Captain Hany: El-Gouna’s cure for acrophobia

By Valentina C. 

I was lucky to be in El Gouna for these winter holidays, while back home temperatures were dropping below zero and the streets were slowly being covered by mountains of snow. 

But just when I thought my luck can not get any better, the Marina 'Arts and Fleas by the Sea' New Year Day market tombola proved me wrong. That's because I was the winner of a Gift Certificate for a 25 minutes ride with an ultra light aircraft, from Sharm Air, El Gouna. 

So New Year 2017 started well for me, with a chance of conquering my fear of heights and meeting captain Hany.

Who is Captain Hany? He is an Egyptian, a certified pilot, who has been flying light and ultra light aircraft for the past 20 years. A gregarious man who retired from a corporate career with multinationals such as Bristol Myers and Kimberly Clark to pursue his hobby of flying. 

As I was informed later on, the ideal wind speed for flying an ultra light plane should not exceed 12 knots on the ground. El-Gouna is a windy place though, so an appointment for a flight will definitely be canceled if the weather conditions are poor. The longest flight over Gouna offered by Sharm Air lasts approximately 25 minutes and the shortest only 10 minutes.

At my appointed meeting time beside the Sharm Air hangar on the beach, not far from Hotel La Maison Bleue, the encounter began with a thorough explanation of the flying routine and the safety procedures and nearly ended with his funny joke: “Yalla, we’ll now go swimming and fishing”. I say nearly, because I laughed instead of running away. 

Captain Hany reassured me that nothing bad can happen: the small aircraft had a strong Ratax engine and could land on water, if there would be an incident….not an accident captain Hany emphasized. And if we were to land, we would land on the shallow lagoons that surround the resort. Well, that sounded great to my shivering ears, cause I forgot to mention that I am also afraid of deep waters.

I signed a consent paper that I fatalistically didn't read. I listened as Capt Hany phoned in necessary notices to authorities then I watched him perform a walk around visual check of the craft. I put on my goggles, a windproof jacket, made sure my seat belt was on and grinned instead of smiling. After that, I showed captain Hany a thumbs up sign that I was ready to go, even though I wasn’t. I was still thinking what have I done.  I felt the wheels rolling on the sand faster and faster and in no time we were up in the air.

My habitual acrophobia symptoms seemed to vanish as I found myself thinking: “I am a bird, I can fly, I am free”. The wind was mild, but unpredictable. Every now and then, I felt that Captain Hany needed a lot of strength to handle the navigator bar, that was attached to the  canvas wings, and steer the aircraft. The flight was truly exhilarating as we flew over beautiful El Gouna, sometimes rising over the sea and other times skimming the coast. I was seated sandwiched between Capt. Hany and the rotor. My tense legs squeezing what I thought was the pilot seat like a horse rider squeezes his mount. I blushingly realized ten minutes into the flight that it was Captain Hany's shoulders and not the seat!

In practically no time, I was above the beach we had taken off from. That meant landing. Did I mention I am also scared of landings? Especially on a light plane.

I was nervous, I was gasping for air, I was tense and as the wheels touched the sand again,  We landed on a different strip of beach adjacent to the shorter strip we had taken off from.  I could not make up my mind what was the feeling i was having. All I can tell you now, looking back, is that it was no longer fear.

The first week of Jan 2017 had passed and I had conquered my fear of heights. I feel fearless. Maybe I should have made it my New Years resolution but I didn't know I was going to win the free ride gift certificate.

After the short flight, and walking on Terra Firma, Captain Hany gave me some information about his company. 

Sharm Air started operations in 2001, in Sharm El-Sheikh.  Currently is operating only out of El Gouna, being the only place in Egypt where one can enjoy a flight on an ultra light aircraft.There are 3 different types of available aircraft at Sharm Air: the one I flew in, that you can see in the pictures, another one that looks like a small boat that takes off and lands on water, and finally another aircraft that is suitable for cross country flying where the pilot and co-pilot can sit side by side, The latter one is designed for flights as far as Aswan or Cairo and is expected to get all official approvals for flights in approximately 2 months time.