Flying high for life

Some people never find their passion in life, but Ballito’s Daryl Kimber knew his passion was to be up in the sky from a very young age.

It all started with his 11th birthday money, which he used to pay for a flip in a plane.

“It was fantastic and ever since then I had these visions of me flying,” said Kimber, while looking at his log book, which has recorded 29,800 flying hours.

“I spent as much time as possible with airplanes, selling flip tickets and washing planes,” he said.

Six years later, on January 10, 1966 Kimber had his first solo flight in a Cessna and two months later, obtained his private pilot’s licence, followed by his commercial licence in 1968.

“My first job was flying for the Drakensberg Gardens Hotel, which was great fun. In 1971, I started at South Africa Airlines (SAA),” he said, where he stayed for 40 years.

With a startling first salary of R4500 per year, Kimber worked his way up from a co-pilot on domestic flights to captain on international flights.

“It was a tremendously interesting time, especially the international flights as we had longer stopovers back then due to the fewer flights. which meant there was time for a quick ski and some sightseeing.”

Kimber flew everywhere barring Moscow, from his least favourite Karachi in Pakistan to the interesting Hong Kong.

“Rio de Janeiro is just beautiful to fly over and London was always a highlight, because you can never get bored of London,” he said.

His favourite airplane was the Boeing 747-400, which he described as the “queen of the skies”.

Kimber retired from SAA in 2012, but life on the ground was just too boring and so he started flying for Mango airline in 2013.

“I flew with incredibly nice people and flying for them for about a year and a half was quite a privilege. I loved my flying Fanta can, a Boeing 737-800, which was like a little sports car.”

The passionate pilot still flies business jets and turbine airplanes as a sideline and he is a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

“We build, restore and fly vintage airplanes, go on outings and just enjoy flying,” he said.

Being a nature lover and having a diploma in nature conservation, Kimber is also part of The Bateleurs – Flying for the Environment.

The Bateleurs is a South African non-profit company, with over 200 volunteer pilots and aircraft and provides its beneficiaries and the public with an aerial perspective of the environment.

“We recently did a wattled crane count in KZN, which was quite interesting. The experts who flew with me could spot the cranes from miles away. In some cases we had to fly very low, so that they could count the eggs in the nests,” he said.

Furthermore they do rhino patrols in northern KZN and ferry wildlife around.

When Kimber is on the ground, he enjoys playing golf, tennis, painting and sharing plane talk with his son Warren, who is a captain with Emirates.

Kimber’s boyhood visions of him flying have turned into a lifetime of memories, which he keeps with him on the ground and in the sky.