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Hong Kong-raised helicopter pilot Ben Simpson has flown creatures great and small, from baby gorillas to George W. Bush

Simpson, who is giving a talk, Helicoptering Africa, hosted by the Royal Geographical Society in Hong Kong, describes the former US president as ‘sharp and funny’ and how he was serenaded by Paul Simon around the campfire

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Ben Simpson. Picture: Tessa Chan
Tessa Chanin Bristol

TAKING FLIGHT I was born in Colchester, England, and we moved to Hong Kong in 1976, when I was a year old. [Simp­son’s father] secured a job with the Trade Development Council and my mother took a job at the German Swiss School, where she worked for 30 years. I was at the Peak School, and then Island School – where I did five years. I had a friend who was a para­glider pilot and one day I watched him and his dad fly up at High Island Reservoir. The second I saw that thing leave the ground, I thought, “No matter what happens in life, I’m going to do that.” Shortly afterwards, I turned 18 and my godfather, John, who was a Cathay Pacific pilot, offered to loan me the money to learn to fly. Of course I jumped at it, and started to learn out of Kai Tak, and then Shek Kong Airfield. I took to flying like a duck to water. I had a good instructor, a real no-nonsense guy. He didn’t give me any ground instruction at all, he just said, “Here’s the books, sort it out.” I landed the plane on my first lesson.

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KENYA AND BUST I did cross-country flying in South Africa, sat my exams in England and got my full licence by the time I was 19. I went to Florida, America, in 1995, to get a commer­cial licence. While I was there I met a guy who’d been to Kenya and he told me how it hits the soul. “Kenya’s the place,” he said. Now I was on a mission, I wanted to be a bush pilot. At the age of 21, I landed in Nairobi with US$400. I knew nobody. I spent the first few nights in downtown Nairobi, in a proper sh*t hostel, thinking, “What am I doing here?” After a few weeks I had no cash. I called John and my mum and said I wanted to go home. They both said, “You’re staying there. You need to. It’s not going to be easy. Stick it out.”

A flying Ben Simpson, aged four.
A flying Ben Simpson, aged four.

A BEAUTIFUL BEAVER My first flights in Kenya were on the paraglider. That’s when I began to really see the country; I hadn’t been outside of Nairobi, and suddenly I was on the edge of the Rift Valley and there were wildebeests and zebra and guys with spears. I found a campsite in Nairobi for US$2 a night, and pitched my tent there for five months. I started exploring the country, looking for places to paraglide. One day, I was on a matatu – a minibus – on my way up to Mount Kenya, and as we passed Nanyuki, the airfield where I now work, I saw the most beautiful plane I’d ever seen, the de Havilland Beaver. By the time I got the driver to stop, he’d gone about 2km past it. I walked back down the road carrying this enormous bloody rucksack and went into that airfield. I was looking around the plane when the owner, Jamie Roberts, came out of the little shack. He said, “Can I help you?” I explained that I was from Hong Kong, that I was a pilot and that I was looking for a job. He looked me up and down. “Well, good for you, man,” he said. “Good luck with that.”

 

 

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