
to stay at 15,000 or 16,000ft to keep above the ground. We had
discussed the question of carrying a supply of oxygen, but there
were many problems and we decided to manage without and to
keep an eye on each other for signs of anoxia. In any case, we
were going to have to live—and work—at over 12,000ft for a few
days.
As we flew along at about 1,000ft above the ground we saw the
emergency strips. There was not much sign of civilized comfort
and I am sure we were glad we didn't have to stay the night at any
of them; but, no doubt, in an emergency we would have overlooked the bleakness.
On the east side of the mountains we encountered heavy cloud
and then violent thunderstorms; no worse than the kind of thing
you get near Manchester or Birmingham on a summer's afternoon,
but somehow the altimeter made the whole thing a bit eerie. The
A.D.F. had been tuned to the La Paz beacon but it was showing
a preference for the most influential storm. There was some
spectacular forked lightning all around and (as we discovered
later) the static was sufficient to pepper the wing-tips with small
holes.
We were able to follow a railway line for a time and eventually
the radio compass decided in favour of La Paz beacon. We
emerged over an enormous plateau, the Altiplano, with El Alto
airfield in the distance. Our route guide had warned us to look out
for llamas and Indians straying on the runway; but, seeing neither,
we did two landings just to try out the performance of the aircraft.
It was very little different, the increase in ground speed seeming
insignificant and no special allowances being necessary. For takeoff we could get only minus half a pound of boost instead of plus
eight, but the run was only about three times that at sea level.
The climb-away was another matter; we were, however, far better
off than the others, as we saw during the next few days. The main
runway is 3,700ft long, gravel-surfaced and with a two-degree
gradient sloping down to the west. There is a fairly constant
Llamas are sometimes a landing hazard at La Paz
. i '.