We are sitting on the runway and Dino Bisleti, chief executive of Air Kenya and our pilot, has finished his pre-flight checks and is relaxing for a minute. It's a small plane. I'm in the seat right behind him. I do something unthinkable in the sterile, faceless world of modern air travel. I begin a conversation. How did he start his flying career? He points along the line of aircraft hangars that line the apron at Nairobi's Wilson airport.
"See that blue and white sign? Boscovic Air Charters. Boscovic was a Polish Spitfire pilot who came out to east Africa after the second world war. I joined him back in the 1970s. He used to fly by instinct – no flight plan, nothing. He'd just set off. We were taught real bush flying by him."
If there is anywhere in the world that welcomes the glamorous spirit of aviation, it is Kenya. Think Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen (OK, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in Out of Africa) in a biplane waggling their wings over remote airstrips where the grass is kept down by herds of wildebeest and zebra.
The wildlife bit is still true for many landing sites, where the departure lounge is nothing more than the shade of a handy acacia tree. And Wilson airport is the great-grandaddy of such places, the original. True, it has long since grown past the acacia tree stage, but it is still a million miles from the anodyne boredom of most international airports: it is leafy, charming and rather eccentric. read more: www.guardian.co.uk/travel
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