ABOUT AFRICAN AERIAL SAFARIS

To achieve this, we focus on quality over quantity, offering tailor-made itineraries and personal service to each client. The owners, Willem & Riaan, are directly involved in planning each safari, making us a genuinely boutique company. They have traveled extensively through and over Southern Africa with a shared passion for nature and wildlife, photography and flying. They’ve seen it, experienced it, explored it – and they treasure it.

We see first-hand the meaningful impact Africa’s remarkable wildernesses have on people from around the world and understand the importance of protecting this for future generations. Our focus is on responsible traveling that conserves the natural areas we visit and sustains the well-being of the local communities.

As a little boy, whenever I heard an aeroplane passing overhead, I would point at the sky. The dream of becoming a pilot informed every step I took. My childhood hobby was building model aeroplanes, and the ceiling of my bedroom became the sky.

I was nineteen years of age when the dream became a reality. I finally stepped into my office in the sky at 43 Air School in Port Alfred (South Africa) and, in time, became a flight instructor.

My sky-office became significantly bigger when I joined South African Airways (SAA) at the age of twenty-three, and I’ve been living my dream for twenty-five years. I crewed international flights for seven years and regional flights – including Africa – for eighteen years. I furthermore pursued my passion for flight training by joining the training section of SAA in 1997. It was an honor to serve as the Head of Training of the SAA domestic and regional fleet for the last three years with SAA.

My journey at SAA came to an end in 2021, and I took up the permanent position of Director at African Aerial Safaris. Being a pilot goes hand-in-hand with my passion for traveling. For me, it culminated in organizing and leading several tour groups on vacation to Europe, and 4×4 trips in Southern Africa. These instilled a deep-rooted love for the wilderness, Africa and its people, as well as wildlife and landscape photography. African Aerial Safaris was a natural progression for me. It combines my passions – flying, people, photography, Africa and travel – into one magnificent journey. To share this life-altering journey with everyone who chooses to step onboard is a joy and a privilege.

Once the wings go on, they never come off – whether they can be seen or not. It fuses to the soul.

This is certainly true in my case, and at the age of 19, I qualified as a bush pilot in Botswana. Spending many nights in some of the most remote locations in Southern Africa exposed me to the incredible beauty of Africa and left a lasting impression on me.

Brian Jackman explains it well: “Africa changes you forever, like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there, you will never be the same. But how do you begin to describe its magic to someone who has never felt it? How can you explain the fascination of this vast, dusty continent, whose oldest roads are elephant paths? Could it be because Africa is the place of all our beginnings, the cradle of mankind, where our species first stood upright on the savannahs of long ago?”

Since then, I have traveled extensively through and over Africa on safaris and camping trips. I have also been a commercial pilot for the last 22 years and currently fly the Boeing 747-8 internationally.

African Aerial Safaris is the culmination of years spent traveling through and over Africa. The incredible experiences I’ve had on safaris and camping trips, combined with the spectacular sights I’ve seen as a pilot, made me realize that there is no better way to experience this majestic continent and her breathtaking scenery than by private airplane on your own flying adventure.