The only aircraft we fly
Cessna Grand Caravan
Four aircraft. One type. Every pilot current on all of them.
- Caravans
- 4
- passengers
- 12
- pilots
- 2
- planning speed
- 150 kt
- endurance
- 6.9 h
Cessna 208B
Cessna built the Caravan for short, rough strips and payloads that don't fit a smaller aircraft.
It has one Pratt & Whitney PT6A turbine, a high wing, fixed landing gear and big tyres made for grass, dirt and gravel. There's no pressurisation to maintain and not much to go wrong. The Grand Caravan is the stretched version, with room for 12 passengers behind two pilots.
Short, rough strips.
Textron's figure is 547 m to land over a 15 m obstacle, at sea level and full weight. The runway can be grass, murram or gravel. Most of ours are.
Room for the luggage.
A cargo pod under the fuselage takes the bags, so all 12 seats stay free for people.
A glass flight deck.
Garmin G1000 with weather radar, autopilot, synthetic vision and a built-in airfield and terrain database, which counts for a lot on a strip with no tower and no lights.
Tracked.
Every Caravan carries live satellite tracking. Clients and agents can see where their flight is.
One type
We fly nothing else. We did once: a Super Cub, a Cessna 182 and two 206s, all pistons, all gone.
Our first Caravan came new from the factory in 2010, and the fourth arrived in 2023. One type means one set of procedures, one training programme, one stock of spares, and no pilot flying an aircraft they aren't current on.
Two versions. Same cabin, same door, same type rating.
Grand Caravan (208B)
2 in our fleet
On board. Every seat is a window seat.
- Cabin
- 6.50 × 1.63 × 1.37 m
- Seats
- 12 passengers, 2 pilots
- 01
The cabin.
12 leather seats, each by a window, in a cabin 1.63 m wide and 1.37 m high. There's no aisle to fight for and no middle seat.
- 02
The door and the pod.
A wide two-piece door on the left makes boarding easy, and big bags go straight in. Under the fuselage, the cargo pod takes the bags: 3.16 m³ in four compartments, so the cabin stays for people.
- 03
The flight deck.
Two pilots, a Garmin G1000, and a view that most of our passengers ask to photograph. Every pilot has at least 1,500 hours on this aircraft.
Specifications. Every figure is Textron's unless it says Yellow Wings.
- Type
- Cessna 208B Grand Caravan and Grand Caravan EX
- In our fleet
- 4 (2 × 208B, 2 × 208B EX)Yellow Wings
- Crew
- 2 pilots on every Yellow Wings flight (certified for 1)Yellow Wings
- Passengers
- 12Yellow Wings
- Landing gear
- Fixed tricycle, large tyres for grass, dirt and gravel
- Pressurised
- No
From Wilson: about 900 nautical miles.
That's Textron's range for the Grand Caravan on full fuel with a 45-minute reserve. It's 486 nm to Juba, 630 nm to Addis Ababa and 770 nm to Lilongwe, each in one flight on a light load. The cargo pod and a full cabin shorten it, so we plan each long trip with a fuel stop where the load needs one.
- Juba486 nm
- Addis Ababa630 nm
- Lilongwe770 nm
Inner ring: every strip on the Kenya page and most of northern Tanzania.
- 5Y-YWB
- 5Y-YWC
- 5Y-YWA
- 5Y-ELO
